FEWER CASUALTIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 November 1940, Page 5

FEWER CASUALTIES

The weekly scale of casualties —killed or seriously wounded—was for September, 4,500 and for October 3,500. In the first week of intensive bombardment in September there were 6,000 casualties. In the last week in October there were 2,000. This dimunition in

the scale of the attack was not entirely due to weather. The weather no doubt h'ad a lot to do with it, but there were other things going on besides which played their part and which he believ-. ed would play a greater part as the months passed. “The House will not wish me to go into technical details,” said Mr Churchill. Putting the proportion of enemy losses to British at three machines to one, and six pilots to one, Mr Churchill observed: “It is obviously that this process, combined with our own rapidly increasing production, and production in the Empire and the United States, of aircraft and airmen—obviously this process is much the quickest road to our reaching that parity in the air which has always been considered the minimum for our safety and thereafter the superiority in the air which is the indispensible precursor of victory.”

Mr Churchill concluded this part of his statement with the characteristic words: “Surveying the whole scene, alike in its splendour and devastation, I see no reason to regret that Hitler tried to break the British spirit by the brutal bombing of our cities and our countryside.”