The 8 o'clock news (and for all I know the
7 o'clock news) one morning this week happened to contain several different sets of figures which throw an instructive light on the relation between killed and prisoners in differenetheatres of war. In the Normandy " pocket " 2.5,000 prisoners had been taken, and it was estimated that there were two Germans dead for every prisoner. In Guam 14.000 Japanese had been killed and prisoners numbered too. Of the German divisions trapped by the Russians round Sandornierz the dead numbered 12,000 and the prisoners 1,500. To which may be added the statement made a day or two earlier that in the fight- ing in the South of France 12,000 prisoners had been taken at the price of 800 Allied casualties. The Japanese, we knew already, fight fanatically to the death rather than surrender. So, it is pretty clear, do many of the Germans, though it has to be remembered that in the kind of fighting that has been going on in the Falaise-Argentan pocket many of the enemy who had the desire to surrender had no opportunity. In the south desire and opportunity manifestly co-
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