(સમયમાં
THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 2, 1940
Page
CHINA MAIL Portrait Of A British
WINDSOR HOUSE.
HITLER'S CHOICE
His name is Melbourne Johns and he comes from Pembroke- shire; a short, burly," square-
shouldered man, with an immense head and jutting jaw, uncannily like a bulldog.
He is foreman in an armament, factory "somewhere in the Mid-
Foreman
lands," a factory which until re-sent out to do, though he doesn't found an Air-marshal, who was cently was subsidiary to a larger sce it that way.
one in South-west France.
barrassment.
If the Germans do not come to us, we shall go to them, declared Lord Croft in a speech to Australian troops in England on
"I only did what anyone else Thursday. Only with the
When the French firm got de-would have done, and I had a lot fullest confidence in sec-livery from America of certain of luck," he'll tell you in real em- urity at home could that important machine tools, and had difficulty in assembling them, it challenge be offered. We was natural that "Mel" Johns have not reduced in a few should be sent across the Channel months the long leeway of the years which should have compelled us more strenuously to prepare. done," they said, as they packed But the goal is in sight. him into the R.A.F. aeroplane that Given the whole Empire's France. He reached his destination unsparing effort, our ulti-' mate victory is assured, and in the winning of this confidence the Royal Air Force has most gloriously led the way.
But his luck was the result of enterprise, and the story of those salvaged machines is, as an illus- tration of Individual resourceful- to advise, for in the two countries ness and courage, in the nature there are few men with a greater of a saga. knowledge of all types of ma-
"
chinery.
"Come back when the job's
was flying him to the coast of
flying South in a specially char- tered taxl-plane,
didn't much want to-thought their duty was to go on looking for their unit. But I explained how important it was to get those ma- chines back home so, we could make more guns to beat the Jer ries with. And so they agreed to help"
They drove back to the factory, those four exhausted Tommies and the determined foreman, Be- 'Red tape and red: tabs mean tween them they dismantled the nothing to "Mel" Johns. So machines and piled them on the "after a bit of talking, he said I lorry,
"Now drive like hell to Bor- could come too."
deaux-we've got to get there be- fore it's dark, sald Johns.
Big man and little man flew off together, and that's how Johns got
to his factory. Almost on arrival he was handed a telegram from the English firm telling him to re- turn at once in view of the gravity of the news,
"I knew I could get back all right in one of the H.A.F, aero- planes. But it seemed a terrible pity to leave the tools behind," he said reflectively.
"The men at the factory-they:
ries
arm,
It was ninety miles to Bordeaux, but they stopped for nothing on the way. Johns sat in front with his hand on the driver's shaking him when he threatened to fall asleep over the wheel.
"Three miles outside Bordeaux
When the R.A.F. first landed after a further flight and there he him in France he was still some remained for several weeks. Then way from his factory, News from were all French-had decided to we met some French soldiers go- suddenly Hitler burst through the the North was bad,, and motor-pack up. They had a fleet of loring out with guns to stop the
Great armies ramparts.
standing by to take away Germans," he told me. "They Allled
their own rolled back in headlong retreat
machinery, but they were only three hours behind us, upon Paris and beyond. A sea of
said they couldn't spare one for but that was the first time we refugees engulfed the towns and
realised it."
And so his resolve to get the machines away, was strengthened by the need for haste.
Up to the portals of the British Consulate in Bordeaux dashed the Army lorry.
villages, a torrent of humans, horses, cattle, and machines. Into this dark tide, disappeared "Mel" Johns.
The last British troops reached England. The last refugees from Bordeaux were brought off. Then
while the people of his Midland
months,
reading the fearful
--By-
Patricia Ward
me.'
American
Newspapermen
Say-
It was then that this stocky little man went off the handle. Like the bull-dog he resembles, he-tore at that official. He ranted and he roared, he shouted and he bullied.
"It worries me sometimes, to re- member the names. I called that man," he told me. "But it did the trick, all right,"
1.
