UNWISE DELAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1940, Page 5

UNWISE DELAY

IN REFUTING ENEMY LIES INTENDED TO INFLUENCE JAPAN & SPAIN. CRITICISM OF BRITISH CENSORSHIP. . (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 19. “The Times” says that the Germans clearly have put out picturesque lies over the weekend in order mainly to influence Japan and Spain. A German description of “widespread havoc” in London was brieflly successful in America, but this was due more to the British censorship delays than to the German inventiveness.

If the American correspondents in London had been able to cable their reports immediately the American readers would at least have had the truth from London simultaneously with the falsehoods from Berlin. The haste and elation with which the German wireless culled all its comment from Spanish and Japanese newspapers showed the Germans’ eagerness to see the first fruits of their campaign. They believe that their falsehoods during the Norwegians campaign helped to swing Italy to the war. They hope for similar, though smaller, results in Japan and Spain through their falsehoods about a British lack of resistance now.

The “Daily Telegraph” learns that the delay in transmitting the British version of the German attacks on Friday to America was caused by a ninehour hold-up of information by the Air Ministry in conjunction with the Ministry of Home Security. The hold-up resulted in the American evening newspapers going to press with a distorted German version of the attacks against the London suburbs.

A New York message on Fridaystated: “The Associated Press of America has not received a single dispatch describing today’s raids in England, but communication with London is maintained. Repeated inquiries of London whether the metropolitan area had been raided brought no response.”