DISASTROUS TESTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 254, 30 December 1940, Page 7

DISASTROUS TESTS

GERMAN LOSSES REPORTED

A former Dutch artillery captain recently told of rebellion among Nazi troops training for the invasion of England, and described columns of mutineers being marched back to labour camps their hands tied behind their backs. The story was told by Captain Ter Week", who arrived on the American Export liner Exeter from Lisbon, says the "Chicago Tribune." Other passengers said the German army's morale had suffered such a severe blow through heavy losses of life during practice manoeuvres that invasion of Britain Avas now unlikely. They also reported that occupied France and Holland were teeming with civilian informants who told the British when German ships and self-propelled barges put out into the Channel for "exercise manoeuvres." As a result British submarines and planes were waiting and blasted the troopships out oft the water, killing thousands, A high official of a conquered nation said that German officers told him an attempt to invade England by sea was suicidal and that practice manoeuvres had cost the Germans 10,000 men. 'Robert Solberg, vice-president of the Armco International Corporation, makers of steel and aeroplane parts in France, said he saw bodies of German soldiers being washed ashore every day at a French Channel port. "The Germans made no attempt to actually invade England," he asserted. "They made practice attempts which were repulsed with heavy losses. The news of these exercises slipped through to England and British sugmarines sank the steel barges." Solberg said the long-range guns being used to shell Dover were captured French guns. He said they Avere based near Calais on railroad cars and the British had bombed the area severely.