ENEMY PRISONERS

Grey River Argus, 19 December 1941, Page 8

ENEMY PRISONERS

How They Behave ITALIANS CONTRASTED WITH GERMANS. (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service). (Rec. 11.30) CAIRO, Dec. 17. As General von Rommel’s North African forces have slowly but surely been pushed back beyond the Tobruk perimeter, the New Zealanders are in the midst of very fierce fighting. They have been able to contri-

bute a large part to a great number of Nazi and Fascist prisoners which from the very opening days of the campaign commenced filling British prisoners of war cages. Day after day they brought in, sometimes, surly groups of two and three and others of khaki and blue masses numbering hundreds. The later davs of the first stage of of the campaign most prisoners were hungry and thirsty, and their clothes were badly mauled by weeks of severe and unrelenting lighting. Many expressed relief at being thus delivered from the struggle. Most Italians were definitely cheerful, but the Germans in the majority of cases were silent and surly. Some of the more talkative openly declared the hope of their being freed, even when it apparently was utterly impossible. One large cage contained severa l hundred Nazis. A number of them told their guards that Stukas would come over and drop rifles and ammunition. “I would like to see them try,” said the guard, recounting the story. A very ironical turn-table predicament was that hundreds of German and Italian prisoners were incarcerated in a great cage in the Tobruk perimeter It is a huge pretentious affair that Italians built under direction of Marshal Graziani for those thousands of shadow British prisoners which never took form. Several feet within a high plastered gate Il Duce’s courageous minions are now doing such menial tasks of peeling vegetables. However, they mainly are doing so quite cheerfully. It was a fairly common spectacle to see about a score of Italians working together, when suddenly at the instignation of their song, leader, they would break into the melodious strains of “Il Bacio" and “H Trovatore.” Most of them have fine voices and a natural aptitude for music. Meanwhile the Germans stand silently and half sneeringly, as though unable to understand why men could sing- in such a predicament while the Nazi-Fascist hold of North Africa was steadily being wrenched away. One Italain is kept steadily employed in hair-cutting. Before the war he was a well-known woman’s hairdresser in Milan. Now he. is clipping the shaggy desert, locks of hi!British guards, and of h ;< = own comrades. He is content, with th« reward of getting off road-working; which is the principal employment for the Italian prisoners in the Tobruk area. Not a day used to pass without a German gun seat of the perimeter opening up and lobbing shells in the direction of the cage, and often there were casualties amongst the Germans and Italians. Despite the Germans being advised what they were doing to their own kinsmen and allies, they continued unnatural, intermittent' bombardments. Most German and Italian prisoners alike expressed admiration for New Zealanders, whom they described as hard, fair fighters.