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Show RAF STALLS NAZIS; BRITAIN HOLDS ON AFTER FRANCE FALLS The jubilant Nazi government thought that with the fall of France, Great Britain would sue for peace and the short, cheap war that had been so carefully planned would be over. But Winston Churchill had become be-come prime minister of Britain. Germany had gained the support sup-port of Italy through the famous "stab in the back" when the Italians Ital-ians declared war on France just in time to get in on the kill. With that aid in the south, and the fact that a British army had just escaped es-caped annihilation, Hitler could not be blamed for thinking England Eng-land would ask for peace. But Hitler difl not reckon on Churchill. Here was a leader who won his people not with glib promises and with fair speech but with the promise of nothing but blood, sweat and tears, and told them bluntly to get ready to defend de-fend their homeland in the streets and on the beaches, and in the heart of their big cities against the invasion that was sure to come from the continent. Night after night, in monotonous monoto-nous regularity, the big German bombers took off from dozens of fields in France and Germany and thundered across to England, to blast ports and naval bases, industrial indus-trial centers and London in the vain attempt to bring that nation of shopkeepers to its knees. It was the supreme effort. But it was thwarted by the gallant efforts ef-forts of the Royal Air Force in a battle against the most terrific odds any armed force could possibly pos-sibly face. The RAF was short of planes, of ammunition, of pilots, of bombs, in short, it was short of everything every-thing except the indomitable courage cour-age of baby-faced youngsters and middle-aged oldsters who took to the air night after night to shoot down an incredible number of German Ger-man planes and convince Hitler that the cost of an aerial invasion inva-sion was too high and that he would never win the war from the air. |