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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 prime minister of Britain. Germany had gained the support of Italy through the famous "stab in the back" when the Italians declared de-clared 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 annihilation, anni-hilation, Hitler could not be blamed for thinking England would ask for peace. But Hitler did not reckon on Churchill. Here was a leader who won his people not with glib promises prom-ises and fair speech, but with the promise of nothing but "blood, sweat and tears" and told them bluntly to get ready to defend 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 regularity, the big German bombers took off from dozens of fields in France and Germany and thundered across to England, blasting ports and naval bases, industrial 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 of the Royal Air force in a battle against the most terrific odds any armed force could possibly face. The RAF was short of planes, of ammunition, of pilots, of bombs in short, it was short of everything except the indomitable courage of baby-faced youngsters and middle-aged middle-aged oldsters who took to the air night after night to shoot down an incredible number of German planes and convince Hitler that the cost of an aerial invasion was too high and that he would never win the war from the air. |