THE ARK ROYAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 November 1941, Page 6

THE ARK ROYAL

EXPOSURE OF NAZI I PROPAGANDA. SHAMELESS ELABORATION OF LIES. •British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 16. An authentic account of how the German Propaganda Ministry “sank” the Ark Royal in September, 1939, was broadcast from London by the wellknown American journalist, William Boyles, who spent the last eight years in Germany and personally knew Lieutenant Franck, the pilot alleged to have been responsible for this exploit. “Franck himself,” Boyles said, “never claimed to have sunk the Ark Royal, but he got the biggest headlines I have ever seen in German newspapers. A long series of pictures depicting every phase of the sinking appeared in magazines. As Franck was flying a one man dive-bomber he was the only eye-witness and his account became longer and more dramatic in each new edition. Franck later told me he never made any of the statements attributed to him, but then he was not asked to. “The climax came when Goering sent Franck an elaborate telegram of congratulations and conferred upon him the Iron Cross, first class. Goebbels’s Ministry even prepared an illustrated children's booklet entitled. ‘How I Sank the Ark Royal,’ and signed Franck’s name to it.

“Meanwhile Franck’s position in the Luftwaffe became quite intolerable. He was wearing a decoration for something he had not done, and jokes were beginning to circulate about him. One of the secret broadcasting stations in Germany called him Baron Franckhausen, < an obvious allusion to Munchausen, and the name stuck. He became morose and nervous, and was removed from operational flying.” Boyles saw him last in March, 1940, and, with another American, urged him not to carry out a project to commit suicide. “He said if he could only 'get up in a plane again he would dive it into the first ship he could find. I suggested the Propaganda Ministry might be a better target and he agreed. I left Germany shortly after and have not heard since of Franck. I wonder if he is still glive? If he is, he will appreciate the irony of Goebbels being ‘scooped’ by the British Admiralty on the news his Ministry once tried to make the biggest propaganda of the war.”