TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 103, 3 May 1945, Page 7

TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION

N.Z. TROOPS ADVANCE TO MONFALCONE

Rec. 12.20 p.m. LONDON, May 2. The historic meeting of the New Zealand Division with Marshal Tito's forces after a lightning 70-mile advance was more in the nature of a triumphal procession than a military operation, says the correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain with the New Zealanders. General Freyberg's men swept along the highway towards Monfalcone through crowds of Italian civilians who cheered and shouted and covered the ~ Allied tanks with garlands of flowers.

Inside Monfalcone General Freyberg shook hands with Marshal Tito's officers in the main square. They exchanged greetings in front of a husky Italian bearing a placard "Viva Churchill." The walls of nearby buildings bore photos of Marshal Tito. Shortly before reaching Monfalcone the New Zealanders halted when shots came from a building: A German officer emerged and asked for terms, but said, when told that only unconditional surrender would suffice, that he had no power to surrender. The New Zealanders replied that they were very pleased, because they had a* whole division which would soon make short work of his 400 men. The Germans decided to continue the fight —a fight which consisted of the hoisting of a white flag after one tank had fired three shots.