ALUZD BOMBING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 23 June 1943, Page 2

ALUZD BOMBING

TRANK ADMISSION AS TO EFFECT INITIATIVE NOT ON GERMANY’S SIDE (Rec. 11.55 a.m.) London, June 22. “It is impossible to say that German attacks on English towns are any way comparable with the enemy’s bombing of us, declared the German language Belgian newspaper "Brusseler Zeitung,” quoted by the Stockholm “Social Demokraten.” "The enemy has never so far. threatened ua so much with his different weapons and he has a clear advantage of materialising his threats. The German people for the first time since the outbreak find that the initiative, hitherto on the German side, has taken leave of absence and the enemy is now trying out the seven league boots which belonged to Germany. It is possible that we Germans have not got the thick skin necessary to bear catastrophies like Dunkirk or use them as a drastic cure. Within the last few months all those circumstances which made the war develop favourably have evaporated. Even the bleeding inflicted on the enemy by U-boats has become slower.” “It is not often that we agree with the British-American idea, but they are not far wrong when they call, the present attacks against the Ruhr ‘the battle of the Ruhr.’ " said a commentator on Berlin radio, in the latest of the series of frank statements giving the German people an inkling of the power of Allied blows. “It is true that many German men and women have lost their lives, many more will lose their lives in the immediate future, workers in German industrial areas no longer sleep in their beds, but the work goes on, although most people in thf Ruhr spend their nights in cellars.** The speaker described Oberhausen M a city of gaping holes and shattered factories with half the population living in barracks outside the city.—P.A.

DISCUSSIONS AT ALGIERS

FRENCH COMMITTEE NOT UNANIMOUS London, June 21. The members of the French Committee of National Liberation late to-night were still trying to find a solution to the problem of reorganisation of the French army, according to an agency message from Algiers. A vote was not taken at this morning’s meeting of th e committee, as all members hope it need not be taken till it can be unanimous. General Catroux and M. Jean Monnet are working on another formula for a settlement which, the correspondent emphasises, concerns a matter of principle regarding the rejuvenation of the army and the elimination of the ancient methods which led to the fall of France in order to make way for modem conceptions. M. Henri Bonnet the new Commissioner of Information, is expected to be able to give the committee soon a full survey of the views which were expressed to him by th e American Secretary of State, Mr Cordell Hull, during their conversations in W ashington.—P.A.