READ B.B.C. NEWS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31134, 10 August 1966, Page 20

READ B.B.C. NEWS

Prison Camp Service (Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) SYDNEY, August 9. A man who used to read the 8.8. C. news every night to about 80 New Zealanders in a German prisoner of war camp, Stalag 383, is to form an association of former prisoners in Melbourne, after hearing about a planned reunion in Auckland this month. The unofficial 8.8. C. news reader, Mr Neville Whitehead, last week received an invitation to Auckland’s Stalag 383 reunion. He recalled how, as Sergeant Whitehead of the 2/Bth Field Company, he was captured by the Germans in Crete and sent to Stalag 383, at Hohenfels. He said another Melbourne man, Ivan Stevens, had obtained an illegal radio, and he and a few other prisoners used to take down the news every night and relay it to other men in the camp. Sergeant Whitehead was allocated about 10 huts containing the New Zealanders and his job was to read the news to them every night. “At the end of the war the boys gave me a sort of illuminated address for my news reading services,” he said. News of the invitation reached two other former inmates of Stalag 383, Mr J. Williams and Mr C. Strachan, and with Mr Whitehead they have decided to form an association in Melbourne. They said there were between 900 and 1000 Australians in the camp and believe that about 350 are liv : ing in Victoria. Mr Whitehead Is not certain whether he will be able to attend the Auckland reunion at such short notice. “But if I don’t I’ll certainly be writing to them to send my best wishes as their former newt reader," he laid.