THE WAR

THE WEATHER

& GOD

by

G.F. Vallance

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Chapter 3

February 15^th, 1941 was another invasion date, for which we were shockingly ill-prepared. But on February 14^th a submarine earthquake occurred in the Atlantic, recorded at Kew, with Hurricane damage in Spain.

The effects on the tidal system round these islands was naturally censored, but it was immediate and prolonged.

Ships were taken as much as eighty miles off their course, and on the River Stour at Deal it was high water, overflowing the banks at a time when the river should have been low.

This was the last invasion “scare” before the German armies marched east. Such deliberate acts of God, with their powerful and far-reaching effects, are not to be treated to the inane stupidity of the word “Co-Incidence.”

Mr. Churchill knows the facts well, and with his forthright honesty gives the glory to God; others cannot, or will not.

Next we come to Saturday, December 29^th, 1940, when the German Luftwaffe tried to set fire to the City of London.

The Guildhall and Paternoster Row were burnt out, and many an historic building was destroyed, but suddenly about 10 pm that night, the raid mysteriously ceased, and this is the report as given by the Daily Mail Air Correspondent, Noel Monks, on December 31^st, 1940:

“Hitler meant to start the second Great Fire of London as the prelude to an invasion. This was the belief held in well informed quarters in London yesterday.

Here are the real facts of Sunday night’s fire-raising raid, as told me yesterday:-

It was one of the biggest night attacks on Britain since September. No R.A.F. night fighters were operating over the London area, though some were doing so between London and the coast. Soon after 10pm the German Air Command sent out instructions for all the bombers engaged to return to their bases, as the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and fog was blotting out their aerodromes.”

The official account of this Raid, given in “Front Line” Page 20 says:-

“At the end of the month came the great fire raid on the City proper, when over 100 planes showered incendiary bombs on the Capital’s least defensible area for just over three hours, and in that short time started fires which burnt out six great sections. The whole area between St. Paul’s and Guildhall was impassable while the flames burned, and for hours afterwards. The conflagration around Fore Street was abandoned to burn itself out. Another great blaze covered an area of about half a square mile, from Moorgate to Aldersgate Street and Old Street to Cannon Street. The district remains today perhaps the largest area of continuous air raid desolution in all Britain.

The Guildhall was greatly damaged, eight Wren Churches suffered seriously, the Law Courts and the Tower of London were hit. St. Paul’s stood up almost unscathed, surrounded though it was by fires.

The night’s fuller story belongs to another chapter, but here we may record how at 10 o’clock the astonished firemen and civil defence workers found that the enemy had deserted his magnificent target. With the greatest fires of the war raging below him and the entire City of London with its neighbouring Boroughs at his mercy, he called the attack off.”

But like many another “Official” record, this fails entirely to give God the Glory. The German themselves admitted it was “due to the Weather” –Heavy fog.

“It was Because of the Weather then,” says this Press Correspondent,” and not our night fighters, that saved London from an even worse attack. The view is held that the assault was intended to be the fiercest of the War. Up to 1000 bombers were to have been used during the night.”

YES – again, “IT WAS BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER.”

Then, do you remember that chain of victories in East Africa when, in one week, we had the biggest Sea Victory of the War to that date – (The Battle of Matapan) – when seven of the finest units of the Italian Navy were sunk “without our losing a flake of Paintwork” as the Official report said; and, in addition the strongholds of Keren and Harar in Eritrea, which had been such a thorn in our side, both fell on the same day, and the following week saw the fall of Marsawa and Asmara in Abysinnia with our troops marching towards Addis Abbaba, soon to fall also.

At that time everybody was “commenting” upon the fact that the Nation had been to Prayer the previous Sunday, but at “COMMENT” it stayed. To think of Nationally returning thanks for Victory granted, seemed more than we could acknowledge. Can it be that all these happenings ere MERE CO-INCIDENCES, or is it not rather that a HIGHER HAND than the HUMAN element was controlling? Can it not be that GOD WAS SPEAKING, and that we were slow to perceive?

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Then in June, 1941, our Island was again protected from imminent peril, when the great German military machine turned East instead of West, and the valiant people of Russia took the blow that might well have descended on us at that time, when we were by no means ready to meet it.

When the history of this war is written it will be clearly shown that whenever the burden became too heavy for us to bear, ”Destiny” – shall we call it – stepped in and turned the scales in our favour.

On November 18^th, 1941, General Auchinleck began the second Libyan offensive and a happening on that first day, the true significance of which we, as a Nation have failed to notice and appreciate, was thus commented upon by Liddell Hart in the Daily Mail of November 25^th.

“The sudden break in the weather which greeted the launching of the offensive seems to have proved a break in our favour. The rain was not heavy enough in the desert to upset the advance of our armoured forces which covered some fifty miles the first day – more than half the distance to Tobruk.

By contrast, the downpour was so heavy in the coastal strip that it turned the sand into a morass which clogged the counter-movements of the two German armoured divisions. The enemy’s aerodromes were also waterlogged, thus hindering bombing interference with the deployment and advance of the British Forces. The effect was to multiply our superiority in air strength.”

IT WAS “BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER” that we were able to press so far forward in those opening days and, - note the comment, - “IT MULTIPLIED OUR SUPERIORITY IN AIR STRENGTH,” quicker even than planes could be flown there, to say nothing of their costly manufacture.

Time and time again God has sought to prove to us that Wind, Cloud, Fog, Rain and Snow are far mightier than any man-made weapon. Well may Job say:

“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? Or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and War?” (Job 38: 22 & 23)

The Russian campaign alone shows us this, surely.

Let me quote Hitler’s own words in Berlin, concerning the Russian Conflict in that first Winter.

“Not only did we face apparently unlimited masses of the enemy,” he said, “but weeks earlier than science could foresee we had a winter, such as has been unknown for forty years.

This was the only hope of the masters of the Kremlin to inflict Napoleon’s fate of 1812 on the German Army, with the help of this unprecedented weather.”

Surely our God taketh the weak things of the earth to confound the mighty indeed!

I am reminded of a newsboy’s comment when he saw the havoc caused by the San Francisco Earthquake. To a rich millionaire customer, the laddie remarked, “It took a long time to put all this stuff up, but God tumbled it down in a few seconds. Say, Mister, t’aint no use for a feller to think he can lick God.”

I rather think that Hitler must think something like this to-day.

So much for 1941! – but what of 1942?

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