Friday, November 29th, 1940 , MINISTRY 0 P IN F 0 R ?/I A T I 0 N NEWS BULLETIN NO. 195* A GIFT FROM JUGO-SLAVIA The Minister of Aircraft Production acknowledges with gratitude the following gifts towards the purchase of aircraft:- <£. s. d. British residents and others in Jugo-Slavia ♦ 1,100 0 0 Scarbrough Spitfire Fund 3,982 6 0 Lady Davidson, Huntley, Scotland 5,000 0 0 Leicester Spitfire Fund (£30,000 in all) 5,000 0 0 Manchester Aircraft Fund (£30,000 in all) 5,000 0 0 Ministry of Aircraft Production M. 0.1. 1 GIFT CF 100 PAIRS CF BINOCULARS FOR THE R.A.F. The Joint War Emergency Committee of the optical profession is to give 100 pairs of binoculars in response to the campaign just launched by the Ministry of Supply and sponsored by Lord Derby. They are to be passed for use by the coastal posts of the Observer Corps of the R.A.F. as "a gift from British opticians.” Mr. Jack Hayes, the former "policemen’s M.P*”, who is secretary of the Committee, said to-day "Opticians all over the country are giving every possible support to the campaign which Lord Derby is sponsoring. We hope that this gift will encourage others to sell or give binoculars which the fighting forces so urgently need. The 100 pairs of glasses will be handed over next week and the Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, M.P*, is personally to accept them." Several thousand opticians are helping the collection of binoculars by acting as agents for the Ministry of Supply. They giving their services are free. Each authorised agent is displaying a Ministry of Supply poster. Ministry of Supply M.0.1. 2. EXE? i.-TICN FROM KEY INDUSTRY DUTY ROCHELLE SALT The Treasury have made an Order under Section 10(5) of the Finance Act, 1926, as amendedby Section 2(l) of the Import Duties (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1939, exempting sodium potassium tartrate (Rochelle salt) from Key Industry duty from November 28th, 1940, until 31st December, 1940. Copies of the Treasury Order, which is entitled "The Safeguarding of Industries (Exemption) No. 15 Order, 1940", maybe obtained from H.M. Stationsery Office. Board of Trade. • M.0.1. 3* M.o v I News Bulletin No.l Page 2, CANADA'S MINISTER OF DEFENCE Colonel the Hon. James Layton Ralston, P.C. , K.C., C.M.G. , D.S.O. (and bar) LL.D., D.C.L., Canadian Minister of National Defence, who has just arrived in England and has come to discuss awl th the authorities here matters of general co- operation in the war effort, is one of the outstanding figures in the legal, educational and business life of the Dominiono Moreover, he served with distinction in the last war. Coming overseas with the 85th Canadian Infantry Battalion (Nova Scotia Highlanders), a unit which he afterwards commanded, he won a D.S.O. in June 1917, added a bar to that decoration in August 1918, and was awarded the C.M.G. in November of the latter year. Twice he was mentioned in despatches, and in 1924 he was promoted to Colonel? Bom in Amherst, Nova Scotia, in 1881, Colonel Ralston was trained for the legal profession, became a member of a Montreal firm of barristers and solicitors, and took silk in 1914* that time he had already entered politics, having been elected By for Cumberland in 1911 to the Nova Scotia Legislature* He was returned again in Isl 6, but failed to secure election in 1920 and 1925* The Federal Government availed itself of his services as chairman of the Royal Commission on Pensions and Re-Establishment in 1922, and in 1926 he made his first bid to enter the Federal Parliament, as candidate for Halifax. He was not elected, despite but this Mr. Mackenzie King offered him, and he accepted, the portfolio of National Defence and a month or two later entered the House as Member for Shelbourne - Yarmouth, As Minister of National Defence he was the Canadian Delegate to the London Naval Conference of 1930* He retained office until late in that year, and was again called in June last to shoulderihe heavy responsibilities of the post. Col. Ralston’s close interest in the educational side of Dominion activities has resulted in his appointments as Governor of University, Nova Scotia, and the Acadia the McMaster University, Ontario, His business interests have included directorships in insurance, banking, steel, coal, power, paperboard and hotels. He is a Baptist and a Liberal, and his interests in such spare time as a busy life allows him are indicated by the fact that he is a member of,among others, the Montreal Forest and Stream and Rotary Clubs, and the Golf and Country Club at Yarm0uth.........*.. Dominions Office Press Section. M.0.1.4 REMOVAL. OF BOARD OF TRADE HEADQUARTERS. As from December 2 the postal address of the Board of Trade Headquarters will be Millbank, London, S.W.I. The telephone number will remain Whitehall 5140 and the telegraphic address Boneblack, Pari, London. . 0 . e .. 