PRISONERS AND BOOTY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23946, 13 May 1943, Page 5

PRISONERS AND BOOTY

Axis Losses Mount , Swiftly ROADS LITTERED WITH TRANSPORT (Rec. 7.10 p.m.) LONDON, May 11. A spokesman at Allied Headquarters in Algiers to-night said that prisoners now totalled more than 100,000, and more remained to be counted. Twenty thousand were taken at the entrance to the Cape Bon peninsula. “The Germans seem to have been surprised by the rapidity of the British advance, for the roads are intact and littered with transport and war material which is undamaged,” he said. The spokesman added that what was probably the last tank battle of the campaign was progressing in the Grombalia area between the remnants of the 10th Panzer Division and British armoured elements. The "Daily Express” correspondent in Tunis says that he has been at a prisoners’ camp, where Germans and Italians are flowing in at the rate of 1000 an hour. "The flimsy wire fence cannot enclose all so the remainder just roarp round,” he says. “They don’t attempt to escape. They are famished and exhausted, and cowed to the point where they only want to be cared for." Correspondents at Allied Headquarters in Tunisia say that the picture from the front to-day is of bewildered Germans surrendering in droves with a core of battle-stained troops standing firm as the front crumbles. The end is now approaching, they agree. It is pointed out that enemy reports that the defenders would fight to the last man are false. They are surrendering, in spite of messages from Hitler and Mussolini, which were revealed after prisoners were taken. Reuter’s correspondent states that whole German companies on the northern front gave themselves up, fully equipped with food and ammunition, Infantry from tne best regiments were seen streaming along the roads, some maikng the ”V” sign with their fingers. An amazing scene occurred on the Mateur road, when six cheering Germans drove to meet their captors in an Arab cart drawn by bedecked horses. A message from Bizerte states that 40 haggard men were the only survivors of the 15th Armoured Division, which was the crack panzer formation of the Afrika Korps, and the British 7th Armoured Division’s particular opponent for two years. Major-General Borowietz, commander of the 15th Division, said as he surrendered to the Americans: “There is not a tank, not a gun, not even a grenade left—only 40 tank men.

MARSHAL ROMMEL

STATEMENT BY GERMAN HIGH COMMAND (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON. May 11 A German High Command statement quoted by the Berlin radio says that Marshal Rommel was in Germany Under medical treatment when the British offensive commenced at Alamein. He returned to Africa against the advice of his doctors, and had to remain after the landing of British a nd American lorces in French North Africa Marshal Rommel's health deteriorated, and the Fuehrer ordered him Mler reaching the Gabes position to return to Germany. On March 11 he reported to the Fuehrer’s headquarters ®nd received a decoration from Hitler, ‘who will entrust to him a new task •iter hi* complete recovery.’*