INSPIRING DEEDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24411, 24 September 1940, Page 6

INSPIRING DEEDS

;, HEROISM OF AIRMEN a TRIBUTE I FROM MINISTER From the. secret'information it receives daily from London, the New Zealand Government is able to gain an even far more impressive estimate of ' the heroic work being done. by the Royal Air Force in the defence of Great Britain than can be gauged by. the general public. This was indicated by the Minister of Finance (Mr W-. Nash) in an address at the Christchurch Welcome Club. ,-, - .a..: iV> : - "Our" inspiration "comes at the moment frojn the men in the air'." : Mr Nash said, " and from their great deeds ■ night and day over'London and across - the seas separating England from her enemies; We know, from .the secret cablegrams which we receive daily from London, what amazing things the Royal. Air Force is doing. Three and a-half German aeroplanes are brought down for every• British aeroplane:destroyed. Yet our airmen are going up.» into the battle as one machine to three. Even with those' odds - against them they can bring down three, and a-half enemy machines to every one of oursdestroyed. .' - :V- ;■» ■' ■<"' . "And that is not all. In all the annals of the British Empire I have read of no more heroic deeds than the job those men did who lifted the delayedaction bomb which was threatening St. Paul's, and of the lieutenant who so heroically drove those long miles to take the bomb into the marshes,* where it could do no damage. They have written on the roll of British honour the greatest scroll ever. yet recorded there. It is that spirit that will see us through.. Right cannot lose —sometimes it is delayed in. its victory, but right cannot lose." -