Word: britain
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...through the nation by tersely announcing, with regrets, that "His Majesty's Ship Royal Oak has been sunk, it is believed by U-boat action." Royal Oak* was a battleship of 29,150 tons, built in 1914, and her loss reduced from 15 to 14 the number of Britain's capital ships. The time and place of the sinking were not officially divulged, but it appeared to have happened between midnight and dawn...
Whatever happened, the British authorities not only confessed the loss to their own people but broadcast the news in German to Germany. There it was confirmed by the German radio and jubilation reigned in the streets. Believing that Britain's blockade of Germany had been seriously weakened, Nazis trotted out a triumphant slogan: "England, Bend Or Break...
...Britain's sea power was far from broken by the loss of Royal Oak. Together the Allies have 22 capital ships; Britain has nine more abuilding, and France has four. Germany has two, as well as three pocket battleships. But when British movie-goers last spring watched a Herbert Wilcox (Nurse Edith Cavell) film called Torpedoed-in which by models and studio shots Royal Oak is sunk by a U-boat (see cuts)-they little realized the melodrama's terrible impending reality...
...crew 'Heil Hitlered' except me, and sang psalms. . . . Eventually we realized we were sailing north. The captain said we were near Iceland, and later disclosed that he was warned just in time that between Iceland and Britain one British ship was watching every ten miles...
...Britain. Last week in the House of Commons Air Secretary Sir Kingsley Wood laboriously reviewed the war record of the Royal Air Force to date: it flew 1,000,000 miles of reconnaissance and patrol, escorted 100 convoys, sighted submarines on 72 occasions, attacked 34 times, made 1,000-mile flights at high altitudes. In cold figures such as Sir Kingsley cited, the R. A. F. last week had about 6,000 trained pilots, about 3,000 first-line planes. But it had, as well, spirit, ingenuity, determination, and a new plan...