Page 12 — May 12, 1945 The Winston Churchill, a man pe- culiarly suited both by temper- ment and training to lead his country out of its dark days. As for Chamberlain, no voice was raised in regret at his retire- ment. He was then and will per- haps remain—the judgment of history will serve to confirm it —one of the most justly reviled men in Europe, a man who had brought his own country’s for- tunes and prestige to their low- est point in Britain’s long his- tory. From then until June 22, when France capitulated and signed the armistice at Com- piegne the, blitzkrieg swept through the Allied armies with startling speed. By May 29 the British army . began that his- toric and heroic evacuation of Dunkerque. British soldiers stood on those flat beaches and cursed a-govyernment which had robbed them of their equipment and left them to die defenseless against the murderous Stuka dive-bombers. And French sol- diers, deserted by their pro-fas- cist officers, hewildered oy the almost unbelievable inesvicude of the high command, demoral- ized by the earlier deStruction of French democracy, fought sayv- agely and hopelessly to the end or despairingly surrendered by the thousands. By June 14, Paris was taken by the fascist enemy. By the end of June Adolf Hitler, accompanied by members of his general staff was strutting through the Are de Iriomphe. “Fascism would endure for a thousand - years,’ he boasted. And Mussolini brought Italy in- to the war. The remaining months of 1940 and the first months of 1941 saw the beginnings of a change in the positions of the opposing forces, and a change in men’s attitudes toward the conflict. For one thing, the period of the phony war had ended. Men look- ed at the destruction of France, at the darkness settling down over Europe, and pondered the danger to world freedom. Concretely the change was re- flected in the attitude of the newly-subjugated pieopiles. Within weeks after the fall of France the resistance movement had begun to take shape. As the months went on and Hitler Ger- many extended its conquest and brutal oppression throughout Europe, the Czechs and Yugo- slavs and Greeks, the Belgians and Netherlanders, began organ- izing for resistance, establish- ing their underground commit- tees. The anti-fascist nature of World War II was becoming es- tablished. —* Then Hitler got his first set- back over the skies of Britain. For four months, from Septem- ber on, his Luftwaffe tried to bomb the British people out of the war and failed. He failed, too, for reasons not yet fully re- vealed, to launch his threatened invasion of England. Instead he turned to central Europe, put Hungary, Rumania and Bul- garia under Axis control, in- vaded and conquered Yugoslavia and came to Mussolini’s aid i subjugating Greece. : The power and productive might of the United States now began to enter the war against fascism. President Roosevelt had already given Britain 50 U-S. destroyers. Now he began to - rope at its disposal. Top (1) First Axis aggres- sion was Japan’s seizure of Manchuria in 1931, but Eu- ropean World War II is con- sidered to have begun at Mun- ich where British Prime Min- ister - Neville Chamberlain @ight) and Premier Edouard Daladier of France appeased Hitler Cleft) by granting’ him a slice of Czechoslovakia to “keep peace in our time.” Bottom (1) Meantime, Ger- many had suddenly renounced its non-aggression pact with the USSR in an invasion June 22, 1941. Russian armies re- treated slowly across a great portion of European Russia, sending, factories back ahead of them. But at Stalingrad” the USSR held and anti-Nazi fortunes turned. shape éhe policy of his country in the direction of fuller partici- pation on the side of democracy. On March 11, 1941, he signed the Lend-Lease Bill which was to make the U.S. the arsenal of the United Nations. On April 29 another factor be- came evident. The Soviet Union banned the transit of German war goods across Soviet ter- ritory, and on May 6 Joseph Stalin took over the premiership of his country, on the same day that U.S. War Secretary Stim- son advocated the use of Am- erican naval vessels on Atlantic convoys. True, Hitler Germany was still riding the crest of the wave with the whole productive ma- chinery and manpower of Eu- But the forces of democracy were be- ginning to recover from their first stunning defeats. And even then the German fascists were planning the next step in their _@) Hitler rapidly took over the rest of Czechoslovakia, haying already seized Aus- tria, and when Great Britain and France failed to arrive at collective security terms with the USSR, he signed a non-aggression treaty with Russia, then launched war on Poland. Above is heroic War- saw after bombing. (@) Real rout of the Axis began to be apparent when U.S. and British forces in- vaded North Africa and Rom- mel, the Fox, was forced off that continent... Here the Am- ericans make their first in- vasion landing of the war— a scene followed a few months later by invasion of Sicily and Italy. Serie : criminal attempt to impose fas- cism on the world, a step that was to finally stop Germany in its tracks and bring it crasning to defeat—the invasion of the Soviet Union. Invasion of USSR ASCIST Germany’s war on the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics opened on June 22, 1941. The following day Prime Minister Churchill announced over the BBC that Great Britain would consider Soviet Russia as its ally in the common struggle.~ Collective action by these two major powers was thus forged in the fires of war where it failed of establishment by the threat of war. The status of the eonflict changed sharply. Miul- lions of the common people whose lives lay outside the im- mediate area of battle, and who had hung back, confused by the early history of the war, embit- tered by the lone period of ap- (8) Things went very smoothly for the German blitzkrieg and the world won- dered if it was possible to stop the Nazi armies, which in a few weeks overran Norway, Denmark, Holland and France. Here, Hitler, victorious, and his staff parade into con- quered Paris, with Eiffel Tower in background. (3) The “second” or west- ern front was reopened June 6, 1944, when American and British armies (above) storm- ed the beaches of Normandy as Russians put on the heat from the east. Italy had sur- rendered meantime. The Nor- Manhdy invasion was ‘followed by a sudden breakthrough to Germany’s borders. “peasement, could now see the issue clearly. Here was the hated fascist enemy attempting to crush the only socialist state in the world. The heyday of ap- peasement was over, the USSR had been welcomed back into the ranks of the democracies as an ally. It was time to dig in and fight and work. The first few weeks of the in- vasion saw the Wehrmacht roll across the Ukraine in true blitz- krieg fashion. With her armies not fully mobilized, the USSR gave ground, retreating but fighting hard and applying a hitherto unused technique of warfare—the “scorched earth policy” called for by Marshall Stalin on July 2. But as they advanced deeper into the Soviet land, German progress slowed, was even halted temporarily be- fore Smolensk. It was not until late fall that the enemy drew up before Moscow and Leningrad. _ ence. (4) In the miracle of Dun Kerque Great Britain evact ‘ated the greater part of he army from the continent an the air. battle of Britain by gan. U.S. lent help by lene lease, but kept out of war un til the Japanese end of tk Axis in a sudden treaecheror move bombed Pearl Harbor. (4) Symbolic of the victor drive that led to end of th War in Eurepe was the libe: © ation of Paris, accompanie © by scenes like this, as joyi 7 Parisians besieged their Ii erators with flowers, cheei © and kisses, and the Frene © resistance movement tot Over France from the Vich ites. : 2 Hitler was jubilant. The Na 2 prepared for a victory celebi tion marking: the capture ~ Moscow. German armored d | isions were within 15 mules the Soviet capital. Then General—now Marsi —Zukhoy brought a new Ri sian army into action. That ¥ ~ late in November. By Decem! | 2 the Red Army counter-oft sive was in full swing, and ai days later the German bh command announced it 1 abandoned its drive on Mose The Soviet capital was sav | The Hitlerites had sustaine¢ stunning military and politi defeat. And the military “7 perts” in Britain and Uni States who had confidently £ - dicted a Soviet collapse wit” Six weeks after June 22, thi away their astrology books + tucked their erystal balls it bottom draw for future rel’