STORY OF RELEASE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 85, 11 April 1945, Page 4

STORY OF RELEASE

N.Z. PRISONERS OF WAR KINDNESS OF AMERICANS Official News Service LONDON, April 9. How the long dream of liberation became magically real to them in a few exciting hours one day just over a week ago was told to the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, and the High Commissioner, Mr. Jordan, by members of a party of 40 New Zealanders who were freed by the Americans in Germany. Most of the party are officers who were captured in Libya during the 1941 campaign or at El Alamein in the following summer. The morning of their liberation saw them still "stranded" with their guards in a former slave labour camp in the valley of the River Lahn, which was as far east as the Germans had been able to move them before transport arrangements broke down. As the day went by sounds of battle drew close in the west as American armour drove up the valley from the Rhine. A South African among the British prisoners got out a sheet of canvas and painted a Union Jack on it. A pole was made ready for the moment when it could be run up. The German commandant surrendered himself and his guards to his erstwhile prisoners. As the battle drew nearer and the area of the camp came within the range of fire, most of the Britons went down into deep air raid shelters near by. One of these was Major A. J. R. Hastie, of Manaia, Taranaki, who said the German guards went down into the shelter, threw their arms into one corner and philosophically said, "Finish." Brisk Little Battle Meanwhile a few officers who were keeping watch in slit trenches up above were seeing a brisk little battle in progress from a unique vantage point. A spearhead of American tanks, with lorried infantrv in support, was driving up the valley from the Rhine. "They came forward very steadily and deliberately," said Major Crowley Weston, of New Plymouth. "They poured hundreds of rounds into bushes, banks and every other likely place of concealment and then tackled a small village near us and quickly broke down all resistance." With their new Union Jack raised the Britons stood up in their trenches, waving anything white they could find, and went forward to meet the Americans, who soon arranged for them to move back through friendly hands. The New Zealanders were looked after by the Americans all the way back to the Channel coast, and they were full of praise for their kindness. The Americans "loaded them down" with candy, cigarettes and many other comforts. One week after that eventful afternoon the New Zealanders were settling down in their own reception barracks at Westgate. All these officers and the few other ranks who came with them looked remarkably fit, but they pointed out that in the last year or so they had a comparatively settled existence. They could not find lavish enough praise for the part patriotie parcels, especially those containing food, played in their existence. They also praised the arrangements for the supply of books. In that single eimp they built up a iibrary of 4000 volumes.