AIR LOSSES

Evening Star, Issue 23691, 26 September 1940, Page 10

AIR LOSSES

SIGNIFICANT GERMAN ADMISSIONS ‘ SUDDEN ACCESS OF MODESTY (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 24. f A new note has been detected in German communiques, which for the first time on Friday admitted that their plane losses were greater than the British. Friday’s communique stated that only one (British machine was brought down* whereas three German planes failed to return.

Again on Monday a communique admitted the loss of one plane, while stating that no British machine had been shot down. It would appear that German propagandists are becoming anxious about the lack of credence given even at home to their figures, and have taken the opportunity afforded by the hill in operations, when the losses on either side are insignificant, to try in a small way to restore their damaged reputation for veracity. •A further motive for this sudden access of modesty, it is suggested here, may be a belated recollection of Hitler’s own precepts in ‘ Mein Kampf ’ —“ It was a fundamental mistake to ridicule the worth of the enemy. Once the German soldier came to realise what a tough enemy he had to fight he felt he had been deceived by the manufacturers of the information given to him. He therefore lost heart.” Gochbels has been making precisely the same mistake. Sneers at London defences, making denials of +l- - figures of Gorman losses, and boasts of England’s occupation by Germany stimulated the German people in the initial effort, but that phase is past, and as the falsity of prior claims is revealed by the continued absence of German victory, the danger for German morale cannot apparently be neglected.

RESCUED WOUNDED GERMAN BRITISH OFFICER'S GALLANTRY (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 21. During heavy fighting over tho sea coast yesterday Lieutenant Jacobs, an officer of the Royal Engineers, saved a German pilot-sergeant from drowning after his Messorsehmitt was shot down in the sea by a direct hit from one of two Spitfires pursuing it. The German pilot tried to swim ashore, but the current carried him out. Jacobs, who saw the crash from Eolkstone breakwater, dived in and swam out to tho exhausted German. He turned him on his back and supported him until a motor boat arrived, when the rescued German was found to be suffering from a broken leg and a wound in the right arm. “ Your Spitfires are too good for us,” he said when brought ashore. Jacobs later stated that ho reached the wounded man only just in time. WAR MATERIALS FOR ENEMY , SHIPMENTS FROM AMERICA NEW YORK, September 24. The ‘ Daily News ’ says that 10,000,OOOdol worth of war materials is going to the Axis from the United States each month via Spain, Portugal, Cuba, Russia, and Mexico. Tho Department of Commerce figures show, for example, that exports to Spain and Portugal have increased by 22,000,000d01, compared witli the first seven months of last year, while shipments to Russia, thence to Germany, are leaping up. Well-informed circles believe ''that England- and America will collaborate in a joint blockade in the Pacific, with which the use of Australian, New Zealand, and Singapore bases is bound up. SELFRIDGES DAMAGED (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 25. (Received' September 26, at 11 a.m.) Selfridgos, in the West End, is among several departmental stores which suffered damage in the course of recent enemy night bombing. The Indian Students’ Hostel has also been damaged. PRISONER OF WAR THAMES, September 26. Information was received to-day that T. H. Hadley, a member of the R.A.F., who was recently reported as missing, is now a prisoner of war in Germany.