DIGNITY OUTRAGED

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 282, 27 August 1942, Page 6

DIGNITY OUTRAGED

Small Italian Officer And

Tall Prisoner

' Dominion Special Service

DUNEDIN, August 26. The Italian guards showed very little tendency to offer ill-treatment of the group of prisoners of war of which he was a member, said Lieutenant-Colonel Speight, in a talk to the Dunedin Rotary Club oi’i certain phases of his imprisonment. There bad been one incident, however, which, while it had its humorous side,’ might easily have ended in tragedy. A fanfare of trumpets, with the guards springing Io attention, one tiny indicated the arrival of someone of consequence. A. motor-car drew up, and from it emerged a diminutive Italian officer bursting witli importance. ... The prisoners, in spite of obvious hints from their guards, declined to pay respect to majesty, and from the vantage point of six feet two inches one of them persisted in surveying the little man with undisguised amusement. The officer's dignity was so outraged that he ordered an. Italian rifleman to threaten the offender with a bayonet, and as this did not remove the grin, he gave the order to fire! It took the guard so long to extract a cartridge from his belt, from which cigarettes were spilling over the ground, that the heat of the moment passed, and the command was allowed to lapse.