USING TRADESMEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 174, 25 July 1942, Page 6

USING TRADESMEN

FRONT LINE TROOPS

GERMANY'S NEED SHOWN N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent. WESTERN DESERT, July 22. Prisoners captured by the New Zealanders in their latest night attack on the southern sector of the Egyptian line give a valuable indication that Germany is now calling on the skilled tradesman class for front line troops. Several prisoners had been trained as civilian technicians, and one, who expressed Communist sympathies, was at experienced miner from the Saar. "The Nazis are ruining Germany," he said early this morning. The only German prisoner who had been in North Africa for more than 15 days was an infantryman, who had been wounded by the New Zealanders in last winter's campaign. "At last the New Zealanders have taken me," he said. The remainder, whose ages varied from 18 to 45, had been flown to either Tobruk or Dema from Crete. Several Germans, all of whom were from the Fifteenth Panzer Division, had been wounded in the fighting on the northern front of Russia Most of the prisoners taken by the New Zealanders were German The remainder wera Italian, from the Bersagllerl Division.