Parties Reaching England

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20050, 23 September 1939, Page 5

Parties Reaching England

FATE DEEMED “NOT SO BAD” Contact Points On The Western Front PITIFUL SCENES AT AACHEN EVACUATION Germans Using Hidden Trick Traps In Retreat (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Sept. 23, 11 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 22. German prisoners taken on the Western Front have begun to arrive in England. A communique issued by the Ministry of Information announces that a number of German officers arrived in a prison camp in England to-day. Other German prisoners were taken to a second camp. Few people saw the arrival of the prisoners and there were no demonstrations. The prisoners laughed when a woman in a small group of spectators at a station shouted: “Hard luck mate,” to which the prisoner replied: “Not so hard.” The Ministry of Information states that during the course of air operations on Wednesday one German fighter aircraft was shot down by British aircraft in France. A Paris communique states: “There was activity with our contact elements in the regions south of Saarbrucken and east of the River Plies and also artillery action on both sides of the front,”

Brussels reports pitiful scenes accompanying the evacuation of the older inhabitants of Aachen. The police were forced to intervene three times before it was possible to separate the tearful families on .the station, .platforms.. Rationing had been enforced in Aachen before the war commenced, but families already are unable to procure the meagre amounts detailed on the cards and the arrival of troops waiting to be sent to the Saar front is making the situation worse.

The Paris correspondent of The Times recounts that the Germans are using the old tricks employed in the Ilindcnburg Line in their retreats on the Western Front, mines concealed under steel helmets exploding when helmets are picked up and others detonating when the door handles of abandoned cottages are turned. The Germans buried a French officer who was killed during an attack, erected a tomb and laid a wreath and then exploded a mine when French troops in a counter-attack reached the grave and knelt helmetless to pay homage to t heir comrade. The French are gradually clearing uj) hidden traps.