The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1940-11-19

women or scrub women by day while
their men work in factories, or
flower, although there are few who
buy flowers from flower-women in
the streets of London today.
We slept little. The all clear came
at siX-thirty III the morning. /
followed plump Cockney char
woman out into the dawn and
watched her as she went in search
of her home. Rows of houses had
been slapped down. Some were still
smouldering. Her home was wrecked
beyond recognition.
"Gor blimey," she said, "you might
think we wus in Egypt"
The American neWSpaperman
writing the liveliest prose on the
Battle of London is Robert Casey
of the Chicago Daily News. The
Chicago Daily News lives up to its
reputation of having the best all
round foreign staff in Europa
reputation it has richly deserved for
20 years. The New York Times is
doing a good job with Daniel and
Reston. Ed Angley of the New YorG
Herald Tribune keeps newspapermen
and ministers laughing with his wit.
The observer with the greatest
entree to places that count is Fred
Bate Of the NBC. When Fred re-
Gently broadcast from the court
yard Of Buckingham Palace, the
King was pleased. Fred has direct
conversational style that makes his
listeners feel his sincerity.
The war has produced no great
poem or play. 1t has produced no
work ,of art, no Parliamentary fig
ure. The only so-called genius dis
covered is Air Marshal, Sir Charles
Portal, who is now head of the Royal
Air Force. In fact, with the eX-
ception of winston Churchill, who
has been in Parliament for forty
years, the war has produced no fig
ure. The war is a triumph of the
ordinary man and is more war
of the common people than ever in
history. There are no heroes be-
cause they are all heroes. Praise
of individuals Is discouraged, es-
pecially in the Royal Air Force,
where 1t is understood that success
depends as much on the mechanics
on the ground as on the pilots them
selves. In fact, 1t Is all team work,
in which the English excel. Deeds
of heroism once took place in No
Mans Land. They are now staged
in Anonymous Land.
The British Government would
like to have Ambassador Joe Ken
nedy return. If he can't return they
hope he will be made Co ordinator
of Defense of the United States.
They say he can tell America all
about Britain's mistakes.
Every newspaperman in England
Is now a war correspondent. The
reporters who go out on night duty
wear tin helmets. Nightly they
brave the peril of bombs in getting
stories, but no one ever mentions
it. 1t has never been in any news
paper. 1t is not talked of in the
office. Death" says Hanne Swat
fer, talking about British newspa-
permen. lis so much around us that
we don't notice it. Death is our
nightly companion"
Reports that Germany attempted
an invasion Of Britain and failed
are not true. Several Cabinet min
isters assured me That he Germans
never started across They had been
practicing invasion tactics along the
French coast and the Norwegian
coast and on the lakes around
Berlin.
An American Consul saw some of
the practice in France only few
weeks ago.
He saw Austrian peasants clad in
blue trunks learning how to Jump
from barges and how to swim.
The Raj smashed many German
jumping off places but the Germans
are not so heavily concentrated on
the French coast as believed. Their
troops are scattered everywhere
along and behind the coast. An Raj
plane recently bombed Havre Ca
sino and killed over hundred Ger
man officers banqueting.
A social historian interested in
significant trivialities of the Battle
of Britain will do well to insert a
paragraph in his history of the pur-
pose of a cup of tea in the British
war effort.
The first thing the rescued think
Of is cup of tea.
A social historian might also ex-
plain why, wherever dancing is pos
sible, people want waltzes, sedate
dances, and forgetfulness, as when
the waltz first swept Europe in Ma
poleon's day.
Dbl HSc