9 Board of Trade* M.nTi.s. 29/11/40 - NO: 1. NOT FOR PUBLICATION BEFORE, AND TO BE CHECKED AGAINST, DELIVERY AT ABOUT I*ls p o o m<» SUNDAY, DECEMBER IST, 1940. POST MrH EARLIER THIS CHRISTMAS,’ The Rt. Hon. W.S. Morrison, M.C., K.C., M.P., Postmaster-General, broadcasting after the 1 p<,m e news on Sunday December Ist, 1940, said:- Many of of the us may have wondered whether the difficulties General Post Office are not so great this year that it would be wise to place seno restriction on the posting of Christmas cards and presents. The difficulties are formidable, I admit, But we have decided that, with your help, they are not insurmountable. The Post Office staff, yd th the assistance of the railways) are about to tackle the biggest Christmas problem they have ever had to face, in full and cheerful determ- ination that they will, so far as it lies in their power, bring all the brightness and happiness they can into your homes this Christmas Season. I have said that need your help, and today I am here to tell you how you we can give it. It is very simple and very easy* You must give us your letters and parcels much earlier this year, and we want you to post them early in the day *• before noon if possible* SHOP NOW Today is Decamber Ist. It is not too early to begin your Christmas shopping tomorrow or.- say, during the coming week and to pack and post your gifts as soon as they are ready. That is the important thing. Post in a steady flow and do not hold your letters and parcels. If you cannot post some during this week, be sure to post as many as you can day by day during the following week, because then we are coming to the most important time of all when we really must have the remainder of your postings if they are to reach your friends and relations on Christmas Day, THE LATEST DATE Wednesday, December 18th, is the latest date we can give you for posting in time for Christmas. But don’t, if you can possibly help it, keep everything until that day. You may quite reasonably ask, ’’Why must I pest so meh earlier this year?" of the will have occurred to you already,. The black-out think Many * reasons what that alone means when it is accompanied by night bombing. Clearing letter boxes and taking the mails from the Post Offices to the Railway Stations. Trying to read the bag labels and stowing the bags in the dark with bombs falling perhaps round aboutp Then there are the difficulties of getting sufficient accommodation this drill halls are occupied by soldiers and remember that many of these year when - soldiers are Post Office servants who are needed in the Army. We have released over 40,000 for service in the Forces. WAR EFFORT MUST GO ON Above all, remember that our war effort must not slacken this Christmas, and it is duty our to see that the lines of oanmunication are kept clear for the and munitions and for the defence of country. We must transport of supplies our see that the railways are not choked with mails o /On On the heaviest day last Christmas 80,000,000 letters and 2,400,000 parcels were posted and. these required 1,100 railway vans. >.o you see how important it is to spread postings that your over as many days as possible, so congestion shall not be caused. LIGHTEN THE POSTMAN’S LOAD One more suggestion I have to make. It would lighten your friend, the Postman’s load and reduce the bulk on the Railways if you would send Postal Orders so that gifts may be bought at the other end. Or, perhaps, you would like to send National Savings Gift Tokens. You can buy them at Post Offices and they can be exchanged for Savings Certificates by the person to whom you send them. But whatever you decide to send, do post earlier than ever this Christmas and certainly try and complete your postings by '..ednesday, December 18th, and please do remember to post early in the day - before noon is the best time. Then you can leave it to us to do our very best for you. Our sorters and postmen will be working throughout the Christmas period, as some of you will be doing, too, and we shall give deliveries this Christmas in England, Pales and Northern Ireland - on Sunday, December 22nd, on Christmas Day and on Boxing Day, as well as on all weekdays, May our efforts bring you pleasure and happiness, good luck and good cheer in your homes this Christmas. G.P.O, 29/11/UO - No, 2, BRITISH PRISONERS IN ENEMY HANDS. Next of* kin, if able to identify the men from the information published, are requested to advise the Casualty Branches of the Services concerned, forwarding Regimental or any other details. The following is the latest list of British prisoners of was as received from enemy sources IN GERMAN HANDS. Sgt. J. Daniels 45, Great St., Birmingham 7- Lister Sgt. R.L. Hollidge, 80, Coombe Rd*, Malden, Surrey. New Pilot Officer D.A.Young Turnpike Bucks Green, Chelmsford, Essex* Sgt»Johnson The Gallio, 9 Little Barn Lane, Mansfield, Notts. Sgt* J*l* Boyle, 12, Manor Road, Blackburn, Lancs* MINISTRY OF INFORMATION., MR MINISTRY BULLETIN No<, 2389 29/11/jO ~ NOojo AIR MINISTRY NEWS SERVICE. A LAST imTUTE PcSSGUIk ( liis raid Germany the. Sergeant Pilot of On way Lack from a recent over a heavy homher had "been flying for eight and a half hours hore he glimpsed the fog-shrouded coast«, . After searching for a landing pla.'