SOLDIER’S DEATH

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27708, 12 July 1955, Page 10

SOLDIER’S DEATH

Claim Made By Relatives (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, July 9. The brother and sister of a South African soldier who “vanished” during the war asked a Bloemfontein Court yesterday to fix the date of his death, the Bloemfontein correspondent of the “Daily Express” said yesterday. a The brother and sister claimed that Sapper Colin Vician Alexander was shot on July 16, 1944. after a trial by a British Military Tribunal, allegedly on a high treason charge. They said he had previously been taken prisoner in Tobruk, and had escaped to Italy in 1943, and lived with an Italian family, whose daughter he married the year he was shot. The “Daily Express” said that evidence was given that Sapper Alexander was the only South African soldier—out of 300,000 —whose file remained open. The Magistrate said it was most strange that a British Military Tribunal—“one could almost call it a foreign tribunal”—would sentence a South African sapper to death and leave no records. He adjourned the hearing. The “Daily Express’’ added this footnote.— “The War Office in London said it was unable to give further information about Sapper Alexander.”