8:55 Eastern Daylight Time, and Elmer Davis and the News brought to you tonight by the Gillette Safety Razor Company. Just time to tell you that today’s improved Gillette Blue Blade, made of steel hard enough to cut glass, has the sharpest edges ever produced. That’s why it gives you the quickest, easiest shave ever. Ask your dealer for Gillette Blue Blades.
The first day of the German Blitzkrieg against the Low Countries seem to have met with only very moderate success. Both Dutch and Belgians are resisting fiercely and the Belgians have already being…been reinforced by strong mechanized columns of British and French troops from the western front, responding to the call for help sent out by both small nations after they were invaded. The Dutch and Belgian High Commands tonight flatly say the invasion has failed. German advance has been greatest where Holland and Belgium meet. They took the Dutch city of Maastricht, swarmed across the protecting tip of Dutch territory, and say they have taken some bridges on the Albert Canal in Northern Belgium. Farther south they claim to have occupied the town of Malmedy, lost to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles. Attacks on France and Belgium through Luxembourg have been stopped so far at the frontier. The invasion of the Netherlands seems to have been held at the Ijssel River where the town of Arnhem has resisted German attacks. And many if not most of the parachute troops dropped all over Holland before dawn this morning have been mopped up by squads of Dutch machine gunners traveling in fast automobiles. The German claim this morning that the Dutch capital, The Hague, had been captured by troops landed on the beach was not correct. Dutch troops and warships repulsed them. Parachute troops dropped a few miles from Queen Wilhelmina’s palace with the apparent intention of seizing the Dutch sovereign were stopped, our correspondent, Edwin Hartrich reported in an earlier broadcast by Dutch soldiers who fought them off in the tulip fields. Around Amsterdam too, the parachute invaders seemed to have been beaten off, but there is still fierce fighting going on in the streets of Rotterdam, the chief Dutch port. The German invasion was preceded by swarms of air raiders who attacked first, following the precedent set in Poland, Dutch and Belgian airfields and also bombed far and wide over France. More than twenty French cities ranging from Dunkirk and Calais on the Channel to Lyon in the south were raided. And while apparently here too airfields or in some cases radio transmitters were the primary objective, the French government said that more 50 civilians were killed. Raids on Paris and on the mouth of the Thames seem to have purely been for reconnaissance, but incendiary bombs were dropped on a town in southeastern England. A raid on Brussels earlier the morning burned several apartment houses and killed civilians. But after a Belgian protest that Brussels was an open town without troops, the Germans promised not to attack it if it remains so. A late dispatch from The Hague says that no attacks seem yet to have occurred in Holland on non-military objectives. This afternoon, however, the Germans claimed that the German city of Freiburg im Breisgau, also an open town, had been bombed and 24 civilians killed, and each side warns of reprisals if the other doesn’t stop it. An air raid alarm was reported from Paris about an hour ago. And all over England, people have been warned to be on guard tonight against parachute troops dropping during the blackout. The only bombs dropped on Switzerland appear to have been a mistake, but the Swiss are conducting a general mobilization nonetheless. And just before all this began, the British announced that they had occupied Iceland, so far as we know without protest, to prevent it seizure by Germany.
Winston Churchill has replaced Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister and will form a coalition cabinet. Its membership has not yet been announced, but Chamberlain will stay in it somewhere. Resigning, Chamberlain said that new and drastic action must be taken to restore confidence. The French Premier Reynaud took into his cabinet the prominent extreme conservatives Louis Marin and Jean Ybarnegaray. Italy is still quiet, and a broadcast on the Rome radio this evening says that it was the blockade more than anything else which prompted Germany to carry the war into new regions where little resistance was expected. This is in flat contradiction of the reasons given by the Nazi leaders for the invasion. Ribbentrop’s claim that occupation of the Low Countries, anticipated by only a day, an allied attack on Germany with Dutch and Belgium consent and Goebbels’s argument that the Dutch and Belgium governments had promoted…had plotted a revolution in Germany. And that’s the news to this moment.
