"Some say we should never have fought without superior or at least ample air support, and ask when this lesson will be learned. Questions to be settled are not always between what is good and had. Very often it is a choice between two very terrible alternatives. If you cannot have this essential and desirable air support, must you yield important key points one after another? Others have told me:—You should defend no place that you cannot be sure you can hold. Then one must ask; Can one ever be sure how a battle will develop before it is fought?
"If the principle of not defending any place you cannot be sure of holding were adopted, would not the enemy be able to make an unlimited number of valuable conquests without any fighting at all: Where would you make a stand and engage them with resolution? A further question arises; What would happen if you allowed the enemy to advance and overrun, without costs to himself, the most precious and valuable strategic points? Suppose we had never gone to Greece or attempted to defend Crete! Where would the Germans be now? Suppose we had simply resigned the territory and strategic islands without fight. Might they not at this early stage of the campaign in 1941 already be the masters of Syria and Iraq and preparing themselves for an advance into Persia? The Germans in this. war have gained many victories. They have easily overrun great countries and beaten down strong powers with little resistance,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.