ON LEAVE IN BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24368, 21 September 1944, Page 3

ON LEAVE IN BRITAIN

RELEASED PRISONERS FROM GERMANY MEN IN HIGH SPIRITS (Official News Service.) LONDON, September 19. Still finding their freedom a little difficult to believe, many oi the 124 New Zealand soldiers and airmen who have just arrived here from Germany through Sweden are going off on leave to places of their choice all over Britain this week. A proportion of the party is meanwhile undergoing further hospital treatment. Most of the repatriated men are members of the N.Z.E.F.— eight and 108 other ranks. In the mam they were taken prisoner during the campaigns of the New Zealand Division in 1941 in Greece, Crete, and are only eight airmen in the party, including Flight Lieutenant L. H Eawards, who had been in German hands since the first week of the war, and Aircraftman II Wallace Brown, who was taken prisoner as a passenger on the ill-fated liner Rangitane and sent to Germany. - , About 80 of the N.Z.E.F officers and men had arrived at the New Zealand reception centre in the beautiful grounds of an old mansion in the Home counties just 9utside London, when the High Commissioner (Mr W. J. Jordan) and Mrs Jordan, with Brigadier R. S. Park, visited them yesterday afternoon to welcome them on be hail of the Government and people of New Z The” men have come straight into New Zealand hands. In fact, a New Zealand doctor was sent to Sweden to travel here with them, and they are gratified to find their own organisation set up here to meet their every need. All are sick, wounded, or protected personnel, and in • spite of the trym| time many of them have had for more than three years their spirits are wonderfully high. They look remarkably well indeed, better than might have been expected. , Transferred from. Italy They have come from a number oi camps in different parts of Germany. A big number of them had been held in Italy until that country’s capitulation, when their hopes of freedom were dashed by the swift action of the Germans in taking over control. The most heartening news they nave brought back is of the grand spirits of thousands of New Zealanders who are still to come from Germany. The New Zealanders, one after another, said: “Our lads and the Aussies just refuse to let the Germans get them down. You ought to see the way they stick up for their rights. The Jerries don’t dare ( try any funny business W Sapper m H. R. Boyce, of Pieton. who was captured at Sidi Rezegh and spent two years in Italy before being sent to Germany, said that the news of the invasion of France acted as a wonderful tonic to morale in prisoner of war Ca ?Tie New Zealanders, he said, had been forecasting dates fo f. i h , e the war. and each time they did hot come true they would cheerfully fix another date. „ On the other hand, the New Zealanders had noted a deepening sense of gloom about the . Germans. They were in contact particularly with the older generation. Young fanatics still seemed convinced that Germany could win the war. and they were full of vague talk about coming secret W pr?vate Norman McCallum oi Napier, who worked as a medical orderly in a camp hospital .about 40 miles from Munich, noticed m his last month there an order prohibiting German troops from listening even to their own radio. No newspapers were issued to them either, he added. All German military patients had been sent before a medical commission, and unless they were in a. serious condition were ordered to rejoin their unite, although many of them had wounds not properly healed. Food Parcels Appreciated Private McCallum, who for some time was the only British orderly in a hospital where the patients included Russians, French, Poles, Jugoslavs, and Americans, also made a remark that was echoed by every man. He said; “I don’t know what we would have done without our food and clothing parcels. I think we would have starved.” Another man, Gunner Mervyn Head, of Rotorua, declared: “We couldn t have existed without them.” Second to Sweden, where they were marvellously received on the way back, the best sight the New Zealanders had since they were captured was the city of Berlin. Strangely enough, their train took them through me German capital in broad daylight, and they were able to look through the windows at some 'of the vast damage caused by Allied bombing. “I- never saw anything like it, said a Maori. Private Pat Teruna, of Tokomaru Bay. “For about 10 miles through the city houses and buildings were completely smashed as far back as we could see on each side of the railway line. If they weren’t heaps of rubble they were just empty shells. Others told how they had seen great formations of Allied bombers pass over their camps. As one said: “We just stood there and stared. What a sight!” Turkish Airmen in Britain.—For three years a steady stream of Turkish Air Force officers has been arriving in Britain for training as pilots by the Royal Air Force. All have attended a Turkish war school from which the youth of Turkey is selected for service in the Turkish army, navy, and air force.—London, Sept. 19.