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Supporters
of the American-Irish effort to bring humanitarian supplies through the
British blockade warn that any attempt to stop the ship by force would
reveal just how savage the English are.
On the Radio:
BBC, Deutsche
Rundfunk shortwave broadcasts set
out competing views
By Iva T. D'Aquino
Radio
Editor
The exciting developments on the European
war fronts are generating much interesting listening for those
who follow overseas transmissions. At
15,500 kilocycles on
the 19-meter band, the British Broadcasting
Corporation provided its version of the British plan to stop the
Ford-financed blockade runners,
while broadcasts from the Deutsche Rundfunk on the 22-meter band and
Radio Eirann, transmitting on 600
kilocycles via
its medium-wave relay located in Boston City Hall, provided gripping
coverage of the blockade-runners'
plans. According to the
Rundfunk's hilarious Lord Haw-Haw, the British plan was another step in
"England's futile and self-defeating plan to strangle the Third Reich
by intercepting shipments of chocolates and medicine." "It's this kind of gratuitous cruelty that has
led the entire civilized world to abandon the British Empire to its
melancholy fate," he said in his Sunday night broadcast. For a contrasting view, listeners had only to
turn the dial to the British Broadcasting Company's channel for foreign
listeners, known as the Wog Service. BBC
presenter David Wanckerly told listeners that Britain was doing no more
than exercising
the traditional rights of a belligerent power. Wanckerly said that the
blockade- runners were not humanitarians, but rather were "a dubious
collection of Nazi sympathizers, admitted terrorists, and crackpot
industrialists motivated by a perverse love of the Hitler Regime." Later, the BBC aired a broadcast by Admiralty
spokesman Admiral Peter Aessdt. Admiral Aessdt stated that
if necessary the "Royal Navy would administer the necessary thrashing
and then get on with the business of sticking it into [Surely, to? –
Ed.] the Hun." Yet
another perspective was offered by a program on Radio Eirann, the radio
voice of the Irish Free State, called "A Nip of Eire." Presenter Philip McGuinness told the radio
audience
that the effort to supply German children with the necessities of life
was "the next chapter in the glorious tradition of resistance to
English tyranny. Now get me another Bushmill's like a good
lad." Closer to home, the
networks chose to emphasize not the gloomy war news from overseas but a
forthcoming battle of radio comedies. The Blue Network, heard
locally on WMS, the 50,000-watt broadcasting service of The Massachusetts Spy,
said that it would introduce a new show intended to compete with the
popular Adventures of
Amos 'n Andy which is broadcast by CBS. The new show would also feature the humorous
adventures of a group of Negro men and will be heard Sunday nights at 8
p.m. Eastern Time. The new comedy will be called, sensibly enough, Those Funny, Lazy, Shiftless
Colored Say the Darnedest (continued on page 5)
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| | By Geoffrey Dawson
Foreign Editor
in London with
W. R. Hearst in Dublin, Irish Free State
LONDON,
England – Despite a ever-louder chorus of criticism on two
continents, Britain's embattled government showed no sign of backing
down from its threat to intercept and detain a convoy forming in Dublin
to bring desperately needed food, medicine and other supplies to German
children. The Admiralty confirmed
today that a
powerful flotilla of Royal Navy vessels had taken up station in
international waters just outside of the territorial sea of the neutral
Irish Free State with orders to enforce the continuing British naval
blockade of Germany and its occupied territories. Notwithstanding wartime censorship, the
Admiralty confirmed that two Royal Navy battleships – HMS Bilious and HMS Vainglorious
– joined by the light cruisers HMS
Costive and HMS
Catarrh were
ready to
intercept the Irish convoy by force if necessary. Royal Navy
sources have let it be known that over 100 specially-trained Royal
Marine commandos are aboard the warships, ready to board any vessel
that seeks to break the British naval blockade. Informed
sources in Whitehall say that there is no doubt that the Royal Navy
will use whatever force is necessary to make sure the cargo of
contraband does not reach a German-controlled port. The
threat to stop the aid convoy evoked loud protests from the convoy's
sponsors, a variegated group of peace activists and humanitarians
including U.S. industrialist Henry Ford, radio prelate Father Charles
Coughlin, and the Irish Free State's Taoiseach, Eamonn de Valera. De
Valera castigated the
British for contributing to what he called the "agony of
Germany's
starving innocent children" who lack "adequate food and access
to life-saving
medications." The long-time adversary of British power noted
that
the young aid recipients included those driven from their homes by "RAF
terror bombing, which like the blockade is a flagrant violation of
international law." Father
Coughlin issued a statement calling on President Roosevelt to drop his
"blatant blind support of British aggression" and force the English to
lift the blockade of Nazi Germany, which he noted was "the
democratically elected government of Germany." The
plight of German children cut off from vital drugs and foodstuffs by
the British blockade has attracted worldwide attention, with
influential opinion leaders such as former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy
and Charles Lindbergh threatening to join in the effort to break the
blockade, which Lindbergh condemned as "collective punishment" of
"innocent German women and children." He called for an
impartial
inquiry into Britain's conduct of its blockade. Despite the
worldwide outcry, British Government Ministers have forcefully repeated
their promise to enforce the blockade with the full might of the Royal
Navy and the RAF. "Britain is
fighting for her life
against a foe which has shown no regard for principles of civilized
warfare," said Eighth Sea Lord Ernest Bevin. "It
is
a sad fact of war that civilians of a belligerent nation may suffer due
to lawful actions such as blockades, but such suffering pales in
comparison to the losses suffered by the victims of Nazi aggression,"
Bevin said. The British claim to
be un- concerned about the newsreel crew said to be aboard the
steamer Roger Casement,
the flagship of the aid flotilla. "We will not be deterred by some
bloody Irishman with a cinema
camera. If they want an affray, then an affray they shall
have," said Deputy War Minister Neville Henderson. The
convoy's organizers vow that although they will not bring firearms on
board the ships, they will resist any British use of force with
shillelaghs and beer bottles.
"We
will sacrifice our lives to resist the aggression of the Hanoverian
entity," Coughlin said. Privately,
the
organizers expect that any effort by the British to attack unarmed
vessels on the high seas will embarrass and possibly bring down the
Churchill Government and poison relations with Britain's greatest ally,
the United States. "If civilian
blood is shed due to
the actions of the British pirates, England will become a pariah
state," Father Coughlin explained. Asked
if he
feared for his own life, the radio priest said that he had no choice
but to risk his life to protect innocent German children. "If
we
do not provide food and medicine to the suffering youth of Germany, the
result could be a holocaust, " he warned.
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