Joyful Reunion For Repatriated N.Z.E.F. Men

Northern Advocate, 18 May 1943, Page 4

Joyful Reunion For Repatriated N.Z.E.F. Men

(Official N.Z.E.F' News Service) ALEXANDRIA, May 13 While learning that the 90th Light Division had surrendered to General Freyberg in Tunisia, a group of New Zealanders captured by some of the same German infantry in the battle of Sidi Rezegh were landing in Egypt today, after 18 months’ captivity. The first news in English these New Zealanders have seen since November 19, 1941, were stories of the capture oi von Arnim and the end of the North African campaign. They were taken in one of the Eighth Army’s first and toughest battles —a struggle to join up with the Tobruk garrison in the second winter of fighting in Libya. Excited civilians. Red Cross girls and troops on the docks waved newspapers and shouted news to the 400 repatriated men crowding the decks of the two hospital ships that brought them to the end of the last stage of their journey from Italy. Keen as they were for news of the campaign the repatriated New Zealanders showed most enthusiasm for news of their old units. Even before the ships berthed they called down: • Where’s the Div.?” "Where's the Battalion?”

On the decks they were surrounded by friends and Red Cross workers with beer, fruit, cigarettes, newspapers and answers to their dozens of excited questions. Morale High Among P.Q.W. Although, they said, recently captured men had brought news to Italian camps of our successes they found it difficult to believe that the Germans were not still “just on the road somewhere.” Morale in Australian and New Zealand prisoner of war camps in Italy, even among men who had been there up to 24 months, was extremely high, they said. There was no sign cf despondency. All were enthusiastic in the praise of the Red Cross organisation and the weekly parcels. Almost all the 118 New Zealanders had been captured in the desert battles, mainly as “protected” personnel in field dressing stations. The wounded were from several of the main desert battles. One gunner was captured early in the Greek campaign and taken through Albania to Italy.