8:55 Eastern Daylight Time and Columbia and its affiliated stations bring you Elmer Davis, and the News.
German land forces today made some small gains but their advance is not yet very impressive. This is a three dimensional war, however, and their command of the air has enabled them to make plenty of trouble in both Holland and Belgium. Parachute troops were dropped at more than 25 places in the Netherlands today and Brussels reported that German planes were flying over, almost without interruption, distributing parachutists over Belgium. In most cases these small detachments seems to have been…seem to have been killed or captured, but besides the actual damage they do in the interruption of communications they compel the detachment of a considerable number to troops to deal with them. And in the Netherlands at least, this diversion is beginning to be a serious danger. Principle centers of the parachute attack today were Rotterdam and The Hague. Swarms of parachute troops were dropped there through the day and the Germans still hold part of Rotterdam including the Waalhaven Airport. This was heavily bombed again by British planes and apparently was of little use as a landing field. But our correspondent Edward Hardrich reported earlier that many Germans had gotten into Rotterdam on merchant ships under the Swedish flag and hard fighting apparently goes on in the downtown part of the city. The Dutch hold The Hague but have had to fight not only parachute troops, but the Germans in citizens clothes who have been firing from house windows and this morning made an unsuccessful raid on the police station. Between the plain clothes and the Dutch uniforms used by some of the Germans it must be hard for the defenders to know just whom to fight. The German radio tonight claims that parachute troops dropped on the Belgian coast have forced their way into the town of Oostende. Nothing has been heard of this from Allied sources; it may be true and may be not. On land, the Germans have crossed the Ijssel River near Arnhem and claim the capture of that town, though the Dutch dispute this. In Northeastern Holland, where Dutch plans never contemplated serious defense, the invaders have reached Groningen. The principle success claimed by the Germans today was capture of a strategically important Belgium fort near Liège which they say was taken by some new tactics, apparently including air bombing, which proved that modern fortifications can be captured by modern methods. And east of the Moselle an entire German division made what seems to have been a demonstration rather than an attack on the Maginot Line. The French withdrew from their advance posts and against heavy artillery fire the German attack was not pressed. There were several air raids on Amsterdam with many casualties and bombs dropped on Brussels which the Germans yesterday promised to let alone. Mostly however, the air forces on both sides were busy bombing communications. Allied planes raided bridges, railroad junctions, and airfields on the lower Rhine and the German attacks on many towns in France were chiefly directed against airfields. Both sides, that is, seem to be sticking, for the most part, to the attack on military objectives, but of course there are civilian casualties. The French reported 148 civilians killed, and more than 300 wounded today and the Germans report several dozen casualties from the lower Rhine towns. Both British and French have denied the German story that the open town of Freiburg was bombed yesterday, but German radio announcers are saying tonight, that Germany’s patience is exhausted. Apparently the Dutch, Belgium, and French are expected to go on being patient.
And there was news of air fighting in Norway. The British say they bombed a German cruiser off Bergen; the Germans say the hit a British battleship and cruiser off Narvik.
Winston Churchill has not yet finished making up his cabinet but he will be Minister of Defense himself, and will be associated in an inner war cabinet with Lord Halifax, the foreign minister, and with ex-premier Chamberlain and the Labor leaders Atlee and Greenwood; these last three having no departmental duty. Anthony Eden, former foreign secretary is to be Minister of War. A.V. Alexander, Labour-right is head of the Admiralty and Sir Archibald Sinclair the Liberal leader as Air Minister. Hoare, Simon and Stanley are out.
British and French Marines landed today in the Dutch West Indies at the request of the Dutch government to guard the oil refineries there. In Washington it was said that so long as the Dutch government had requested it this action involved no violation of the Monroe Doctrine. As for the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese foreign minister Arita repeated to diplomats today that if was of vital interest to Japan to preserve the status quo and Secretary Hull repeated his recent statement that any disturbance there would be prejudicial to the security of the whole Pacific area.
The White House reports that comments received on President Roosevelt’s speech last night were more than 90 percent favorable.
This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.
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