SECRET CHARTS RELEASED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXVI, Issue 27, 31 December 1945, Page 6

SECRET CHARTS RELEASED

THEILLING WAR EPISODES. (Bee. 1.40 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 30. By the release of "a diagrammatic representation of certain phases of the war," secret charts used by the Chiefs of Staff Committee during the war have become an open historical record.

The committee met continuously from the outbreak of war to VE-Day, and into their counsels were wheeled mobile frames containing coloured charts, showing at a glance the tri- . umphs and crises of nearly six years of war. Some phases made gloomy 'pictures, and others were thrilling as they showed most spectacular progress. .Nearly forty charts offer reminders of- -the ordeals which Britain faced arid overcame. Some figures have "alfeady been published, but seem more impressive in graph form. A graph resembling a skyscraper showed the production of fighter aircraft by Britain, which were under 100 a month in. September, 1939, but which had at the beginning of the Battle of Britain raisen to 450 a month, while the monthly average in 1944. was approximately 900.

'Another graph showed the _ U-boats' enormous toll of merchant shipping in 1942—6,000,000 gross tons compared with under 2,000,000 tons in the year 1939-40, the same amount in the year 1941, and about 750,000 tons in 1944.