PRISONERS OF WAR

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 243, 11 September 1940, Page 9

PRISONERS OF WAR

ARRIVAL AT SYDNEY. DRAMATIC JOURNEY. ' "SYDNEY, Sept. 7. A largo number of German and Italian internees and prisoners of war arrived in Sydney yesterday alter an adventurous voyage from England. Sonic had previously been disembarked in Melbourne. The commanding officer of"the British military guard on board the ship told how it had been missed by two torpedoes. Asked about the general behaviour of the prisoners, lie said: “AA’e have had our moments.” The guard consisted largely of Norfolk and Suffolk' men who were in the evacuation of Dunkirk. They made many friends when they visited the city last night. After the ship berthed, the internees boarded a train, which left for a camp which had been built for them.

Reports of rioting among the internees and of attempts to set fire to the ship were specifically denied by officers. It was officially stated, however, that three of the internees died on the voyage. One of them committed suicide during an exercise period by jumping overboard in a sea so heavy that, though lifebuoys were immediately thrown after him, he was not sighted again.. The other two were officially stated to have died from natural causes. It was reported that one of them had some reputation as a boxer, that he attacked one of the guards, and was knocked down by a punch.

HISTORIC OCCASION. It is the first time for 55 years that British troops have landed in Australia, with the exception of the Grenadier Guards’ Band, and the contingent at tho opening of the first Federal Parliament.

Tlie commanding officer of the troop?, who are officially designated as “Q” troops as indicative of the mystery of their assignment, is Lieutenant-Colonel AV. P. Scott, an impressive kilted figure. Colonel Scott lias had three brothers killed during the present war, and two are interned in Germany. Ho told a graphic story of the submarine attack. “AA'e wore in convoy with a ship evacuating children from Britain,” ho said. “An alarm was given, and the children’s ship, with our destroyer escort, steamed off at full speed. AVe were left alone, in charge of all we surveyed. Two torpedoes passed right underneath us. AVe crammed oil all speed, and guns were manned.” A member of the guard said that, during one scare, there was a general panic among the prisoners, and some made a rush for the lifeboats, but the guards restrained them. There was a pause, and a German officer stepped in front of the prisoners-. In an explosive address, given with German military precision, he admonished the men, who returned quietly to their quarters. Colonel Scott said that there was no air attack on tlie ship during the voyage, and after the submarine attack the ship was not molested any further. GERMANS PREDOMINATE. “The internees were fed better than anv British troops are fed,” lie said. “Bv tlie time they reached Australia they had filled out and were dashing around the decks like two-year-olds.*” Colonel Scott said that most of the men brought out had been interned in Britain after tha/iutbreak of war. A number were prisoners of war. Practically all wero Germans and Italians, Germans predominating. No women were aboard.

Asked about the general demeanour and behaviour of the internees, Colonel Scott said: “I would rather not say. AVe 'have had bur moments.” It is understood that there was considerable ill-feeling, breaking out at times to active hostility between the Germans and the Italians.

The men varied greatly in type. Some—usually the younger . ones — laughed gaily as they landed ; others were grave; others surveyed the new land with a sneer.

It was stated that Hitler had arranged for the men. on arrival in Australia, to receive £2 each. Two of the internees refused to accept this bonus, and asked that it be paid into a fund for the purchase of Spitfires for Britain.

One internee was a well-known designer in Germany before tlie war. and was interned in England on the outbreak of war. On the voyage to Australia he did 20 paintings and also sketches of the officers on the ship. It was stated that lie had completed designs for a ballet which might be produced in Sydney this year. GUARDS ON TRAINS.

Before the internees’ ship came in to the wharf a train, complete with guards, was waiting ready ior loading. The internees, dressed in a wide variety of civilian clothes, many carrying small bundles, filed down tlie ship's gangway and into tho train. As each train was filled it pulled out and another backed into its place, receiving, by double-decker bus, its quota of guards. The whole operation was carried out smoothly and showed admirable co-operation between the British and Australian military authorities.

Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent any attempt to escape. The prisoners filed off between British guards, and proceeded to the train lie-tween files of Australian soldiers. Every 30ft along the wharf were men armed with revolvers, and the entire wharf was surrounded by a cordon of police, while the police speed-boat Nemesis cruised round the ship. The disembarkation began soon after ll a.m.. and was completed just before dark. The trains left immediately for a large new hutted camp, organised as three compounds, which had been built to take the internees Most of t'ho internees seemed very young, and they smiled as the trains pulled out from the wharf into the sunshine, as if they were delighted at arriving in a safe country. A large proportion had grown beards during the vovage—not very vigorous growth, as a rule. The result on boyish faces was often almost comical. Many gave the “thumbs-up” sign to onlookers. A number of the older men, however, frowned and scowled through the train windows, looking like cartoons of dan - gerous conspirators as they slirugsred back into their carriages out of the sunshine. MUTUAL DISTRUST.

Outstanding impressions of men of the British Expeditionary Force who acted as guards on the ship is that even a war alliance will never create trust and friendship between Italians and Germans. Also, there is a definite and unbridgeable gulf between tho average German and the German who lias imbibed the Nn.zi doctrine of Hitler as a heady draught of rosy promises of a new * world of German creation and absolute dictation.

“You might as well try to mix oil and water as mix the Italians and the Germans,” said a private of the Suffolks. “It seems strange when you consider that the Nazis and the Italians are having a go at us together. “Stranger still is that the Italians

did not mind mixing with the internees, most of whom were antiGerman. hut they demanded constant supervision so that the avowed Nazis wouldn’t start in on them and make things tough.

“Most remarkable of all to ns of the British Expeditionary Force was the way a number of ex-Austrian and Polish officers who fought with Germany in the last war carried on because they could not have a go at the Germans this time.” QUITE BEWILDERED.

Many of the refugee internees were quite bewildered as to what might be in store for them, explained another private. “This explains why a small Austrian Jew sneaked the uniform of a 15-stone sergeant and tried to escape in it through a porthole in Melbourne,” he added. “It shows he didn’t know what he was doing. He’d have been better off naked.” To tlte men of the British Expeditionary Force a very interesting prisoner was a Herculean Polish exofficer wdio had rendered distinguished service on the Russian front in the last war. He is a big and muscular Pole, who lost no opportunity of taunting the Nazis, individually or in groups. His story is that after the last war he became a prosperous hotel proprietor in Germany, but, because of a dash of Jewish blood, his assets were confiscated, and he has. no knowledge of the whereabouts of his v r ife and son. British Expeditionary Force guards found their shipload a mixed bag. “They were good and bad,” said one.