WAR SITUATION. (Hansard, 17 September 1940)

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill)

I do not feel it necessary to make any lengthy statement to the House to-day upon the general war position. Practically all the facts not of a secret nature have already been made public. The advance of the Italian army from Libya is in progress. The two British platoons which have been holding Sollum have been withdrawn. Sharp fighting is taking place upon the desert flank between the armoured vehicles of both sides. The enemy is still some distance from our position of resistance. We must see what happens.

The deployment of the German barges and ships in preparation for the invasion of Great Britain and Ireland continues steadily, and we must expect that he will make an attempt at what he judges to be the best opportunity. All our preparations must therefore be maintained 136 in a state of vigilance. The process of waiting, keyed up to concert pitch day after day, is apt after a while to lose its charm of novelty. There is no doubt that it imposes a heavy strain upon all concerned, but we must not under-rate the damage inflicted upon the enemy, who also has to wait, by the very heavy and prolonged nightly bombings upon his concentrations of ships and upon all the focal points of his assembly of troops. Undoubtedly serious injury has been done to his ships and barges, and meanwhile our own strength, I am able to assure the House, develops steadily by land, by sea, and above all in the air. Sunday's action was the most brilliant and fruitful of any fought upon a large scale up to that date by the fighters of the Royal Air Force. The figures have already been made public. To the best of my belief—and I have made searching inquiries and taken several cross checks —these figures are not in any way exaggerated. Neither side has yet employed more than a portion of its forces, but there are good reasons for believing at the present time that very grievous inroads are being made upon the enemy's superiority of numbers, and we may await the decision of this prolonged air battle with sober but increasing confidence.

The German attacks upon the civil population have been concentrated mainly upon London, in the hopes of terrorising its citizens into submission or to throw them into confusion, and, of course, in the silly idea that they will put pressure upon the Government to make peace. The deliberate and repeated attacks upon Buckingham Palace and upon the persons of our beloved King and Queen are also intended, apart from their general barbarity, to have an unsettling effect upon public opinion. They have, of course, the opposite effect. They unite the King and Queen to their people by new and sacred bonds of common danger, and they steel the hearts of all to the stern and unrelenting prosecution of the war against so foul a foe.

I gave the House when I last addressed them the casualty figures up to the end of August and without prejudice to our habit of publishing the figure, monthly. I may now mention that during the first half of September about 2,000 civilians—men, women and children—have been killed, and about 8,000 wounded by air bombardment. Four-fifths of these casual- 137 ties have occurred in London. Many hospitals and churches and public monuments have been damaged, but the injury to our war-making capacity has been surprisingly small. We are only now beginning to get the increased flow of production from the great programmes which were started on the outbreak of the war, and it is very agreeable to see that the increases are maintained over so wide a field in spite of the enemy's fire. To show how indiscriminate and wanton is the enemy's attack, one has only to compare the figures of civilian casualties in the first fortnight of this month with the military casualties. There were, as I have said, 10,000 civilian casualties from air attack, but only some 250 of these occurred in all the Fighting Forces.

The air-raid precautions organisation in all its branches has proved its efficiency, and the greatest discipline and devotion have been shown by all. The fire brigades arc, of course, conspicuous, but in paying tribute to them there must be no disparagement to all the other forms of service which have been faithfully and punctiliously discharged. Of course, the task of preserving the health and well-being of this enormous community in the Thames Valley, exceeding 8,000,000 souls, living under artificial conditions of civilisation, and of supplying them with food and all other necessities and of making provision for those whose homes have been destroyed or who have had to be evacuated—all this and much else have, as the House will realise, cast a strain upon the machinery of government which calls for ceaseless exertion by all authorities concerned. I am glad to say that this heavy and intricate task is being efficiently and successfully discharged, and our whole system of life and labour is being rapidly adapted to conditions hitherto unknown to modern society. Constant adjustments have to be made and defects remedied in the light of experience. As I said last time, a great deal of our progress must be by trial and error. We have to feel our way and do our best to meet each defect as it reveals itself.

I had hoped, as I said when I last spoke during the week that has passed, to promulgate some new rules about air-raid warnings, but the intensification of the air attack has made it difficult to draw precise conclusions, and, in spite of my 138 desire to make good my undertaking to the House, I feel that it is wiser for the moment to allow the process of local adaptation to run its course. Broadly speaking, our plan must be to use the siren, which, it may be noted, has been cut in two, as an alert and not as an alarm, and to have a system of highly trained what I may call Jim Crows or look-out men, who will give the alarm when immediate danger is expected at any point. Upon this basis everyone must endeavour to carry on his work and see that output and the public services do not suffer or suffer only the minimum interruption. No doubt, we shall work up to a much higher standard than we have at present attained in many respects, but I feel it better to proceed empirically than, at this moment, to try to make precise conditions; because, after all, we must expect that very much more intense examples of air fighting will be experienced in future than we have vet seen.

There are some matters connected with our arrangements under air attack which I should prefer to discuss in private. I must remind the House that every word spoken in public Session can be telegraphed all over the world; and that there is no reason why we should keep the enemy informed of the details of our arrangements, and thus enable him to inflict the maximum injury upon us. We do not receive any similar information from him about his way of life; although, I am sure, our military staffs would he very much convenienced thereby. There are several things that I wish to say to the House, and I dare say there are many things that hon. Members would like to say to the Government. Therefore, I propose that we should now move into Secret Session, and I declare to you, Mr. Speaker that, casting my eyes around, I spy strangers.