GERMAN TACTICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1939, Page 5

GERMAN TACTICS

ONE PURPOSE OF FALSE PROPAGANDA QUEST FOR INFORMATION ABOUT NAVY. ADMIRALTY’S REASONS FOR RETICENCE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 18. It is pointed out in naval circles here that the repeated German allegations of successful actions against units of the British Navy, while intended to hearten the German people by exaggerating the success of Germans arms and also to mislead neutral opinion, are designed no less to elicit information on the whereabouts of the vessels falsely stated to have been attacked or sunk and so satisfy the curiosity of the German naval command about the disposition of the British battleships, bat-tle-cruisers and' air-craft carriers. This thirst for knowledge which would be useful to the German navy in its war upon Britain is observed not entirely without professional sympathy by British naval men. but they have not the slightest intention of issuing it and it is beginning to be understood by the public and the Press here that this very proper determination should be taken into account in criticising the reserve shown by the Admiralty in the face of repeated enemy allegations and boasts. It is. realised that the Admiralty does not propose to be drawn into more than a bare denial of these recurrent baseless German claims, because it knows that their real purpose is to seek to force it into fuller substantiation of its denials. Such substantiation would 'at once dispose of the German stories and convince the neutrals, but whatever form it took it would risk placing in the hands of the German naval intelligence the missing pieces of the jigsaw which Germany so badly wants to complete.