The official gave way...Johns. was given shipping-space for his lorry, sailing permits for his four soldiers and himself, and a guide to take him to the quayside and a his tireless This is what correspondents off raids will increase in intensity. ship. There he and.
after it is as the American journals, writing from They have a feeling that German Tommies slung the lorry aboard Great Britain. have told their pilots do not like the neighbour- and jumped
hood very well, and from a glance first Nazi aeroplanes appeared over readers:
over the defences that feeling the town. Miss Helen P. Kirkpatrick, of seems reasonable. At any rate, the Chicago "Daily News," from a all manner of naval craft seem to British Naval port, says:
"If what the Germans have done to this highly important naval port is any criterion of German ability to, kneck-out this country, it could safely be said that Britain is, good for at least
dart in and out of the harbour, with an assurance the American Navy might have entering or leaving Newport News to-day."
It took them three days and nights to reach port on the west Coast of England. The ship was full of refugees; mostly and children.
women
So off he went into the high- ways and byways behind the factory to look for help. And Those visions of the
drawn up by the side of the road he found an Army lorry manned coming offensive which
by four exhausted Tommies. Mr. Churchill and Lord
They were lost. They had been
Up the stairs to the Consul's driving south and further south
the Croft have conjured up,
[room rushed Johns hunting for the better part of a week, permit which would give him the with all due caution, are a home water story of the linal transport was worse because the without sleep, without food for right to sling the lorry and its stimulus to redoubled evacuation from Europe an Army, roads were blocked by endless hours at a time, trying unsuccessfreight on to which ship was due
fully to rejoin the unit from which to sail immediately. efforts. If ever there were lorry rambled into the factory streams of population in flight.
yard. In the driver's cab sat "Mer"
Johns couldn't get a lift, "be-they had got separated.
But the Consul was not there. "That lorry was just what I need for every ounce of Johns.
cause I can't speak French and:
There was an attache, stiff with strength and the concen-
Loaded on that lorry were the anyway there wasn't room in any needed for my machines," Johns red tape and responsibility, who So he told me. "So I talked the boys into guaranteed Johns's personal pas- machines which he had gone out of the cars," he told me. tration of resolute pur-to inspect; each the size of
hung around the airfield until he coming along with the me. They sage home but "regretted" about cach worth
the machines. pose, it is now. Nazi dom baby grand piano,
£4,000, all invaluable in the 'ination of Europe is al-manufacturing of arms, and all most complete. But it still irreplaceable under eight to ten falls short of consumma- From under the nose of the tion, and will soon be enemy, in the middle of, all the confusion and chaos of the Ger- tested by two redoubtable man advance through France, this British workman had foes-winter, and the ex-sturdy
snatched his precious tools and tending British air offen- brought them safely home. That sive against the seats of was "the job" he did; a job ten times the size of the one he was the enemy's power. While the German air force has been breaking itself by Jury," wherein the against the
small presiding Judge not only island," the R.A.F. has flirted openly with the hammered relentlessly plaintiff but confessed each night at the enemy's that his law was “fudge," nerve-centres, and from the courts could at least the North Sea to the be made brighter by a
infusion Adriatic the front of its judicious.
of
H.R. KNICKERBOCKER: "I Hitler does not attempt to invade studied forays is being poesy. Pleadings and
Britain soon, he is not going to There were not enough life- have any Air Force left to do it. belts to go round, but there were steadily enlarged. Brit- judgments, for example, another century.
Six more weeks of this kind of a lot of civilians' cars, on board. ain's dauntless night-rid- prepared in metrical "And this spot is one which the German air war will put the So Johns went down to the höld Germans claimed to have left in a Luftwaffe temporarily out of and removed the tyres from ers are the harbingers of form, would have an en-wrecked and devastated condition action. The fact is that Royal Air every car, blew up the inner tubes the decisive blows to come,hanced interest and at- and which has even been the sub-Force reports of Nazi and British and handed them to everyone and they are enforcing tract the critical attention: fect of rumours in London. These losses are not only as accurate as who had not got a life-belt.
