OLD BILL'S "MICE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 101, 30 May 1941, Page 3

OLD BILL'S "MICE"

The Art of Understatement ENERAL WAVELL, whose (5 brilliant series of lectures’ on the Science of Generalship was recently reprinted by The Times, tells in them how, after the last war, the Germans set up a commission of inquiry to discover the moral reasons for the British victory. The commission came to the coficlusion that the Englishman’s sense of humour was a deciding factor and, as an example to imitate, they incorporated in their military manuals one of Bruce Bairnsfather’s famous "Ole Bill" drawings. The picture showed "Ole Bill" sitting in a farmhouse somewhere in France with a great hole gaping in the wall behind him. "Wot did that?" asks Bill’s mate. "Mice," says Bill. The Germans inserted a bracketed note under the caption: "It wasn’t mice, it was a shell that caused that hole." If the Germans had profited by the lesson in their military manuals, they would never have launched mass air taids on Britain, writes Macdonald Hastings in "London Calling." Before the bombs began to fall, the English had already belittled them into insignificance, Nearly all the jokes thrown up by the air raids are inspired by this exasperating imperturbability of language. That it reflects the national temper is evidenced by the fact that the best of the stories originate quite unconsciously. Some people were scarining the menu in a restaurant during a heavy raid. The waiter came up for their order with the remark: "Please order your dinner quickly. The building next door is on fire." I, myself, had a similar experience when dining with a friend of mine. We had just ordered a meal when a shower of incendiary bombs fell in the street outside. My friend and I went to heip in putting them out. Half an hour later when-dirty but triumphant-we fe-

turned, my friend’s only remark was simply: "I suppose that has delayed our omelette somewhat." Our practice of making light of disaster is, of course, a national weakness as well as a source of national strength. It explains the torpor of complacency which gripped us in the first year of the war. It is also the reason why our Prime Minister has to talk to us so severely, and why our war communiques invariably understate our victories. To keep us up to the mark, our high-spirits have to be damped-down just as the Germans, who are a low-spirited race, need theirs boosted-up. The moral for Director Goebbels is that, if he wants his propaganda to be effective in England, he ought to put it about that the Luftwaffe is licked, Hitler is planning suicide, and Germany is on the brink of revolution.