"By. O.M. Gree One year -ago,..without" warning' arid in defiance of the most solemn pledges to respect Holland's: neutrality, Hitler let loose his foul war on the inoffensive. Netherlands. Par-acute troops descended, German soldiers concealed in innocent-looking barges emerged in Netherlands uniforms to spread slaughter and confusion: throughout the land. Ger mans in Netherlands uniforms ordered the jquard (0 fall. back from the great Moerdijk bridge, the key entry to the inundated parts of Holland and German dive-bombers reduced a square mile-in the centre of Rotter-am, an open, entirely' undefended city, to utter ruins..A picture has been published of what that square mile Took like. Tt is simply nothingness, the.canals wandering through empty,'derelict. wastes. with the remains. {the ruined cathedral in the midst. After the war attempts, were made by some pro-Germans to prove that the Huns had -not committed: the. atrocities laid to their charge. To any such special pleaders in future there is one answer which covers everything, "Look at Holland, A race that can commit such a crime as that,-can do. anything."
But the Netherlanders are anything but finished: "Their war effort today is far from Inconsiderable. Almost the whole Netherlands Navy escaped intact and is doing vigorous work on the: Atlantic and round our coasts, Netherlands airmen have brought down not a few German machines. The Netherlands Government out. of its own re~ sources pays all the 'expenses of its armed forces, which Include 'a Netherlands legion. Over seventy fighters and thirty bombers have been bought by: Netherlands subscribers here and' abroad for the RAP. And: over 1,000,000, tons of Netherlands merchant shipping have been added to the common stock, Also.in Holland itself, the Nether~ ders maintain a never-ceasing struggle. sometimes by passive, sometimes by active resistance, which all the German' terrorism seems powerless to put down, At a time when we are naturally rather worried about the Middle Eaff, it is surely worth looking back on the successes won by: forces apparently overwhelmingly outnumbered. "At Dunkirk, our Air -Force, which so largely contributed to the army's escape; was. utterly outnumbered. In the Battle of Britain our Aghters went tp against odds of anything from ten to, twenty to one and beat the Luftwaffe out of the sky. In Libya General Wavell's army was barely one seventh of the prisoners it took. In Greece the German divisions actually identified were twice the number of the British and there were probably more, without counting the large Austrian forces employed. True we had to retreat but we know that the German killed and wounded (Hitler's fantastic statement on this subject proves only that he dares not tell Germany the truth) were at least, ten times what we suffered and at the end to have successfully drawn off 80 for cent. of our Army wax surely a wonderful feat, which reflects undying glory on the tiny rearguard lett to cover their retreat.
'These facts do not make us think any more kindly of the' successive Governments which starved our defences for years before the war, specially while the Germans were devoting their whole strength to rebuilding their war machine. But at least they must make us feel more confident than ever as we look to the future, The improvement in the shooting down of night bombers is most acceptable. That the Germans begin to find that bombing civilians from great altitudes is not the pleasant pastime they once enjoyed, is evident from Yecent talks on the radio, One of them this week gave a graphic account of his encounter with one of those new and extremely fast English night Aghters "He gives uy a frst burst, disappears before our gunners can reply: He is an excellent pilot. Then he comes at us again, Another burst. His bullets tear holes in our fuselage. Then a third attack, Everything seems blown {0 pieces inside our cabin, "We turn towards the sea, The Englishman: turns too, 1¢ Is impossible to shake him off. We go down until we are just above the water. We want to force him to attack.us from above, Even this move does not make him change his mind, He is still after us. He is on our tail."
This machine got home with only one motor working, its landing gear smashed, and 107 holes in its fuselage. Tt was lucky, Bright moonlight nights of course help: the defence greatly. But we may believe that our whole method of night Aghting improves, Tt is a pity that six months ago some rather over-optimistic statements were made about "other devices' besides aeroplanes anda. A. guns, which are now mentioned in the official reports of bombers downed. With any new device a long Period of trial and errors is inevitable and even if it proves a success there is the further time required for its manufacture. But
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.