The big feature of the past week was the air attack upon Crete which is still continuing. It came as no surprise to the British command on the island, and when it commenced the Greeks and Imperial forces were able to take matters well in hand. The enemy secured some success at first, but the latest reports indicate that with the exception of the aerodrome at Maleme the situation has been brought under control and that most of the enemy's initial successes have now been nullified. There has been no lull in the fighting and the Germans are apparently bent on throwing as many men into the island as they may deem necessary to capture it. They appear to be following their usual policy of recklessly sacrificing men, and it appears that if they do succeed in establishing themselves on the island, which at the present moment appears to be by no means certain, they will have done so at an enormous cost. This is all the more interesting because the capture of Crete would not of itself be decisive in the Mediterranean, though the task of the British Navy in the eastern part of that sea would be made all the more difficult and risky.
It may be anticipated that the Germans will continue to land men in Crete at least for some time to come, for any admission of defeat at this juncture would be a sad blow to them, disproving the legend of German invincibility on the one hand, and damaging enemy moral on the other, It is to be noted that the Italians claim to have sunk many British war vessels none of which has up to the present been admitted by the British Admiralty. In this connection it may be remarked that the Italians have claimed to have sunk so many British naval vessels in the Mediterranean that the wonder is that they have the hardihood to claim any more, for 1f their stories were true the British fleet in the Mediterranean would have been sunk several times over. And that, it must be remembered, has already been achieved by the Germans, according to Dr. Góebbels' fantastic claims.
The most tragic announcement of the week was that of the loss of H.M.S, Hood off Greenland. Britain's largest battle cruiser received an unlucky hit on the magazine, which exploded, sinking the vessel and carrying most of the crew to death as she went down. The loss is undoubtedly an imposing one though it should be borne in mind that there still remain afloat ten battleships carrying the same main armament as the Hood, namely eight 15in. guns. The strength of the British Navy in capital vessels is not greatly affected by the sinking of the Hood, for it has been reinforced since the war started by the commissioning of the King George V class so that the navy is much stronger now than it was at the commencement of hostilities, The real tragedy of the loss is in the deaths of so many trained men in the crew. In this connection it is to be noted that the Admiraly announced the loss with a minimum of delay, and, when this fact is taken into consideration, the claims by the enemy of other damage alleged to have been inflicted upon the British fleet fall into their correct perspective. For one vessel destroyed in action the enemy sinks dozens on paper.
In Libya the British and Allied troops have been holding their own satisfactory ily, and substantial damage has been inflicted upon the enemy whose attempts to capture Halfaya Pass have been frustrated with considerable loss. In Abyssinia the process of mopping-up proceeds with only two comparatively important bodies of Ital-inn troops still outside the internment camps. It is expected that it will not be long before they are duly accommodated. Though the Germans have succeeded in occupying the oilfields at Mosul, the situation in Iraq appears to be developing in favour of the British, end with the return of the regent there are distinct possibilities of the establishment of a Government friendly to Great Britain in which event the German success at Mosul may prove to be only a temporary one. eram o tra eti
U.S. OPINION
While the world is waiting anxiously to hear what President Roosevelt will have to say in his fireside chat on Tuesday there is a growing demand in the United States for a revision of the Neutrality Act. Well-informed circles are of the opinion that he will concentrate on the necessity for a change in the Monroe Doctrine to include the entire Atlantic and a return to the policy of the freedom of the seas, That would in fact require a revision of the Neutrality Act which at present prohibits American vessels from entering the combat zone. But until President Roosevelt delivers his talk, the main item of interest is the growing change in American opinion President Roosevelt in everything which he has done up to the present has followed rather than sought to anticipate it, and all that he has done up to the present has been to accede to the very patent wishes of the American public.
Bad as has been British propaganda during this war, in contra-distinction to its excellency in the last, it is well worth noting that the German has been infinitely worse. Despite every effort to swing the American masses towards sympathy with the Axis cause, enemy propaganda has had precisely the opposite effect. The huge sums of money which have been spent have literally been thrown down the drain, chiefly because not all the fair words in the world could have any effect in wiping out the deep impression which has been made upon the American public by the true stories of the brutality of Hitler and his accomplices and the wholly unnecessary suffering which has been inflicted upon millions of temporary ily subjugated people in the overrun countries of Europe. If ever there were justification for the old proverb that murder will out, surely it is to be found in the complete failure of the German publicity machine to swing public opinion in the United States in favour of the aggressor nations. The damning truth has foiled every enemy effort and Hitler by his own behaviour and that of his satellites has discounted beforehand anything that Goebbels sought to achieve.
Isolationists like the very loquacious Lind-borgh are still doing their utmost to prevent the United States entering the war, but they have failed to advance their cause to any great extent owing entirely to the fact that Americans are now fully aware of the peril in which they stand in the event—a most unlikely event, it has to be admitted,—of a German victory in Europe. Hitler has made no secret of his ambition for world-wide domination, and the activities of German agents in Latin America have clearly proved to the people of the United States that he has been indulging in no mere verbiage. The New York "Times" boldly states that if the President announces on Tuesday an intention to return to the doctrine of the freedom of the seas in order to help Great Britain he will receive the prompt support of the country and Congress. No more direct invitation to the President to take such action could possibly be devised, for it is very influential intimation of the fact that the Americans are prepared to go a very long way indeed to see that the ideals of democracy shall not be lost to the earth.
Tt is not likely that the German press have done much good to their country's cause by trying to prove that President Roosevelt is of Jewish origin. Fortunately, whether that is a fact or not is not in any way so serious in the United States as the Germans themselves appear to believe. It is only in the twisted mentality of the Nazis, who all along had to find some scapegoat on which to vent their wrath, that the fact of being of Jewish descent is a matter of reproach, and this clumsy attempt to discredit the President will most surely fail of its purpose just as much as other German propaganda attempts. The fact of the matter is that the Jews had their civilization long before the Germans started their march towards the same end which by their behaviour they still seem to be a Jong way from attaining.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.