BRIGADIER MILES’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH

Southland Times, Issue 25240, 18 December 1943, Page 5

BRIGADIER MILES’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH

(Rec. 7.35 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 15. The Daily Mail’s Geneva cor- ' respondent has revealed that certain important documents were missing from a valise belonging to the New Zealander, Brigadier R. Miles, when he died mysteriously in Spain afterescaping with Brigadier James Hargest from an Italian prison camp and making his way from Switzerland to Spain. Mrs Miles, who lives in London, where she packs war prisoners’ parcels for the Merchant Navy Comforts Fund, has no details of the circumstances under which her husband died. She married Brigadier Miles in England in May 1940 and last saw her husband in Octo-. her 1940, when he went overseas. The New Zealand Government’s London spokesman dismissed as a “fairy talc” the Swiss report that important documents were missing from the personal belongings of Brigadier Miles. The spokesman pointed out that in view of the fact that Brigadier Miles had escaped from the enemy and passed through Switzerland under surveillance of the authorities he was in no position io acquire documents to which any importance could be attached in the circumstances. Brigadier Miles’s death was still a mystery, which would not be cleared up until more reliable information was received.