KIKUYU CHIEFS ESCAPE

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27037, 12 May 1953, Page 9

KIKUYU CHIEFS ESCAPE

MURDER ATTEMPTS BY MAU MAU (Rec, 8 p.m.) LONDON. May 11. The Nairobi correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says Mau Mau terrorists today shot up and burned a Kikuyu guard camp in their fourth unsuccessful attempt to murder the loyal Kikuyu, Chief Eliud. They killed five guards and wounded three burned down the guardhouse and a motor-car shop, tooted buildings and released prisoners. But Chief Eliud, a former Church of Scotland mission teacher who won the British Empire Medal in April for his anti-Mau Mau activities, escaped with some of his followers through a ring of fire. Royal Air Force Harvard aeroplanes yesterday bombed and machine-gunned the Ihuririo police post in the Othaya location of the Souths Nyeri reserve which was attacked by Mau Mau terrorists 48 hours ago. Military headquarters had received information that the Mau Mau gangsters were there in strength and well dug in, A patrol of troops, police, and Kikuyu Home Guard, with African trackers, was in the Nyeri Reserve seeking the gangs which launched a series of attacks on strongpoints in the reserve in the last few days. The Mau,Mau death-roll in yesterday’s battle with a military patrol near Kanderedu, in the Fort Hall Reserve, rose tonight to at least 32. Song-Writer’s Death.—Frank Panella, a Pittsburgh band leader and composer, who wrote the song “The Old Grey Mare,” died today in his sleep, aged 75.—New York, May 10.