^I would very much have liked to have stopped them and in some cases T have reduced them in, number. It is very risky to ask a' professional officer to give a weekly expatiation on the war, when in the nature of things, although he may be very accomplished, he cannot know and ought not to know the facts as they are understood at the secret meetings. At the same time one is appealed to ceaselessly to give more information to make the war more interesting to the people and to tell them more about what is going on, but it is not possible for the head of the government or even for the Chiefs of Staff to scrutinize before hand these detailed weekly statements which are made. I think the matter must certainly be reconsidered. (Hear: Hear)
"As I have said nobody had illusions about the tremendous scale of the air borne attack, that it would be the greatest in the world and that we should resist it without any but the most restricted air support on our side.
"Let us look at the anatomy of this battle of Crete. which was undertaken in these bleak circumstances.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.