COMMON ACTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1941, Page 5

COMMON ACTION

FREE FRENCH & BRITISH STATEMENTS BRITAIN'S RESPONSIBILITY. A PROBLEM FOR GOEBBELS. (British Oiricial Wireless.) (Received This Dav. 10.55 a.m.) RUGBY. June 8. The common action taken this morning in Syria and Lebanon by Free French forces and British troops is commented upon in the following terms by General de Gaulle’s headquarters in London: — “It is to Admiral Darlan and his policy of gradually giving the French Empire to Germany, and collaborating in a military sense with the enemy that must be ascribed responsibility for any fighting that may occur in Syria.” Sir Miles Lampson declared: “I am authorised by the British Government to declare that, they support and associate themselves with the assurance of independence civen by General Catron x on behalf of General do Gaulle, to Syria and Lebanon. I am also authorised to give you an assurance that should you support and join the Allies, the British Government will offer the

people of Syria and Lebanon all the advantages enjoyed by the free countries associated witli them." The German broadcasting station Deutschlandsender has a problem of explanation which the ingenuity of Dr. Goebbels will be strained to the full extent, to solve, for it was announced last night that Mr Churchill "had demanded that General Wave!l march into Syria, but General Wavell refused to take immediate action in view of the grave British losses in Greece and Crete.” In this case fiction appears stranger than the trulii.