The Wilmington morning star., 1940-06-21
Editorial Comments
From Other AnQIes
THE FORTRESS OF EUROPE
New York Herald Tribune

paris is gone ano France has fallen; it will
be London next, in a week or two" But will it?
The vast legend of German invincibility, leaping
to towering heights from one smashing victory
to the next, overshadows the world and paralyzes
the imagination-even, perhaps, the German i'm
agination. Nothing, we are told, can withstand
the dive bombers and the armored columns. But
nothing on the German side has been able to
withstand the British fighter pilots, and you
can't swim the Channel in an armored column.
The Germans, it is explained, with heavy artfl-
lery mounted on the Calais shore can reach all
the way to Dover and SO, denying the Channel
to the British fleet, open the way for their trans
ports. But what reason is there to suppose that
the British artillery at Dover cannot shoot back
to Calais and sink the transports as they come?
The British Isles are now the last outwork
Of the Western World, the last obstacle between
Hitler and world empire. But it Is the greatest
obstacle he has yet had to face; even his fanati-
cal and ingenious soldiers are not invincible,
for all their triumphs, and you cannot cross
from twenty to two hundred miles Of salt water
on a legend-unless your enemy believes it. The
British do not, as every word of their Prime Min
ister's address last night made plain. IF we
can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed"
and, so long as they are armed with that spirit,
the British Isles have formidable powers of re-
sistance against everything in the Hitler
armory.
The German superiority in numbers may seem
crushing; it will, in fact, permit them to take
staggering losses which would otherwise be ia
tai, but numbers in themselves mean nothing
against an island until they can be transported
there. Most of the specific devices used by the
Germans in their victories are not applicable
against the British. The surprise and treachery
largely responsible for the success of the Nor
weglan coup are IMPOSSIBLE; the parachute
troops which wreaked such havoc in Holland will
find both the military and the civil population
much better prepared for them and will be be-
yond reach of the essential quick support from
advancing ground troops; the more conventional
break-through and swift exploitation on the
ground, which reduced the French armies to
helplessness, cannot be duplicated against Great
Britain.
The Nazis must adopt different solutions for
the British problems, and no doubt they have
been celebrating them. The general scheme
probably includes intensive preparation by air
bombing OF dockyards, airdromes, coast defenses
and particularly of internal communications; an
intensive submarine and mining campaign to
neutralize the British Navy; and then the at
tempted landing. This latter would provide for
many felnts at different points along the coast
to distract the defense; the pouring in of as great
a swarm as possible of parachute and carrier.
borne troops behind the points selected for the
principal landings, and a desperate assault on
the selected ports or beaches under cover of air
and submarine support to secure the bridge
heads which could later be supplied with heavy
weapons and expanded.
For Great Britain it would be a terrific ordeal.
But however astutely the assault was planned,
the Nazis would still find the sea (plus the Brit
1sh Navy putting them at a tremendous dis.
advantage at nearly every point-a disadvantage
which could only be overcome not simply by su-
periority but by overwhelming superiority in
the air. The Nazi air force may be relatively
enormous. But here it would be given a vastly
more difficult mission than any it has yet had to
carry out, and that in face of far stronger air
and anti-aircraft defenses than any it has vet
had to meet. The Nazis are not invincible; and
if the stubborn British do not let their spirit
crack under the terror of the legend or the Sc.
verify of the blow, even Hitler's armies may
break their strength against the last fortress in
Europe.