DICAL LYING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1940, Page 6

DICAL LYING

IMAGINATIVE EFFORTS OF DICTATORSHIPS HOPES OF CREATING FALSE IMPRESSION. PERSISTENT REPETITION. OF FALSEHOODS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 13. At the time when the Nazis were seeking to impress Italian opinion with the object. of facilitating Mussolini’s entry into the war it was noticed here how hard the German wireless worked by misrepresentation, distortion and almost incredible exaggeration to create an impression that the German Air Force had mastered the British sea power. A similar tendency can be observed now that Hitler's urgent need is to imbue the still free peoples of Europe and those who were but recently free and who are still hoping for the end of their subjugation with the idea that Britain is not strong enough to withstand and outstay Germany’s effort at conquest and domination, so that they will give up all hope and become submissive to enemy "protection.” There has been, for example, over recent days persistent exaggeration in the foreign news broadcasts on the German radio of the losses and damage inflicted in the air raids on Britain and British shipping, while the German losses have been systematically minimised. Today the German and Italian stations are alleging that the aircraftcarrier Ark Royal and the battlecruiser Hood are out of action and in dock as a result of bombing by an Italian force last Tuesday. In fact neither of these ships is damaged, and the flag officer commanding the British forces in that action reported that though the Italian bombers scored some success no direct hits were secured and no casualties were incurred. A British Official Wireless message states that a German High Command communique on Friday claimed that Germany has sunk 4,329,213 tons of merchant shipping since the outbreak of the war. This figure is more than four times the total of British shipping which had been lost up to July 1, nor can the balance be accounted for by neutral shipping sunk by German hands. In fact,' since Italy came into the war the enemy can ill afford to talk of merchant shipping losses, for the combined losses of Germany and Italy by capture, scuttling, and sinking now amount to 1,120,000 tons, and exceed the total of British shipping losses.