-e for another hour and a quarter 3 his petrol tanks were almost empty and it seemed as though there was nothing to do but to 'bale out, This meant that the uncontrolled machine might come down in a town and rather than let this happen the pilot rook the risk of putting the aircraft down in the sea off the English coast* ’’ '"Eventually s said ‘the '.‘pilots ■ "1.. decided '.to make'for the coast, land just ..off- shore s and hope for the best, -i- didn’t bale out; because to have done so we should have had to go above cloud to get the necessary -height and. I wouldn’t .have been certain where the aircraft was coming down.? 1 "I told the crew to stand by for dinghy stations* We took the coyer off the' astro hatch and opened the pilot's to be to escape hatch so as able get out quickly* The petrol gauges had been showing hfl ior some time*- :.■.> • .■ . "We flew along the shore for about, ten‘miles about thirty feet above the water* I waited until we got to a position where I thought mines' or anything like that would be unlikely and then I cut the throttles. "We made a perfect landings The aircraft came down on its belly, It pulled sharply as it hit the water* but maintained an even keel the whole time. There up 5 terrific the the aircraft was a sea runnings Waves were washing over top of and r the water came rushing in o It took one s breath away* "We were scrambling out on y SIR ROBERT KINDERS LEY. Well, you’ve done it, difficult though the task was, our target of four hundred and seventy-five million pounds fox the first year of the War Savings 1 Campaign has been reached. I want to "Well done everybody". And I want to say "Thank you say everybody", all the thousands of workers in the Campaign, and all the millions who have responded so splendidly to their appeals, After I’d that figure of four hundred and seventy-five millions, I given don’t mind telling you I spent a few sleepless nights wondering whether I’d overdone it. But as the days passed I was made aware in a hundred different ways that I was surrounded by an immense amount of goodwill; that I and my fellow- workers had hosts of unknown friends, friends who understood all that was at stake. I want you all to know what courage and confidence this knowledge gives us in the task that lies before us. It is a trememdous stimulus to me and I wish I could walk into your hones to-night and from a heart full of gratitude say "Thank you" with a shake of the hand. Savings Groups played up magnificently. All you children in the School Groups have done splendidly and I know how many of you have persuaded your friends and relations to join you in your effort.. In factories, in offices and shops enthusiasm and results ran high. The members of Street Groups broke all their previous records. As I have said before, ours is more than a Savings Campaign, it is a Crusade. For money to-day has a new dignity - a sacred significance, if we use it to bring victory nearer. We must all be Crusaders and gather new adherents to our flag wq as go along. We have first let won cur objective us go forward with increased - enthusiasm until victory is ours. Again let me say ’’Thank you” and ’’Well done". BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION. 29/11/40 - No o 3lo Please check against actual broadcast. TEXT OF BROADCAST IN "ONCE A WEEK” SERIES. HOME SERVICE FRIDAY' 29th NOVEMBER 1940, 9*20-9,35 p o mc HELL’S CORNER By A SERVING OFFICER OF THE ROYAL ARTILLERY . Here at Dover, the heights from which you can see the enemy gun flashes and on the dim outline of his coast, there’s a sort of invisible vapour about which smells of war. It’s all pervading. It’s almost as if one could catch a breath of the has putrefaction which the Nazi spread over Europe. Yesgot to come - you have to this very edge of the island to realise adequately the threat of invasion. It would seem sometimes that it is easy to forget it. To imagine the danger past because the worst hasn’t yet that is the deadly error of Norway and happened - Holland and Belgium. At this very moment, when curious political diversions are taking place - at this moment when the Hun is taking soundings about a New Order in Continental Europe - this is the time when the cobra may strike. Here there is a full awareness of it. Here* along these cliffs, so completely characteristic of England. I have come back to the Old Country from foreign parts through most of her gateways. None is so heart-lifting to the returned exile as this harbour I know so well, with the English green above the white chalk. And I must say I like chalk. Clean, homely, pleasant, malleable stuff, with so many uses. You can it, or paint your henhouse with improve your billiards with it, or bore tunnels in it to defy the bomber. Tunnels I think I have walked - through miles of these endless chalk galleries opening into vaulted store rooms, and even beautifully organised dressing stations and operation rooms. All things in Dover start from chalk. I’ve just been over the defences here, down the sloping planes of the cliffs to the water’s edge, and along the coast to Romney Marsh. The famous sheep in those wet