RED CROSS WORK PRAISED

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23940, 6 May 1943, Page 6

RED CROSS WORK PRAISED

MEN REPATRIATED FROM ITALY (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service) CAIRO, May 4. Praise of the work of the Red Cross has been the keynote of all conversations with prisoners recently repatriated from Italy. It is the unanimous opinion of these men that without the Red Cross parcels the food position in the prison camps would have been very bad. The contents of the parcels, incidentally, provided a minor worry tor the prison authorities, who were anxious to conceal these indications of the enemy food supply so that the morale of their own men would not suffer. Abut 61b or 71b—the total weight of one man’s weekly food ration—according to one Australian, did not make up in quality what it lacked m quantity. Another difficulty was the lack of satisfactory cooking facilities, the men being compelled mostly to devise what methods they could for cooking and heating up the additional rations from the Red Cross parcels. Inventive and culinary ingenuity was at a premium. Italian hospitals were considerably better than the camps in many respects, but here again a shortage of food and comforts was apparent. Soap and tea were virtually unprocurable. The treatment of patients was satisfactory and at least the sanitary conditions of the hospitals were a vast improvement on those existing in the camps

The camps, the men stated, are inevitably hotbeds of rumours, but new batches of prisoners are about the only source of news. Italian newspapers seen in the camns hardly mentioned the fall of Tripoli, and a brief paragraph in an obscure corner announced that because of pressure by British forces the city had been evacuated. One former prisoner summed up the position. “It seems silly that we should attempt to air our knowledge of conditions in Italy outside the prison camps." he said. “We weren’t there as tourists, and so saw only what they allowed us to see. We seldom spoke to outsiders, barring an odd English-speaking guard, who was not particularly communicative. It <s hard to believe that we are on the outside looking in after being so long on the inside looking out." The prisoners had been transported to Italy by various means, a few travelling by air. but most by sea. One corporal who was captured at Sidi Rezegh in 1941 was aboard a prison ship which was torpedoed by a submarine off the coast of Greece, with heavy loss of life. The corporal was picked ud with other survivors by an escort ship and was landed in Greece, where he was taken to a temporary prison camp. Conditions there were bad. A blinded Australian sergeant said that in camp in Benghazi no clothing or blankets of any description were provided. The food consisted of ersatz bread and Italian bully beef, often rotten. Dysentery was rife in this camp.

A sergeant pilot spoke of conditions in a small prisoner of war camp at Mersa Matruh, and said that his most Disappointing moment was when he was removed to a camp further back as the advancing Bth Army was only four hours off.

Happiness and relief were the predominating emotions among the returned men. "It all seems unreal,” remarked a New Zealander who had been in Italy for almost a year and a half. "It is hard to realise that I am not only free again but also have prospects of seeing my people again in a short time."