Supres
Monday,
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DONALD DUCK
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8-23
MAGAZINE
September 30, 1940.
By Walt Disney
CAUGHT BY CAPT.
5.3. BLUB 1032
Colle. WALT DISNEY
PAGE
EDWARD BEATTIE, United
ONE YEAR OF WAR Press Staff Correspondent, sums
up
on
this
page the position of Britain at the end
LAND
The first year of the Second World War was a complete war in itself, a series of smash. ing blows which put the Axis powers into position for the
attack on Britain around the world.
Germany bore the entire burden of attack, but Italy and possibly Japan and Spain, were prepared to profit by Britain's concentration in the defence of her own long island sea coast. French strategy de fatal it should he. No me
rendy In the west The Germans throw up new forts nåetting The stall-stafinished Sankt and 1.5
and sip Chat: red a
AL the end of the firal year, Nazi troops hold the en- fire conat of Europe from North Cape to the beel of Biscay, with friendly Spain beyond. It took Hitler Just under ten months to seize it. Philip of Spain, and Jater Napoleon, needed years campaigning and dipiomney before they were in position for thrusts which failed.
the two months unce collapse of France, big guns have been brought into position of them can shoot Into England New air bases
ant
thr
Some
763
of
or Ir tamen can be cheapl
perity
War fared up in the north November 30, when Russia insarted Filank I was not The Axis war, but if would not have recurred wat hemat The war in the west.
Soli bority
Taver 1934
Celped agam when Germany swept inter and into Nur Any April 8, but Sweden, with the only anny of consequence in the north, de. molned neutrai The Gerust stroke,
beth alded by
Trojan Horse" and Arth column work. Look every major port in Nest way the first day Oslo, Stavanger, Ben gerst, Trondheim. Egersund und Narvik
Denk Alve the Gernuan
air force fighter protection for its thousands of bombing planes. Men and weapons have been assembled und
boats concentrated In the lowland rivers, all for the frontal assault on England which it
Reichstag
swore come.
to the
would
In the Mediterranean and Africa, Italy can strike at the wheat of Egypt or the borren o fields back of 'alestine. In Spain, the ear- paign for an attack on Gibraltar has reopened. In
East, the Far Japan could move on Hongkeng or Singapore. for the French and Dutch colonies, none of which now could
help from expect much horne.
Brlish garrisons along the line of empire are prepared for attacks which may come in overwhelming numbers. At home. Britain is better prepared for defence than she ever han been in it history
studded with war.
The story of the one year which pui Hitler on the channel coast,
and the Banking wings of his array in Brittany and the Norwegian fjord, is one of quick dendly ef Belent strokes by the modernest of all armies, matched against semi- preparedness or outmoded the theories of war.
The invasion of Poland set the general keynote for the year.
German When the armics struck from three sides on Sept. 1, 1989, they caught the best of the l'olish armies too far forward to- ward a frontier very hard to defend, and the bulk of the army too far from full mobi- sation.
Poland, like every small or new country in Europe, could not afford and planes the masses of guns needed in modern wor to take on a major opponent. The German air force in its first test reduced transport and communications to a shambles, making further mobili- sation next to impossible and pro- ducing such chaos that within a few days of the start the Polish army was a series of Independent no iten of forces,, fighting with general plan.
armies.
Great German pincers move
enveloped ments.
whole army corps, then
Punzerdivi slonen, the armoured' spearheads let by 500 tanits which later proved, decisive in France, played havoc with the Polish; supply or ganisation and reserves. Polish air force was virtually Im- mobilised after three or four days. Bone-dry weather hardened the Pollah mud, which might have bog- ged down the advance.
