27 APRIL 1944, Page 12

THE POLISH « DESERTERS"

SIR,—Captain Alan Graham, M.P., writing to you about the exodus .of Jews from the Polish Army (which amounts only technically to desertion, as it is done openly and with a request to be received into the British Army) tries to draw a parallel between these "deserters"- and the Jews who, be alleges, have deserted from the British Forces. Will be be

more precise when making such damning accusations? Can he say that groups bf Jews, rising into hundreds, have ever left the British Army in protest against their treatment Does he assert that the percentage of deserters is higher among Jews than non-Jews in the British Army? If so, this is a very grave statement which it is his duty to substantiate with figures. In his speech in the House of Commons, on April 6th, he declared that " there have also been desertions from the British Forces in the Middle East." I challenged him, in the Manchester Guardian of April 13th, to say " how many of the 24,000 Palestinian Jews who have volunteered for the British Forces have deserted?" Today, April 24th, I mill await his reply. But he apparently finds it more convenient to repeat his allegations elsewhere in a wider and vaguer form.—I am, Sir,