Latest News Reports from 23rd August 1940

New York Backs R.A.F.

ON August 9 and 12, the days following the great aerial battles in the Channel, all the New York papers gave pride of place to reports from London, acclaiming on their front pages Britain's mastery in the air, rushing out new editions as more details became available, and making use of every word of the rather scrappy information which was all that their London correspondents could send them at the time. The German versions of the same engagements, with their fantastic lists of successes, were, significantly enough, relegated to inside pages,

His Life to Save Others

Had he baled out when his stricken machine caught fire during the great air battle of August 8, Flying-Officer D. N. Grice might have saved his own life. But in that case the burning plane would have crashed over houses in the centre of the town. Instead, this heroic pilot stuck to his controls, skimmed over the roof-tops, losing height all the time, turned the machine with expert skill to avoid a building on the cliff edge, and finally crashed in the sea 50 yards from the water's edge. When, a few minutes later, motor launches reached the spot, they found only burnt-out wreckage.

Flying Officer D N Grice


In the President's Bad Books

After being publicly reprimanded by Mr Sumner Welles, V.S Acting Secretary of State, for an indiscreet interview given in London to the Press Association on August 6th Mr John W Cudahy, American Ambassador to Belgium was summoned home by President Roosevelt and left England on August 10.
Mr Cudahy had defended King Leopold’s decision to surrender, saying that it would be applauded when the truth was known. He stated that the Belgians supply of wheat would last until the middle of September or early October, and that Britain should lift the blockade to prevent famine. But what caused particular resentment in the States was a comparison he made between German and American soldiers which was unfavourable to the latter. Mr. Welles declared that Mr. Cudahy had given the interview in violation of standing instructions of the State Department" and that his views "must not be construed as representing the views of the Government"

The Pilots We Cannot Replace

So said Mr. Garfield Weston, M.P. for Macclesfield, on August 9, as he handed to the Minister for Aircraft Production a cheque for £100,000 to cover the cost of replacing sixteen Hurricanes and Spitfires lost in the previous day's great air battle over the Channel. The pilots, indeed, cannot be replaced, but their successors can avenge them if the planes are forthcoming, and this point is being increasingly appreciated by the British people. Mr. Weston's splendid gift is one of many devoted to the same end. On July 28th Lord Beaverbrook announced that he had received over £2,000,000 from the public for the purchase of aircraft, and every day gifts both large and small pour in to him. The city of Worcester recently subscribed £10,000 for two fighter aircraft. Richmond, Surrey, has opened a Spitfire fund; Hendon. Middlesex intends to raise £20.000 to buy four Hurricanes; Portsmouth has collected £11,000 for two fighters. The aim of the Newsagents Spitfire Fund is to clear the cost of at least one squadron. The Gaumont-British Picture Corporation has launched a scheme to provide a flight of three Spitfires. From the Empire and the Colonies come great money gifts earmarked for the purchase of aircraft with which to protect the Mother Country and, through her, their own existence.


G-Men Hunt the Saboteurs

THE Norwegian cargo steamer Lista left New York en route for Liverpool on August 7th. During the night an explosion, followed by a fire, occurred in her hold and a tug, urgently summoned, beached her in flames near the entrance to the Ambrose Channel in New York harbour. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, popularly known as the G-men, started investigations into the cause of the fire, which, it is suspected, was the result of an incendiary bomb planted by Nazi agents.
This treacherous attack on a small merchant vessel gives point to the disclosure, made two days earlier to President Roosevelt by Mr. Edgar Hoover, chief of the G-men, on acts of sabotage against the, U.S. defence by Mr. Edgar Hoover, chief of the G-men, on acts of sabotage against the U.S. defence programme. These included the putting of emery dust in aeroplane engines and scrap metal in naval vessel engines. It was reported that the bureau had handled 16,885 cases of sabotage since the European war broke out, and a strong warning was given to every American city to examine its utility under-takings and to ensure their protection against subversive agents whose plans, it had been discovered, included many terrible means of creating destruction.


Haw Haw's Understudy

An American journalist, Mr. Warren Irvin, recently returned from Berlin, has made some interesting revelations about Berlin's English radio announcers. It seems that in the waiting-room of the broadcasting station were caricatures of various speakers, including one of the British Fascist, William Joyce, better known here as Lord Haw Haw. After the latter's identity had been exposed another announcer, whose mother is English and father German, was told "You had better be Lord Haw Haw tonight." At least two other Britons are employed at the Nazi station, but their names were carefully concealed, and in front of neutrals they always struggled along in faulty German.

Australian Flying Calamity

Tragedy smote Australia on August 13, when an aeroplane which was carrying three members of the Commonwealth Cabinet and the Chief of the Army General Staff crashed on the point of landing at Canberra. The ten occupants of the aircraft, all of whom were killed, were Brigadier G. A. Street, Minister of the Army; Mr. J. V. Fairbairn, Air Minister; Sir Henry Gullett, Vice-President of the Executive Council; General Sir Cyril Brudenell White, Chief of the Australian General Staff; Lieut.-Colonel Francis Thornthwaite, a Staff officer; Mr. R. E. Elford, secretary to Mr. Fairbairn; and an R.A.A.F. crew of four.
The plane was a Lockheed-Hudson bomber, used because the party, which had flown from Melbourne for a Cabinet meeting, was larger than could be contained in the machine ordinarily used. This disaster is a grievous blow to Mr. Menzies Government.