flats must by this time be thoroughly broken in to the sound of crashing Junkers and Messerschmitts. Well, I saw what there was to see, walking gingerly on occasion - but naturally, put in most time at the batteries. gunner, always a gunner. Once a I like to watch these engaging monsters swing their questing muzzles about on the touch of a wheel, and to see the smooth play of the brass elevating and traversing gears, and the workmanlike snugness of the casemates. By the in two three of these gun positions one might have imagined way, or oneself on a warship - they were so soaked and sea-battered. Oilskins and gumboots and spray everywhere. A sou-wester was raging down the Channel, and huge waves plunged over the parapets, penetrating the quarters, and drenching the cook struggling up a greasy ladder with his cargo of hot soup. There’s no doubt about it, some of these gun crews, working practically knee-deep in the Channel, have the rough edge of the job. Their typical good humour does not conceal the fact that they’re rarely dry, very cramped, and have what the Navy call hard-lying conditions. Along the coastline I visited Headquarters of battalions and companies that, after a period of rigorous training, were now established in the front fortified system. Ah this is real, good reception down here for Nazi No - a area evacuees. possible device for their suitable entertainment has been left out. Barbed wire and machine-gun emplacements and and tank and and ingenious dodges of all sorts guns, traps more guns, - every curve and gully of this peaceful Kentish countryside is swept andgarnished for the guests. Those of then that is to say, who manage to elude the hospitable attentions of the and the R.A.F, How different all this must have looked in May last. Navy Thank God Britain is still an island, in spite of pre-war theorising by Continental pundits. The obscene Goebbels and his litter in Berlin can falsify the history books. But not even Nazi propaganda can monkey with geography-. Yes - but there must be no stupid belief in security. Our defences are now , formidable and methodical behind these ever blessed Straits. few miles But only a away is the giant army that has smashed its way through Western unprecedented battering-ram at the disposal of cunning merciless Europe, an a gang c There is no trick > no treachery, no murderous invention they will not use to destroy this country, which alone stands between them and the world*s loot. All this rr.r.ns we cannot afford to slacken for a moment . « 2 0,9 I talked, to regular sergeant at down here 0 He had. been in the hottest a a post corners of the march from Louvain to Ihmkirk, and. with his battalion had just oome-here after a period of the most intensive training he“d ever experienced. He Said: "It was tough, but we glad of it. were This show in France taught us all you had to be well--’ trained or nothing.” This is thu true word. Any slackening in attention, in discipline, in readinessalong all this coast might nean a sudden breach in the defences. We must go on making the best, the most efficient, the most modem, the most highly trained army there is - and this should be commended to those people who seem to think that you can safely take the Army off its jobs There wasn’t any more movement than usual during the time I was at Dover. Like Prospero’s, this isle of ours is full of noises - not so nice as Prospero’s were, and now of course familiar to us all. The big guns on the other side of the Straits fired a few rounds yesterday morning on the left flank® Pretty aimless stuff it seemed to be® But I remembered heated discussions I’d heard recently in clubs and pubs. Do or do not hear the noise of the you you shell bomb that arrives in your immediate neighbourhood? Well, the approaching or simple fact is that it all depends on the remaining velocity of the thing. In the case of these guns that fire over the Straits, the shell reaches a maximum height at the top of its trajectory of about feet® Its remaining velocity on reaching you (that is, if you don’t move out of the way) is, so I am told, at least sixteen hundred feet per second. Now this beats the speed of sound by more than a short head, and consequently the first thing you hear is the explosion of the shell and not its passage through the air* So that 2 3 that® (All bets may now be settled. / Daylight air raids are not, of course, what they used to be in this part of England, or anywhere else* (+ See Footnote). The last pretence of these savages to attack military targets has gone.. Their objective now is what it was in Rotterdam - plain, blo>cdy murder. Somewhere in these wanderings I met the Grimsby skipper of a minesweeper that was out her lawful occasions, and he invited board his commands shortly going on me on This ship of his had brought 380 men in her last trip from Dunkirk to Dover, little and how they got them on board I don’t know. However, the skipper reserved his admiration entirely for the clockwork organisation that snatched the men away from Admiralty Pier* He was much more interested in discussing the