"TRIGGER HAPPY"

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 59, 7 September 1945, Page 8

"TRIGGER HAPPY"

TRIESTE TENSENESS

2ND N.Z.E.F. TERMINAL

The final warfare for many of the troops who returned to Wellington by the Strathaird yesterday was a period of tension during which anything was liable to happen through an uncertain position arising from the occupation of Trieste. The New Zealand Division went in. They found Tito very belligerent and holding out occupational claims, and they also found his followers "trigger happy."

A policy of offering no hostility was adopted by the New Zealanders in moving into Trieste, but there were several incidents in and around that place, one of them causing casualties. Behind Trieste a number of Germans still held out at Villa Opicuia. They were doing well and had been repelling Tito's men, but, with the war over, they showed a decided objection to surrendering to Tito. They were prepared to surrender to the New Zealanders, and a detachment of the 22nd went forward to receive the surrender and liberate the past prisoners taken in the war. Tito, however, opened up on them, and New Zealanders and Jerries went bank to the Villa, from where they sought further advice as to the position. The information was conveyed that they were operating m Tito territory, and finally the Germans surrendered to Tito. ' Tension remained keen between the New Zealanders and the Yugoslavs. Nothing was done from the New Zealand side to cause a break, but everything was ready for eventualities. The position—described as "a very funny one" by a returned serviceman—was such that a New Zealand tank would be pointing at a Yugoslav house from which guns would be pointing at the New Zealand tank, the distance between being only about 30 or 40 yards. With those precautions, the best was done to patch up feeling. Tito's army had all manner of equipment, much of it looted from the Germans and not a little of a type used in the last war. In the army were many women —"of the Amazon type and armed to the teeth," as one returned man described them. The Trieste women themselves, however, were very different. They were Italians of fairer skin than those in the south of Italy, and fraternisation with them was permitted, even to the extent of their being invited to dances arranged by the New Zealanders. It was stated that quite a few marriages between New Zealand soldiers and Trieste women had taken' place.