ATTACK & DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 August 1942, Page 3

ATTACK & DEFENCE

BROADCAST BV AIR MARSHAL HARRIS CRITICISM IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. GOVERNMENT ACCEPTS FULL RESPONSIBILITY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 4. Lord Addison, in the House of Lords, referring tc Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris’s broadcast on July 28, said that Service officers not responsible to Parliament should not be called on for statements on tvar policy. The broadcast, he said, was partly comprised of “stuff so bombastic it might have come from Mussolini.” Lord Ailwyn said it was apparent that throughout the summer we were unable to do against Germany all we hoped. It was the height of folly to broadcast our strategy without pursuing it forthwith. Lord Selborne, replying, said: “The Minister of Information takes full responsibility for the statement which was also circulated to Germany by pamphlet. It was not a new announcement of policy, but an application of the policy which Mr Churchill announced weeks ago. The broadcast was to tell the German peoples that we have begun to bomb systematically their cities producing munitions, and also that the Americans will soon be helping us to carry out heavier bombing. A Service officer was asked to deliver the broadcast so that the German people would realise we are in earnest.”