_By.O. M. Grex The "announcement of the caplute of Keren on the wireless was perhaps the hi gest thrill of the war because it was so ul-{erly unexpected. "Even the usually impos sive announcer of the B.BC, could not keep the excitement out of his voice. To show what a surprise It was, that morning the news about Keren in the "Dally "Telegraph" occupied just 1% in, under a small heading at the foot of a eoluran, and though it reported the capture of a brigade headguatters there was no indication that the end was so neat. The Keren country was described by Indian ofMeers as. far worse than anything onthe North: West Frontier, and the Halians fought like demons. But greater demons and superb generalship won the day. Tt was known that General 'Wavell detached two divisions, one of British troops, one of Indian, and' sent them to the Sudan to help recover Kassala. But daring. pays.
'The result is that some regiments will have insetlbed on their colours two great victories Won within. four' months, 1,500 miles past. Such 'a record must be' without precedent.
clear that General Wavell ant General Cunningham must be supported by a magnlficent collection of oMers. Great command ers as they are they could not have achieved thole successes without perfect staff work jane the ably to see what had to be done at every moment by their subordinates, During the fight for Keren a detachment of our men had to fall back temporarily from fne position, 'They retook it 48 hours later and there they found two Indian soldiers in charge of "a machine-gun, 'The Indians merely said that no order' to retire had reached them, so they stayed on They pointed to a pile of empty cartridge cases saying that they had found plenty of occupa tion while alone, The National Day of Prayer as ordered by the King saw the churches crowded. In some cases where a church with a very individual congregation had been bombed—such as. the much lamented All Hallows Barking by the Tower, the church of "Tubby" Clayton, headquarters of Toc H—the service was held in rooms hired for the occasion. The broad-easts of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Hinsley were inspiring messages of confidence and encouragement. The Chief Rabbi, Dr. Hertz, also delivered a fine sermon in the same spirit. Indeed as one looks back on the past year it is hard to see how any other spirit is possible. One thinks of the Battle of Britain last autumn when all the German Air Force was hurled at us and was beaten back with the certain loss of 2,875 planes, besides many so damaged that they can never have got home, while the RAF. ended with more planes than they had! begun with, That wonderful annual "Jane's Fighting: Ships" for 1941 contains a good deal more information than might have been expected in wartime Thus it is learned that twelve new cruisers were completed for the Navy Jast year, five of the 8,000 tons Fiji class and seven of the Dido (5,450) class. Seeing how short of cruisers Britain was at the opening. of the war, owing to that iniquitous naval imitation Treaty of London in 1930, when the late Mr. Ramsay MacDonald insisted on cutting down to 50 cruisers although the Admiralty had put 70 as the very minimum, these twelve are doubly welcome says that a group of 20 new destroyers has been added to the Navy, having been built in the record time of eighteen months, Two of them, Exmoor and Holderness have already been mentioned for shooting down' enemy aircraft, 'A writer inthe "News Chronicle" points: out that the average weekly sinkings of ships in the three weeks since the intensified spring U-boat campaign began is at the rate of 5,600,000 tons a year and that this is just about the same as the number of new ships that Britain and America were building in the last year of the last war.
The problem of beating the U-boats is complicated now by the addition of aircraft, but no one doubts for a moment that it will be solved. The fantastic nature of the recent German claims of ships probably has a twofold aim—to prove to the German public the Success of the much announced spring cameign, all the more necessary after the failure of the equally trumpeted air blitz last autumn; and for use in the "war of nerves. Some time ago a U-boat was captured and its log showed that its commander had claimed a ship sunk with every torpedo he fired. In the school of mendacliy Hitler has some promising pupils.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.