4
The
By September 10, it was obvious that resistance beyond a couple of months was impossible. Septem- ber 17 Russla, moved into eastern Poland, and the situation was hopeless: Warsaw held out under blistering barrage until Septem- ber 27 the army scraped together in the far south by General Sosn- kowskl lasted even longer; seat-. tered resistarice in the woods con- tinued for weeks, But the decl- sion had been forced in the first week of the campaign. Abd
The western front was static, as
What Turves Norway could mus ter held and unld Bellish and either allied tramps began to arrive April
The Allies had nu port rupa- ble of bundling heavy weaprotis and the huge timsport trans re quired by modern army Mean- while German transporis, reguei Hess of benvy losses, were pouring Troops and equipment into South Norway under a blanketing emnet. of bombers
heavier weapons. There were no landing fields for British lighters in Norway, and their bases in England were too far AWAY At Andalsnes and deri- Bombaas planes were
sive.
The trave which began May 19 With the ir vision of Holland and Belgium ant conled 38 days later. when France fued for peace was Rexsence the classic Schlieffen
aler with variations delled by modern weapons and by the for- taste of a campaign whirl munt develop-end "faster th even it the Great.
It was carried out in perfept ros usdination of adr force, army and al-borne trompa, aided by the start by offth colunm which probably ww Hitler's secret weapon. Hol- Tatil and Belgium had only a trac- tom of the beersary weapons to meet the first Bure threats, and thing but unprovised precautions throw #galat the third. The Hetish and French armies which marched north to meet the Ger. mans were in alightly better case,
to
The rear-guard action to Dunkirk, one of the most brillant retreats in history, the 10 to e
forlorn hope battles of the gallant RAF, and the effurt of the British and French navies in the channel saved 336,000 from the Dunkirk benches, 224,218 of them British.
3-
It
The drive lured on Paris way June 3 with the attack on the
Somme-Aisne provised
same story. was the nothing on hand to montred divisions,
tanks al
German bombers fighters slashed at the allied bases without opposition on save from inadequate antiair. craft machineguns and a few
tune. There WIS slop the ar- with their 500 conging from fust light vehicles to monsters of a reported 70 to 80 tons mounting 300-yard flame throwers and heavy-guns.
On Junc 17, Marshal Petain asked for
armistice, despatie
first of the
ARMS- PRODUCTION
साय
year of war.
BLAST
000
الله
CLIVE.UPPYON
PRELUDE TO "THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN"
plens from England to remember France'a promise. June 22 France signed at Compiegne giving up her
A handful of small, brilliant actions, from the Arctic Ocean to the South Atlantic highlighted the first naval war against the dull, routine background of convoy,
year
of
S patrol and the tightening of the sca blockade on Germany.
The Royal Navy ended the year, despite three heavy
blows and some minor losses, at almost the same strength it pos- sessed Sept. 3, 1939; with a huge building programme which put new vessels in service weekly and would shortly
commission
five ships-of-the-line; and with its command of the high seas unim. paired,
The most serious challenge to this superiority had arisen not at sea, but in the forest of Compiegne, where French armistice delegates agreed to neutralise their fleet.
Britain feared it would fall into German hands, to be combined with the German and Italian navles to produce equality in tonnage for an onslaught on England. In two shattering actions, Oran and Dakar, the Navy charac- teristically settled that pro- blem.
18 ever.
normal numbers of lighter war- ships and screened where neces- sary by planes, seemed on the basis of the first year na effective
The moves
In the naval war could not be traced like those on land. For the most part it was a stent duel between submarine and machinery of economi: blockade putruk
and the anti-submarine weat into
effect smoothly and without fanfare. Only occasional- ly did the sea war flare briefly.
the The opening act came on first day of general war, Septem- ber 3. 1939,
the when
Uner Athenia, bound for America with civilian passenger ist, was tor- pedoed. Americans were among the 142 who lost their lives. It looked Uke the start of unrestricted submarine warfare, but it wasn't.
On September 17 the Bri- tish aircraft carrier Courage- ous was torpedoed, with a loss of 515 officers and men, first important casualty the British Navy had suffered since the World War.
