PUBLICITY STUNT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 August 1941, Page 5

PUBLICITY STUNT

NAZI DECORATION "FOR MAN WHO SANK HOOD." “Man who sank the Hood gets Iron Cross," according to the Nazi newspapers: from which it is deduced by some that the gunnery expert so honoured must have been picked up after the sinking of the Bismarck by a German vessel which bore him back in safety to the Fatherland of the Fuehrer and his attendant fiends, says an oversea exchange. But why make that quite unnecessary deduction? The man who sank the Ark Royal also got the Iron Cross —and he never sank it at all. Certainly H.M.S. Hood was undoubtedly sunk by excellent gunnery (for which the German Navy has a justified reputation) plus a lucky hit on the magazine. But that admitted fact yields not the slightest ground for assuming (a) that the man who was responsible for the lucky shot is the man who has now got the Iron Cross, or <b) that the gunnery expert who did fire the shot is either now alive or in Germany, As with that Ark Royal Iron Cross the whole thing may be—and probably is—-just another of Truthful Joe’s publicity stunts to buck up his German dupes at home. STANDBY M o-, from k-