SPLENDID EXAMPLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 134, 8 May 1945, Page 4

SPLENDID EXAMPLE

KING AND QUEEN IN WAR. ' PERILS SHARED. (From Louis Wulff, Press Association I Court Correspondent through Ncav Zealand Press Association.) LONDON-. At the head of the British Empire at Avar, the King and Queen for five and a half years have shared the perils and the hardship of their people in Britain. Buckingham Palace lias I been damaged by German bombs and the King and Queen have spent many nights in ' their' deep shelter underground Avhile enemy planes and flying bombs have hurtled through the air. iSix times enemy planes attacked the Palace. In one daylight raid the King jind Queen. Avatching through a AvindoAV, saAV the bombs leave the Naziraider, and in another the Queen’s private apartments Avere Av.reckod by a bomb hit. Of the several thousand AvindoAvs in the Palace., only a feAv score Avere left • Avith their glass intact. Through it al*l Their Majesties have stayed Avith their people, and the only occasions on Avliich the Royal Standard has not floAvn cither at the Palace or at Windsor Castle have been A\-hcn the King Avas aAvay visiting his troops or inspecting Avar factories. When the Nazi invasion threat Avas imminent in 1940, plans Avefe made for the King and the Royal Family to leave London. But His Majesty refused to go. Fcav Kings, and certainly no Queen, in British history have been closer to their people at Avar. When bombs 101 l almost nightly on London, the King and Queen drove—sometimes in a splinter-proof car—to comfort the homeless amid the ruins of their houses and in streets filled Avith still blazing Avreckagc. When the King heard of the first concentrated raid.on Coventry he motored to the stricken city, ivalking through the streets avit'll timebombs lying’ still unexplodcd a few yards away.

Five times lie left England to visit iiis troops in the field, first in 1939 Avhen lie suav the B.E.F. in France and visited the Maginot Line, then in North Africa after the Allied landing, on the beaches of Normandy on “D plus 10”—June 16, 1944—m Italy, and in. Holland and Belgium last October. Wearing uniform every day, lie has kept in the closest touch Avith the day-to-day progress of the Avar, having frequent conferences Avith the Allied lenders, especially Avith Mr Churchill, avlio lias been to lunch Avith the King once a Aveek throughout his Premiership, except Avhen attending tlie series of historic conferences at Avliich plans Avere made to defeat the enemy. In their tours of England, Scotland and Wales Their Majesties have visited several hundred Avar factories, munition plants, aircraft Avorks, and other centres of Avar industry, inspected civil defence parades, and met and talked to thousands upon thousands of men and Avomen Avar Avorkers all over the country. The King -has shaken hands Avith several thousand men and women of tlie three Services, as avcll as Avith heroes and heroines of civil life, avlio have been invited to Buckingham Palace to be invested Avith medals and decorations. By the King’s command, everyone attending an investiture lias been allowed to bring tAvo guests to the ceremony, so that the Palace doors have been opened during the Avar to a greater cross-section of tlie* people than ever before.

Refusing any special privileges, the King and Queen have had ration cards and have kept strictly to the allotted ration. Floavci - gardens at the Palace and other Royal residences have been given over to A'egetable growing, and ’production on the Royal farms lias been greatly stepped up. It was the King’s hand, Avriting “George, R. 1.” at the bottom of a parchment scroll of the Declaration of War at a Privy Council, Avhieh put the nation to Avar. The same Royal sign manual at the foot or: another Privy Council scroll Avill proclaim that peace has come again.