MANY THOUSANDS LIBERATED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25814, 9 April 1945, Page 6

MANY THOUSANDS LIBERATED

OVER-RUN BY ADVANCE (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Apl. 7.

The War Office announced that it is officially confirmed that 4000 British Commonwealth prisoners were liberated from Stalag 9C, at Mulhausen. There is evidence that British prisoners at two other Oflags were evacuated to the east prior to the arrival of the Allies at the camps. There is no information as to whether the Allies have caught up with the prisoners from these two camps. In addition to the 4000 British prisoners liberated yesterday, another 4000 to 5000 were freed to-day from a camp near Hammelburg, which Seventh Army troops over-ran. The Third Army liberated 320 British officers and 60 men at Legenfeld, south-west of Mulhausen.

The War Office reveals that Oflag 9AZ, at Rotenburg, and Oflag 9AH, at Spangenburg, were evacuated eastward before the Allies reached them.

The Exchange-Telegraph correspondent reports that the Eleventh Armoured Division liberated 46 Jugoslav generals—the entire general staff of the Jugoslav Army of 1941—0 n the fourth anniversary of their capture at Sarajevo. The generals, with 600 other Jugoslav officers, were sitting tired and disconsolate after marching eastward for five days from the prison camp at Osnabruck, when three British reconnaissance tanks passed the house in which they had quarters. One general risking shooting .by the guards, leaped from the window and ran along the roadway waving. A corporal in the last tank spotted him, pulled up, and disarmed the Germans. The generals said there were altogether 2600 Jugoslav officers at Osnabruck of whom Allied air raids had killed 118.