KING AT TRIPOLI

Grey River Argus, 8 July 1943, Page 8

KING AT TRIPOLI

PRECAUTIONS FOR SAFETY. RUGBY, June. 23. The King, after .leaving Malta, visited Tripoli. A delayed dispatch savs that the Eighth Army put on a full-dav show for him. on Monday, most impressive in its' display of might and numbers, but even more impressive as a demonstration of Empire- solidarity and co-operation. Among the troops the King saw on his day-long tour were English, South Africans, New Zealanders, Sudanese, Indians. Mauritians, Palestinnians, Basoutlanders, East Africans and Swazis, and also Free French and American Air Force units who have been fighting with the Desert forces. A Free French motor launch had the honour of bringing the King ashore at Tripoli. General Montgomery greeted him, and the King insoected guards of honour drawn up on the dock. Waiting to seem him were the Grand Mufti, the Chief Rabbi of Tripolitania, and the chief matrons of three branches of the Empire troops’ nursing service. The Grand Mufti and Chief Rabbi were the onlv civilians the King saw all day. All civilians had been carefully excluded from the streets along the route and houses were shuttered, while soldiers armed with tommyguns patrolled roof-tops and roadsides as a pecaution for the King’s safety. In former Axis territory, the King’s caravan proceeded along miles of asphalt softening in the blazing sun and across vast stretches of sand and brush. Outside an enormous field hospital were convalescent patients and nurses cheering the King’s passage, and in the shade there was a long line of hospital beds containing patients who were unable to stand but who insisted on being allowed to see the King. His Majesty broke his arduous day s travel in the hot sun for morning tea at a roadside canteen and had lunch at the Army Headquarters mess. The afternoon was again devoted to an inspection of Eighth Army units, including Free French who fought so valiantly across the’ desert with General Montgomery’s men. The King had tea with the “cherry pickers,” the 11th Hussars, who vied with the Derbyshire Yeomanry for the honour of being the first in Tunis The 11th Hussars is the first regiment of which the King was Colonel-in-Chief.