tides in Pentland Firth than this amazing job at Dunkirk. But certain patches in odd places on his boat’s hull were a witness to hot work* There was one jagged puncture just above the skipper’s sleeping bunk* ”1 wasn’t there at the time,” he said, thoughtfully, "or that ’un would have parted my hair.” This trawler’s particular objective was fishing for various kinds of mines, and she was fitted accordingly. Very ingenious«, Very scientific* But - the sea outside had a dirty look. The spray was coming right over the top of the lighthouse® The idea occurred to me that it would be a sufficient adventure for most of out in that seaaboard this tin box of trawler. us just to go a But these all kinds of added horrors the dive-bomber, men cheerfully face every day the U-boat, the coastal batteries, and the E-boat, not to mention the mine itself. I retainpicture of it all. a The two keen jersey-clad youngsters forrard, the springs of their A.A® gun; the tarry and greasy smells mixed oiling and replacing with that of fried bacon from the galley; the laconic skipper with his D.S.C.: the men joking in their cramped quarters below, and the gilt crowing cock that someone had set up on the bridge® Along the coast we’re on the edge of war> but these men are chin-deep in it every real; cold, five o’clock in the day, with everything to endure* Theirs is the morning courage. /Later -3~ of the When you Later I drove through some sea-coast towns. get away frcn the physically fit and mentally trained for coming shock and cheery fighting men - any - move the homes and the shops and the residential quarters, the mood changes. among Doing a job, or even being with men doing their jobs directly concerned with the braces one but in these once-busy bright streets, with their memories of war, up; holiday crowds, it’s Not that the damage is relatively lon. extensive. so it is there and the shuttered But - windows, and infrequent traffic and a certain air of are there too. The unspeakably foul nature of this crime against suspense man - this coldly planned killing of civilians and smashing of little houses and little shops - it’s born of the very spirit of evil itself, and generates a feeling of cold disgust. Yet there is some consolation even here® Do you remember in the ,: last war the phrase Business as usual"? It left a bad taste in the mouth. It meant -or seemed often to mean - Profiteering as Usual, But not today. Not to me at "Business Usual" little carrying the butcher’s any rate. now means woman on as a gay shop between two piles of rubble in a side street,, It means the fisherman’s ravaged eating house near the quay, still serving draughty hot meals to the customers - and the gallant little slogans chalked on the shutters of shell-shocked baker’s shops aril tobacconists. When the glass from the shop windows has all been raked into the street they stick an advertisement on the boarded up windows "More Open Than Ever.” Can you nation of beat that for showing how high morale is? Napoleon said we were a shopkeepers. Let it go. to down Napoleon, and the breed’s the They were tough enough wear same today• Walking about in the streets reminds me of another thing this war has done - it has wiped out any invidious distinction between soldiers and civilians* Again, that’s not at all like the last war, We really are all in it together this time. And there surely is a good augury for the future* A better integrated England will emerge out of this» For one thingy I feel certain that as we go along, we-will learn as never before the almost unlimited power of a great people to solve any problem whatever - provided they all pull on the same rope o War accomplishes these miracles - why not peace? BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION. short + A passage will he inserted here in the broadcast* AIR MINISTRY BULLETIN No. 2395. 29/11/40. ~ No. 32. Air Ministry News Service SPITFIRES’ BAG Four lone bombers have been shot down to-day over the English Channel by pilots of the R.A.F.Fighter Command. An Me. 109 fighter, which was destroyed this afternoon off Dungeness, brings the total of enemy losses for the day to five. Two of our fighters are lost, but both the pilots are safe. It was a Spitfire day. One Spitfire squadron alone accounted for three of the four enemy bombers destroyed. Two of its victims were Dorniers and the third a Ju. 88. ”1 chased one of the Dorniers in and out of cloud from 2,500 feet to 6,500 feet’L one of the pilots said. "Pieces dropped from it, and it went into a right hand spin and crashed into the sea". Both the other bombers destroyed by the squadron were on fire when they crashed, It was this squadron which, early in September, caught nearly 100 Messerschmitt 110 fighter-bombers and Dornier 17 bombers between Haslemere and the Soutli Coast, and in a sharply-fought action accounted for 11 of the Me* S' and one Dornier, as well as sharing two more Mo 7 s with another squadron, and badly damaging seven more. Never has the Me.llo been more roughly handled. Other Spitfire squadrons shot down the remaining Dornier and the Me