FOUND IN BENGHAZI

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 27 November 1942, Page 5

FOUND IN BENGHAZI

NEW ZEALANDER WHO ESCAPED Y.M.C.A. WORKER (Official N.Z.E.F. War Correspondent) Cairo, Nov. 24. A lone New Zealander, Albert Duncan, who drives a mobile canteen for the Y.M.C.A., was one of a handful of men who greeted the British troops when they marched into Benghazi last Friday. Hundreds of British Dominion prisoners had been evacuated west a few days before. When he left New Zealand nearly three years ago “Blue” Duncan was in an anti-tank regiment, but later transferred to the Y.M.C.A. Along the road to Mersa Matruh drove Duncan and a friend on the morning of 7th November, convinced that Mersa Matruh was in our hands. A couple of miles from Mersa Matruh they were stopped by a German staff car in which were four German officers and were told pointedly that the war for them was over. That night Duncan and his friend slept out in the desert with a guard of three Germans standing over them. The next day they were taken in a truck to Solium where they arrived in time for one of the main R.A.F. raids. The Germans kept Duncan with them as a kitchen hand, doing odd jobs about the place. “How long I was with them I do not know.” said Duncan, “but I awaited my chance to escape dpy by day. Sometimes I rode in a small car as the Germans retreated, and sometimes in the back of a truck but there was another truck behind to watch my movements.”

It was just before they reached Benghazi on 10th November that Duncan’s long awaited chance came. Just as they were going up an incline with no trucks behind he grabbed a water bottle and six packets of blankets and binoculars and dropped off the back of the lorry. He rolled down a steep bank at the side of the road and lay hiding in the scrub. He then sought refuge in a nearby cave. Day after day and night after night he walked, keeping to the bush by day and using the road only at night. One day he had the good luck to kill a quail but could not cook it, so he ate it raw. One night he watched the Germans plant dynamite in a gorge ready to blow it up before they retreated further westward.

“When I reached the settlement of El Razza on 17th November a kindly Catholic priest called me in and said. •You look like an Englishman in spite of your beard.’ He took me i n and fed me and gave me warm clothes.” said Duncan. “He told me the Germans and Italians were miles away by now and that I could wait there with him until English troops arrived. They came next day. I could hardly believe that I was back among my own people again.”