Less than a month later, October 14, a German submarine by a brillant feat of navigation pene- trated Scapa Flow and fired, a salva of torpedoes into the battle ship Royal Oak, sending her to the bottom with 780 of her crew.
November 18 marked the begin- ning of the German magnetic mine
British campaign off the
coast, effective while it was a novelty but largely nullified by a close airplane watch on the minelayers planes base in the Frisian Islands, and by "de-Gaussing" equipment to neutralise the magnetic attrae- Battleships suss' tion of ships, ・ tained direct hits from heavy, On December 2. the East India- armour piercing banks," and did⠀ man Rawalpind!, converted into an not sink. Battleships, escortefi by armed auxiliary cruiser, ran afoul
Another challenge came from the air. Although the first year of war did not settle finally the 20- year old controversy on airplane versus battleship, it seemed to hint at the answer. Destroyer, submarines and cruisers, on one side or the othér; were sunk by aerial bombs.
of the pocket battleship Deutsch- Jand and a light cruiser in the North Atlantic, and was sunk after a gume but hopeless fight. She refused to strike colours.
Twelve days later, Britain got her own back when the fight cruisers Excler, Ajax and Achilles, whose total broadside was out- weighed by the guns of the pocket battleship Graf Spee, attacked her off the mouth of the River Plate, bit at her for fourteen hours on
old the Nelsonian principle of attack and chased her
rst Into Montevideo with shattered fire control, other severe hits, and a casualty list of 30 dend and 60 wounded. The Graf Spee had sunk nine British merchant ships. Three days later who, sank herself off Montevideo, rather than risk another fight.
The night of February 17, the destroyer Cossack steamed into Norwegian waters under Admiralty orders, ran the German steamer Altmark oground in Josingfjord, and after boarding ber and forcing her crew overside in a hand-to- hond fight, rescued over 300 British prisoners from the ships the Grof The Altmark had Spee had sunk. been in Norwegian waters in the guise of a praceable merchantman.
8, the Navy, April 0, weglan territorial waters, to close the inshore fron ore loophole from Narvik. The next day, for the only time in the war, the Ger- man fleet "got there fustest with the mostest" and succeeded in putting an expeditionary force on Jand, but at the expense of at least twelve transports and supply ships to British submarines.
"mined New
April 10, five British de- stroyers dashed into Narvik, took on six heavier and more modern Germans, sinking
Atlantic coast.
The stage was set for the attack on England.
one, actting three on fire and destroying six supply ships in the harbour and a munitions carrier outside. Two British ahips were lost. Three days later they were back again, led by the battleship War- spite, and яank seven more German destroyers and some other ships.
There are other highlights-the submarine which put torpedoes into two cruisers off the Elbe, the destroyers which tied up to the quay at Calais and dueled the German fleld arultery. But the Erent feat of the navy was the evacuation from Dunkirk, a melan- choly job ending a melancholy campaign, but executed with great brilliance against odds which al- ways looked crushing.
the
The navy, helped by strangest collection of rowboats, motorboats, sidewheelers, pleasure yachts and colliers ever assembled, took off 335,000 men in roughly
days, aff five
sff the beaches, from the piers, swimming in the water, and under one of the most concentrated air and land barrages ever brought to bear on one spot.
the
The destruction of some of the most powerful units of the French fleet, at Oran June 3 and Dakar June 8, was a necessary job about which
Navy doesn't talk the much. But
second action succeeded because of the greatest individual fent of the war. Lt Commander Bristowe, a reservo officer from the London - Stock Exchange, look a naval launch in over the defence nets, set off
under underwater charges
the stern of the biggest French war ship, the 95,000 ton Richelleu, and escaped pursuit. Planes from a carrier completed the attack. The British left the. Richelieu settled by the stern and badly wounded.
Опе
performed "Mediterranean. in the brilliant ship
Australian cruiser The
to one. outgunned by two
took the Italian Bartolomeo Colleon! sister ship, of the class called "fastest in the world," sunk the. Bartolomeo and put the other to flight.
a
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