BRITISH SOLDIERS IN ABYSSINIA

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23232, 20 January 1941, Page 9

BRITISH SOLDIERS IN ABYSSINIA

Training and Equipping

Of Tribesmen

DARING EXPEDITION INTO INTERIOR

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.)

(Received January 19, 11 p.m.)

LONDON, January 19.

For more than six months, a handful of British military officers has been in Abyssinia training and equipping the tribesmen. News of these operations has been released in Khartoum and a report has been sent to London by Mr Richard Dimbleby, the British Broadcasting Corporation’s observer in the Middle East.

A small group of staff officers and noncommissioned instructors penetrated the Italian lines in July last year with a convoy of arms and ammunition. They travelled 500 miles into the interior and set up camp in a spot in jungle-clad mountains. Now an army of tribesmen is rapidly being trained, and a large quantity of arms has been sent into Abyssinia to equip it.

The Italians have known of the presence of the ' British soldiers and they have tried to locate them, both by land and from the air. Hostile tribesmen have prevented them penetrating by land and it is well-nigh impossible to spot the camp from the air.

The tribesmen are now active against the Italians. They are harassing supply columns, ambushing patrols, and attacking camps and aerodromes.

Other Abyssinians who have crossed the border are being trained in the Sudan.