PROPAGANDA OFFICE IN DILEMMA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 216, 11 September 1940, Page 8

PROPAGANDA OFFICE IN DILEMMA

GERMAN FIGURES. 'Terrorism" Claim May Well Hoist Them. British Official Wireless. (Reed, noon.) RUGBY, Sept. 10. The air attack on London is presented by German wireless broadcasts as a great and exhilarating event, and the "terrorist" quality of the raids is, by implication, constantly emphasised. There has been no disposition here to minimise the serious nature of the civilian casualties, but the Royal Air Force will riot be deflected from its declared purpose of confining its attacks on Germany * - and German-occupied territory to. military objectives. The Reich propaganda office to-day attempted, in wireless broadcasts, to demonstrate how ineffective' are the British air attacks by the - publication of the casualty figures. It declared that between May 10 and August 31 the total casualties inflicted during British air raids, on German territory was 78 persons killed, 29 gravely injured, and 22 slightly wounded. These figures, if any confidence could be placed in Nazi statistics, would be. received here with nothing but satisfaction, since it is 'no part of British strategy to kill and maim civilians or destroy their homes, and it would at the same time manifestly serve to underline the accuracy of the aim of R.A.F. pilots, since the scale and intensity of attacks on military objectives in Germany during past months by the R.A.F. is widely known.

Apart altogether from attacks on military objectives in German-occupied territory and bombing of- troop concentrations, naval and military formations, and dumps in Germany; itself, the R.A.F. have, during the period mentioned in the German Mrireless, carried out 13!) raids on ; aerodromes—s4 on aircraft ■works, 57 on munition works and chemical 'or supply depots, 139 «n oil plants .or depots, 13 on blast furnaces, .18 on power stations, and 25 on miscellaneous targets. Comment further is made in London that if the casualties are so slight as these given by the German wireless, they sec.m hardly to warrant the many angry fulminations about alleged British bombing of civilian objectives, nor, indeed, the present loudly-proclaimed "reprisal" policy..