Hurts and Hopes

There was a number in the news last week which was easily mistakable for a first sign of rigor mortis: 148,038. It appeared in the British Admiralty's weekly confessional, representing the number of tons of merchant shipping lost by Britain in seven days (see p. 77). For only three weeks in the entire war had there been losses worse than 148,038 tons. This was more than twice the average weekly loss (63,342 tons), still more than twice the loss of the previous week (58,523 tons).

But to the resilient British, to those wonderfully tough-minded folk who saw a kind of victory in the horrible defeat at Dunkirk, there was no call for despair. There was more than ever a call for vigilance and sacrifice. But the British also found reasons to hope that the Battle of Britain might turn for the better.

Two knights of the realm and one baronet--Sir Arthur Salter, Sir Percy Noble, Sir Archibald Sinclair--personified this hope.

The long-range hope was the New World. Passage of the Lend-Lease Bill would make a great difference (see p. 26). To arrange ways & means for lending and leasing ships, Winston Churchill last week named Sir Arthur Salter to go at once to Washington. This envoy was peculiarly fitted to the emergency job: he is Parliamentary Secretary to the Shipping Ministry, during World War I was Chairman of the Allied Maritime Transport Executive; has often visited the U. S. and last year married an American and a Washingtonian, Mrs. Ethel Bagg.

The interim hope, until U. S. aid began to tell, was the British Navy. Last week a job instead of a man got a promotion. The job: Commander in Chief of the Western Approaches of Britain, in charge of the Atlantic shipping lanes in general and in particular of Britain's side of the Battle of the Atlantic. The man, who was not promoted but was entrusted with one of Britain's hardest posts: Admiral Sir Percy Lockhart Harnam Noble, former Commander in Chief of the China Station.

Sir Percy was a landlubber for only the first 14 of his 61 years, and he came out of World War I a Captain. Once a squash-courts pal of the Duke of Windsor, he is the possessor of a face which fancies somewhat "that little man with the mousetrap mouth," Jellicoe of Jutland, of a sympathetic, discreet presence somewhere between the bedside manner of a family doctor and the last-testament-drafting manner of a family lawyer, and of a high reputation for naval alertness.

The immediate hope was the R. A. F. Last week Air Secretary Sir Archibald Sinclair told the House of Commons: "I cannot conceal from the House my own belief that the war is about to enter a grimmer phase. It will be no easy task to defeat Nazi Germany, but it can and will be done, and my confidence is primarily based on the achievements of the R. A. F. and sister services. . . ."

Underlining Sir Archibald's words, and making the Germans go in their cellars to think about the Lend-Lease Act, the R. A. F. proceeded to send out new equipment for raids it termed "heaviest yet"--on Berlin for the first time in 82 days, Hamburg, Cologne, the Ruhr, Kiel, Bremen. This week the Germans admitted that the North German Lloyd Liner Bremen was being consumed by a "fire of undetermined origin." The R. A. F. thought it knew why.

Three nights of grim raids, mostly on British ports, was the Luftwaffe answer. Those who took great hope from the R. A. F.'s night bag--in the three worst nights the British claimed 32 of the enemy --were taking premature hope. U. S. newspapers began talking of secret weapons, new detectors, night magic. The British were working on all these things; the Air Ministry had been swamped with suggestions, one of which was that pilots should carry cats, which can see in the dark, and fire wherever the animals might stare into the blackness. But there was little magic in the night air last week besides a full March moon.

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