WAS A PRISONER

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3177, 2 October 1942, Page 8

WAS A PRISONER

CAPTURED BY OWN MEN

AUSTRALIAN’S EXPERIENCE

An Australian medical corporal has had the novel experience of being captured by his own troops. He had volunteered to penetrate enemy lines to try to pick'up certain Italian equipment. Dressed in a nondescript uniform, without badges, he wormed his way into the enemy’s position and found what he was looking, for. He still

had a few hours of darkness left and he was just planning to return to his men when, with a blood-curdling yell, Australian troops (burst into the Italian position in a surprise night attack.

They bayoneted some Italians, and rounded up others as prisoners. Included in the prisoners was the medical corporal. His attempts to explain that he was not an Italian did not convince his guards and his explanations were further complicated by the fact that he was afflicted by a bad stutter.

He was hustled back to the Australian lines with the other prisoners and spent the rest of the night and the best part of the following day in a prisoners’ camp before ■ his identity was established.