AXIS PRISONERS IN AFRICA

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23947, 14 May 1943, Page 5

AXIS PRISONERS IN AFRICA

400,000 In Three Years 150,000 SINCE MAY 5 (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7,10 p.m.) LONDON. May 12. Of the 150,000 prisoners taken since Mav 5, about 110,000 are Germans and 40,000 Italians. Since Italy declared war, nearly 400,000 Axis prisoners have been captured in Africa, including 26 Italian and 11 German divisions. General von Arnim, Supreme Commander of the Axis forces in Tunisia, who was captured this afternoon on the Cape Bon peninsula, is a panzer expert and a fanatical Nazi. He was the commander of a panzer division in the early days of the Russian war, and later went to Libya as Marshal Rommel’s lieutenant. Last December he took over from General Nehring as commander in Tunisia, and in March he succeeded Marshal Rommel. In addition to General von Arnim, 11 German and Italian generals have been captured in Tunisia, including Major-General Count von Sponcck, commanding the 90th German Light

Infantry Division, and Major-General Kroich, commanding the 10th German Armoured Division. Many other leading German tank, artillery, and air officers have been captured. The Columbia Broadcasting System's correspondent in Algiers says that a French general had the pleasure of accepting the unconditional surrender of about 10,000 Axis troops in the mountains south of Zaghouan. The troops, mostly Italians, were fighting under a German, General Pfeiffer. A correspondent at Mejez el Bab of the Associated Press of Great Britain, describing the arrival of enemy prisoners, says: “Axis troops in the darkness before dawn drove themselves to prison camps in u very strange procession for 90 miles from the tip of Cape Bon to this bomb-scarred hamlet. Italian and German soldiers, crowded m every kind of vehicle belonging to their armies, came in file, almost bumper to bumper, through the former battleground. They drove about 50 miles between Cape Bon and Tunis without any sort of British escort. There was not a single report of any prisoner trying to escape into the countryside, though this would have been easy.” “It is incredible,” said a British major as he watched prisoners being rounded up at Cape Bon. The major, who had been through Dunkirk, continued: "They had plenty of guns, damned good positions, and millions of mines. They could have put up a terrific fight, but they just packed up. Our retreat in France was nothing like this. We fought back every yard." The correspondent of the British United Press says that dozens of prisoners came tc him from the fields with their hands up. They surrendered to anyone in an Allied uniform. The British forces drove into the German positions regardless of any danger. Sometimes a German pocket in the hills opened up fire, but the Tommies merely went in and cleaned then. up. They found the resistance half-hearted. Remnants of the Hermann Goenng Division at one stage unleashed a terrific barrage in the hills on the western coast of the peninsula, and then, crazy as it seems, they stopped and walked out on to the roads with their hands raised. Axis Casualties "In addition to the 150.000 prisoners knocked into surrender by the Allied thunderbolt offensive, the Axis also lost between 20.000 and 30.000 killed and wounded in the final phase of the campaign,” says the correspondent of the British United Press at Allied Headquarters. It is reported from Tunisia that the Italian Ist Army rejected a demand to surrender made by the General Officer Commanding the New Zealand Division (Lieutenant-General Freyberg). Giving details of the rejection ’ y General Messe of General Freybcrg’s demand, the Rome radio stated: “Our troops decided to oppose the enemy to the bitter end. The enemy sent an emissary asking us to surrender, but we sent him back to his own lines bearing our proud refusal. Soldiers of the Ist Italian Army to-day are fighting the final battle—a battle of honour.” “The first lesson of Tunisia is that the Germans, unlike the British, are not backs to the wall fighters,” says the “New York Times” in a loading article. “As long as there is hope of victory the Germans are as brave as any soldiers, but as soon as the odds turn against them they are quick to throw up their hands. That is what happened in 1918. that is what has happened in North Africa, and that is what is likely to happen in Germany, in spite of Hitler’s Elite Guards, once the Allied performance in Tunisia is repeated on a proportionate scale in Europe, "The second lesson is that attack is more promising and less costly than defence. The African campaign cost the Axis more than 75,000 troops. Allied losses were a fraction of this toll, and, counting prisoners, they appear to be less than one-tenth. The final lesson is that the Axis catastrophe, coming after Stalingrad, has shaken all Europe, making an immediate following up of the blows against the fortress of Europe imperative before the impact has worn off.”

FOOD SHORTAGE IN FRANCE

OPERATIONS IN BLACK MARKET lB o.W.) RUGBY, May 12. Emphasising France’s desperate food situation, the Paris radio's commentator, Jean Paquis, declared that France would soon be a country of dead or half-dead people which the Allies would not need to invade. “Millions of Frenchmen are hungry because of the incompetence of a handful of men who do not know how to deal with the food situation,” he declared. “Frenchmen have to live on rations which the black market is generous enough to leave in the shops. The Government’s black-market regulations are not only out of date, but they are usually applied by madmen. It would need an army of hangmen to deal with France’s black-market operators. One would think that an underground sabotage organisation was handling the black markets in France. "French peasants last year slaughtered over 200.000 cattle illegally. The Government needs to take ruthless steps to avoid disaster.”