AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24685, 14 August 1941, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTS

SHORT-WAVE SERVICE PRAISED HEARD IN OCCUPIED COUNTRIES SYDNEY, July 31. The Department of Information in Australia states that it has received letters smuggled out of Norway, Italy, France, and French Indo-China praising its short-wave broadcasts. The letters are from owners of illicit wireless receivers who risk death or imprisonment if discovered. An official of the department said that as Frenchmen in Indo-China await the coming of the Japanese who will garrison their country they listen each night to the news from Australia for the latest developments. “Thanks to the foul censorship, no truth reaches us, and we are forbidden to send any letter,” wrote one such listener in IndoChina recently. “Be assured that a very great number of Frenchmen listen to vou every day. They ask you to persevere, because you bring us comfort and bring us back hope." Because listeners in enemy-occupied or unfriendly territory have such difficulty in reporting reception, the bulk of the department's “ fan mail ” comes from America. Australian short-wave broadcasts are often relayed by American national networks —one network described Australian news commentators as “ the saltiest in the world and even more pungent than the Germans wh£n they really go to town ’’—but relays by other means are sometimes made. In Portland (Oregon), the Police Department regularly relays Australian short-wave broadcasts to police cars and police officers on patrol, listen to the famous kookaburra laugh, introducing the programme, during the periods police “ flashes ” are not being broadcast. “ Your programme goes to all our police precincts, including the harbour patrol, sheriff’s office, and detectives, as well as all over Police H.Q.,” wrote an official of the Police Department recently.