PRESSES KEPT RUNNING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20377, 14 October 1940, Page 7

PRESSES KEPT RUNNING

PREMISES DAMAGED NEWSPAPER OFFICES (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Oct. 12. The Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, has sent personal congratulations to The Times, which, although the premises were much damaged when hit by a heavy bomb, succeeded in producing the editions without interruption or delay, with no evidence whatever of the explosion or its consequences. The Daily Express is another newspaper whose premises suffered recently in night bombing. A bomb last night directly hit a newspaper office on a south-east town, from which 14 persons, including five women and six children, remarkably escaped. The editor and his wife were covered with debris, but neither was hurt. “Whatever happens no matter what happens, - The Times will be published. If Printing House Square be knocked out, we will publish elsewhere in London. If that should be rendered impossible, we’ll publish somewhere in fihe country. As long as there is a suitable printing plant In England The Times will be printed and published. And if you can imagine such a thing that we are blown out of Britain, then we’ll cross the Atlantic and publish The Times there!” Thus the spirit of The Tunes and of all England was made clear recently by Mr. C. S. Kent, the manager, to Captain F. D. Bone, of the Editor and Publisher, New York. The last message from Mr. Kent was a ringing one:

“We will send the United States o victory copy of The Times.” Later, Mr. F. P. Bishop, assistant manager of The Times, gave a broadcast, in which he declared that Hitler would like to destroy Britain’s free press, and it would be a great victory for the German Air Force if it temporarily prevented the newspapers from being published in London. “We are determined,” he added, “that Hitler shall not succeed. I think we can promise that he will not, after our experience of the past fortnight. The spirit of the people in the newspaper industry is quite unshaken and cannot be shaken. It is equal to any trials the war may bring.”