never admitted devastation, but man can make them, but under- Then he found a British officer that conviction not only of a public more respon-it was said the port had had pretty state the advantage the British in charge of a quantity of valu-
are gaining over the Germans." ables. upon the enemy, through sive to aesthetic efforts the wrecking of his war- than to the jargon of legal the whole port thoroughly, and is New York "Sun," says: The Bri-explained. "Eut rumour went that "Your correspondent covered GAULT MACGGWAN, `of the were, and I didn't like to ask," he factories and the conster-orthodoxy. By the same able to report exactly what tish reputation for under-statement it was radium, plus the Belgian nation of his people, but token, counsel might do damage has been done. After 50 should not be allowed to becloud Crown jewels, said to be worth 25 also upon those awaiting worse than address son- bombs were dropped on the town or panic. My impression is that to how they could be saved if the raids, during only five of which our judgment, there is no fear millions, and the question arose as deliverance from the Nazi nets to the jury, who and naval base, it would be dif- Britons are at last finding their ship got sunk.
"So I thought of a raft, and we yoke and free peoples in would hardly be so churl-cult to know that there has been true selves again, like their great
planks that or still is, a war, except for the Elizabethan and Victorian ances- made one from the the world at large.
ish as to refrain from an-usual signs, such as the balloons,
tors."
were. lying around in the hold. We the uniforms in the streets and
loaded the 'valuables' on to it on nouncing a verdict in the terrific activity in the dock-
JAMES MACDONALD, of the the lower deck. It was a lovely heroic couplets. And who yards.
New York Times," after being raft would have floated nicely (to allude to a more mun- "All the bombs, with one ex Air Force Fighter Station, as-
taken behind the scenes at a Royal if anything had happened."
But nothing did happen. And so dane matter) would deny ception, hit houses in the townserts: "Newspaper men saw en- his journey ended, and this in- The lyrical testator who that a summons or a sub- Some 600 have been damaged, ough to convince them that British domitable man, with his travel-
most of them slightly. Three
The his precious freight, drove his. left a will in rhyme, the poena couched in blank houses had direct hits, and are reports are about as correct as it stalned but jubilant soldiers, and other day, created a pre- verse would not be more to-day a mere mass of rubble, and feeling is growing that the Nazis lorry off the ship at the English debris, but others merely had are getting a beating and know port; and rattled up the road to cedent which, if generally agreeably suggestive than windows blown out or pieces out adapted to legal proce-one that merely com- of the roofs, dure, might have a cheer-mands and threatens in "As a matter of fact, 600 is the DANIEL A CAMPBELL, United ing effect upon all con-redundant prose? If it be number of houses reported to Press of America: "If Hitler had local authorities by owners as some troops awaiting a chance to cerned. The administra-true that music hath having suffered, but a check-up make a landing, the Royal Air I saw him when he had come to no idea what a of his firm. It was the first time tion of justice, no less charms to soothe the say which is proceeding indicates that Force mucked up the whole thing. London to see one of the directors
the final figure will be much You have
bombardment those aeroplanes ho had left the factory since his than the interpretation of age breast, poetry, which smaller..
have put up. I am quite certain return and he was impatient to get the law, can well afford to is the music of language, "Nineteen people have been that it will be impossible for Hit back. He knows who better? be relieved of some of the might prove equally effec-killed and halt that number in ler to invade Britain so long as that those salvaged machines are
jured, almost all of them civilians. the Royal Air Force can unload intensely important for gloom that enshrouds it, tive as a balm to those where bombs did fall near a nayal their stuff over there (in France)," building up of our defence, and he can hardly bear to leave them. sporadic jokes from the who move professionally objective one landed in an apple wa
tree and another on a football POSTSCRIPT:An American They're single-purpose ma- Bench notwithstanding, and otherwise in the som-neld. The nearest they have come reporter, in England cabled to his chinos wonderful job," he told co combination. Single- Without precisely follow-bre shadow of the law. to the most vital dockyards is newspaper in New York 16799
"It's a nice would wrong to say that the ing the lines of that hilar- After all, it is no great about a quarter of a mile.
German air raids on England purpose machines, handled by that ious breach of promise step from a rhymed will
have not affected the morale of single-purpose man. the English, people. They have. By permission of the "Even- action in Gilbert's "Trial to a will to rhyme.
Ing Standard.". They have raised it!!!.
TRIAL BY POETRY
hard blows.
"Neither townspeople nor navn authorities acem, particularly per turbed at the prospect that the
Is possible to make them.
"He didn't tell me what they
his Midland home."
the