N. AFRICAN VICTORY

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1943, Page 4

N. AFRICAN VICTORY

THANKSGIVING SERVICE.

RUGBY, May 19. The King and Queen, accompanied by Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, this evening attended a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral for the Allied victory m North Africa. The Lord Mayor ot London (Sir Samuel Joseph), carrying the city Pearl Sword, met His Majesty on the Cathedral steps. Behind the King and Queen were the Duchess of Kent, Princess Marie Louise, Princess Helena Victoria, Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, and Lady Louis Mountbatten. Further back were rows of Cabinet Ministers, foreign ministers, members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and high officers of the three services, with distinguished officers of the Allied countries. An impressive part of the service was the singing of the Te Deum. As Their Majesties and the Princesses were leaving, the bells o the Cathedral rang out a mighty peal. AXIS LOSSES LONDON, May 19. Axis losses in Tunisia are giver to-dav in an official statement fipn Allied Headquarters in North Africa Since March 21, when the Bth Armj launched its attack on the Maretl Line, the enemy has lost 324,000 met —3O 000 killed and 27,000 senousb wounded, and 267,000 prisoners. Il the final great battle, which began oi May 5, 224,000 prisoners were taken most of them Germans. MR EDEN'S STATEMENT (Recd. 9.50 a.m.) LONDON, May 2( Axis losses in the Mediterraneai ■ and North African theatres alone , since the beginning of the Battle o : Alamein, and the landing ol Afire ; forces in North Africa, cxcoede 305,000 killed, wounded or tafie

prisoner, said Mr Eden, in a speech at the Conservative Party Conference. They lost 41 warships, including two cruisers, 24 submarines, and a large number of light craft. Five hundred thousand tons of merchant shipping was sunk, and 200,000 tons seriously damaged. Three thousand planes and 1000 tanks were destroyed. A vast quantity of guns, ammunition, vehicles, and other equipment was captured. TRIBUTE TO AIRMEN ~RUGBY, May 20. Air-Marshal Tedder, in a message to the Allied Air Forces in North Africa, said their magnificent team work, together with their comrades on land and sea, had thrown the enemy from Africa. “You have shown the world the unity worth of air power. “A grand job well finished. We face our next job with the knowledge we have of the enemy and the determination to thrash him again.” Air-Marshal Tedder said he was proud to <have been a member of such a team. TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION "rugby, May 20. Interesting information has been published in “The Times” about the administration of the Italian colonial empire, which, with only one exception, has passed entirely to British hands with the conquest of Tripolitania. These large territories, with over three and a half million population, of whom only one hundred thousand are Europeans, are being administered by the British Army. Eritrea presented a specially difficult problem as it produced only a small fraction of the food supply, even for the normal population, which had been swollen by Italian civilians evacuated from Ethiopia. The British Ai’my assumed all military judicial and executive powers on taking over and set up Courts to deal with violence, looting, and spying. All Fascist organisations were dissolved, otherwise the Administration was left more or less intact. Where the Italian staff remained, Italian civil and criminal Courts were allowed to continue. Thus, in Eritrea, almost all Italian officials, remained, and were mostly maintained. In Tripolitania, about four thousand prominent Fascists were deported, but enough of forty thousand Italians remained to staff the services under British control, including urban police. The British Administration staff in a colony such as Tripolitania consists only of 80 or 90 officers. The first immediate problem was food which was either looted by the retiring armies or hoarded by local merchants. The British Army at once distributed cereals, chocolate, and dried milk for children, and issued a small cheap bread ration. Most Italian colonists have now returned to their farms. In Cyrenaica all Italians withdrew with the final retreat of the Axis forces, and new farms created before the war for Italian colonists are now being worked by Arabs. Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Eritrea are now controlled and administered by the Civil Affairs Branch of the Army. The staff at General Headquarters, Middle East, Cairo, and East African Command, Nairobi, are responsible for the former Italian Somaliland, and those Somali districts of Ethiopia, which by agreement with the Emperor remain provisionally under British, control. TANGIER RIGHTS. RUGBY, May 19. The Foreign Secretary (Mr. Eden) was asked in the House of Commons if he would take steps to restore British and French rights at Tangier. He replied that the British rights were fully safeguarded by the modus vivendi reached with Spain early in 1941 pending a final settlement, which could not at present be reached. He was not prepared to make a statement regarding French rights, beyond recalling that the provisional arrangements were expressly concluded without prejudice to the rights of third parties under the relevant international instrument.