Description
Item up for sale is an original and complete (12 page) July 14th, 1940, edition of the Minnesota, Minneapolis Star Journal; the lead story of the day was of the start of the Battle of Britain; on June 17th, 1940, France had all but capitulated to the Nazi invaders by signing an Armistice; the new French State would be notoriously known as Vichy France, a collaborating shell of its former self. Britain, was now the only nation left to oppose the Nazis; all the other nations had either sided with the Germans, or had been taken over, or remained conveniently neutral. The specter of an invasion loomed over the island nation of Britain. On July 10th, Hitler would test the resolve of the British by unleashing the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, over British targets. Germany had quietly been rearming in the preceding years, constructing thousands of aircraft among other armaments. On July 10th, 1940, the campaign against Britain would begin over her shores. The English had been beaten back at Dunkirk, France and forced to evacuate. They were now facing a foe with maximum air superiority; but what Hitler had surmised in his strategy, failed to materialize in the air, as the determined British Pilots fought off wave after wave of the enemy. This Minneapolis edition reported on the third straight consecutive attack that had been beaten off by the Brits over the straights of Dover. The Germans went crashing into the seas. In all 91 Nazi planes were lost. The fight was on and the British lion would not give ground. The Nazis would retaliate, some months later, and on September 7th, 1940, the Blitzkrieg (lightening war) would begin, the indiscriminate attack on civilian targets. It would continue until may of 1941, when the attacks would finally break off. The Nazis would focus their attention on mother Russia, and the Luftwaffe, would summarily attack unsuspecting targets in Russia as the vanguard of the Nazi offensive. Russia would bleed as few nations ever had. But, on July 14th, 1940, the words that had yet to be spoken by Winston Churchill would ring true a month later, when he said: " never have so many owed so much to so few. " The men of the RAF were heroes in every sense of the word as they met and fought off superior numbers and as they stood solitarily in defense of their homeland. America had yet to enter the fray, but was speeding supplies to England oft times by rugged Merchant seamen, via the perilous North Atlantic. This item is original and complete and is in exceptional condition for being 78 years old. It can still be read.
