AN ORDINARY MAN’S VIEW OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 74, 20 December 1939, Page 12

AN ORDINARY MAN’S VIEW OF THE WAR

Saving Grace Of Humour

NAVY KNOWS ITS BIBLE AND HYMN BOOK

(Bv

Observer.)

Among the war-winning forces operating powerfully on the side of the Allies is our British sense of humour. It is a quality in which our Nazi foes, Heaven be thanked, appear to be wholly deficient. The sullen and silly rubbish broadcast by Goebbels’ propaganda machine nightly from Zeesen is evidence, if it, were needed, of the humourless spirit, in which Hitlerism is attempting to conduct this conflict. On the other hand, instances of the quick sense of fun witli which Britons react to the varying circumstances of the war are abundant. A typical example is recorded on this morning's cable page. There you will read of the safe crossing of the Atlantic by troopships carrying the first contingent of Canadian soldiers to Europe. The übiquitous British Navy, of course, provided the escort. We are told that there was heavy fog for part of the voyage, and that a transport strayed from the convoy, later to be reassembled and brought happily to port. The situation had humour in it and the Navy saw the funny side, a destroyer signalling, “Read Luke NV: G.”

Here is the allusion—the parable of the lost sheep. The appropriate verse runs

"And when lie cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.”

The, navy certainly knows its Bible. The incident recalls an episode of the Great War in which, that time, the navy also knew its hymn book. Ancient and Modern. One of His Majesty’s cruisers operating in the North: Sea brought down a Zeppelin with a single shell. The captain, watching the raider falling in flames, called slyly for a certain hymn, aud the company lifted up their voices as follows:—

Oh happy band of pilgrims, Look upward to the skies. Where such a light affliction Shall win so great a prize.

Until too late the Kaiser failed realize what he was up against in engaging a nation which includes in its armouries a fund of humour. Before he is finished Hitler, too, will ruefully discover that an enemy which can make light out of the darkness of war was destined to be the victor as much through its sustaining sense of humour as through its power of arms.