ITALIAN ISLANDS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13426, 27 August 1941, Page 1

ITALIAN ISLANDS

CAPTURE BY ROYAL INDIAN

NAVY SLOOP

Despatches to Simla from Eritrea describe how two Italian islands in the Red Sea were captured by a sloop belonging to the Royal Indian Navy, whose ship’s company, augmented by three officers and 12 soldiers, also accepted the capitulation of 900 Italians, Germans and Eritreans and captured a brigadier-gen-eral and a colonel who tried to escape in a dhow. After the fall of Masawa, the officer commanding the sloop was ordered to clean up the islands of Nocra and Dahlak, where the Italians were in occupation. , At Nocra the spirit of the enemy was so low that 900 of the enemy forces surrendered without putting up a semblance of a fight. Here a number of Abyssinians political prisoners were rescued.

On the island information was received that resistance was to be expected from a party which, led by some high Italian officers, had escaped from the mainland and had penetrated into the interior of Dahlak, where they were determined to resist, to the death. A search for this party disclosed the fact that they had put to sea in a dhow and had headed for the mainland of the Yemen. The searen party also commandeered a dhow and set off in pursuit. When they came in sight of the enemy how they brought ma-chine-guns and rifles to bear on it. Then the Italians immediately hoisted white flags and surrendered.. The captured party included a general and a colonel.