BEATING A RETREAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 101, 1 May 1941, Page 12

BEATING A RETREAT

Among graphic stories told in Sydney by returned Australian soldiers who were wounded in Libya is that ol Carrier-Driver William Henry Clarke, of New South Wales, who, with- his right arm shot off, 'staggered a mile and a halt to safety—and captured an Italian officer on the way. His'mates in the Yaralla Military Hospital per suaded him to tell his part in the Battle of Bardia. "1 '.vas driving a Bren-gun carrier on- a reconnaissance lob outside the town," he said. "1 went over the crest of a hill, slap into hree enemy ranks "■■They;.-say' a good soldier never retreats, but I did— Itrirk and lively, too Thp Italians >r*ored two hit? on my carrier before I got back over the hill. Then my engine rut out. I was iust getting back into the carrier after fixing it when my arm was smashed by a 21b shell from one of the tanks. I began to walk back to shelter a mile and a half away On the way I met a wounded 'talian officer, who threw his Hands in air when he saw me. We took shelter together in a dugout while an ftalian plane bombed us. and then sat side by side in an Australian ambu'snee" .■>•'.;