REPORT DOUBTED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 6, 18 September 1942, Page 5

REPORT DOUBTED

INTERNMENT OF SOLDIERS

HOPE FOR MISSING MEN

No official advice had been received that any New Zealand sailors or soldiers, as was reported recently, were interned following their landing in North Africa from a sunken ship, says the Minister of Defence, Mr ,F. Jones.

The Minister expressed his doubts, so far as New Zealanders were concerned, of a Vichy radio announcement that 800 British, Australian and New Zealand, soldiers and sailors, who reached North Africa after their ship had been sunk in the recent Mediterranean convoy battle, had been sent from Tunisia to Algeria, where they were being interned. The losses from the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Middle East 'were fairly heavy, said the Minister. There Avere still a number of men reported missing in the Greece and Crete campaigns of whom no further Avord had been received, but' occasionally men Avere eventually traced. That gave some hope to anxious next-of-kin.

"One recent case, as an example, was that of the son of the Dominion's High Commissioner in Canada, Mr F. Langstone," said Mr Jones. "For many months lie Avas missing after taking part in the fighting in Greece and Crete, but he has iioav been posted as a prisoner of Avar. A number of our soldiers may have been prisoners of Avar all the time, although posted as missing, and also it is known that some are still in the hills of Greece and Crete."