Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1941. SILENT WARFARE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 197, 22 July 1941, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1941. SILENT WARFARE.

Throughout Europe’s countries occupied by Nazi bermany there are millions oi people prayingthat the Allied victory may come soon to end their days of darkness and bring the light of the new life they anxiously await,! free from despotism and the oppressors’ scourge. Most' -of them have- borne their sufferings with remarkable patience and fortitude, their courage sustained by their simple faith in the British Empire . and its allies. Their exultation in the appearance of British aeroplanes has been shown on numerous occasions, and both in Holland and Norway quite recently the people have cheered British airmen flying over their towns to bring destruction to the Huns. These are the people to be known as the Victory Army, who were mobilised in a dramatic broadcast from London just as Big Bon ceased tolling midnight on July 19. The “V” sign, Mr Churchill said in a message read to these oppressed people, is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting Nazi tyranny. “As long as the people of Europe continue to refuse all collaboration with the invader, it is sure that his cause will perish and that Europe will be liberated.” These men and women have therefore been asked to dedicate themselves to the war against Nazism until victory is assured, and the symbol of their fight is the letter “V.” It will be placed on walls and buildings, doors and pavements, sound ed in a manner which will become familiar to all, and be a beacon to guide them during their continuing dark days. The German hates nothing more than silent warfare. The methods of the Gestapo, Storm Troopers, and brutal gaolers he can understand, but silent -warfare unsettles his nerves and makes him distrustful of everybody else —and a distrustful German means more activity i'oi the Gestapo against others suspected of something they may be innocent of. Then finally comes the fraying of nerves to the point of undoing sought. That is why the Germans have been quick to announce the “V” as their sign of victory. They must fail, because the silent warfare has really been going on for some time—Germans have been secretly done to death; sabotage has taken place to destroy the Nazi war effort wherever possible; secret information has been sent to Britain to help her cause, and in some places, no Nazi will go abroad at night if companionless. Oppress the unhappy European people as he will Hitler cannot destroy their spirit, fie may kill them in thousands as in Poland; take their food from them as in | Norway, Denmark, and the Low Countries; make them pay the price of occupation as in France, and harass them as in the Balkans ; but they . will strive and secretly fight to bring closer the day of final victory which the “V” symbolises, and which the English people themselves arc adopting in their own crusade for victory.