100-MILE MARCH ONLY A “STROLL”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29501, 1 May 1961, Page 18

100-MILE MARCH ONLY A “STROLL”

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON. April 30. The 100-mile route march undertaken in the last two days by 15 soldiers from Papakura Army Camp was nothing more than an afternoon stroll, a former prisoner of war claimed in Wellington yesterday. Compared with the notorious forced march through Poland and Germany by New Zealand and other Allied prisoners of war in 1945, the march was nothing outstanding, he said. In the late winter and early spring of 1945 the New

Zealand prisoners marched 1045 miles in 66 days, the former prisoner said. “We left Stalag 8A at Gorlitz in Poland on January 26, 1945, and from then until April 8 we covered 1045 miles. “We had just seven days’ rest—taken at short intervals—during the whole march,” he said. Conditions on the march were atrocious, the former prisoner said. Snow covered the ground for much of the time and at night it was bitterly cold. "It we got wet we just had to dry out the best way we could,” he said. The prisoners slept in barns and open shingle pits and the going was so tough that even some of the German guards collapsed. “We were given one meal a day, consisting of millet, a small chunk of dry bread and sometimes watery soup and despite the fact that most of the New Zealanders on the march had spent four years in captivity on nearstarvation rations, they managed to complete the march,” he said. “We didn’t have neat fitting footwear and warm clothing, either,” he said.