GERMAN INVENTIVENESS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 56, 6 March 1916, Page 3

GERMAN INVENTIVENESS.

TALES OF GREAT VICTORIES. A fine spirit of patriotism is being exhibited by Private John Fraser Gcurlay, of the South African Field Force, who has gone Home to re-enlist in the British Army after being ten months a prisoner in the hands of the enemy in German South-West Africa.

Private Gourlay, who is 'a native of Pitlochry, and is 21 years of age, was acting on the medical staff, when 200 South Africans, with only two big guns and two maxims, were surrounded at Sandfontein on September 26 last year, after a battld with 2100 Germans which raged from 7 a.m. till 6 P-m. The Germans had also IS big' guns, and 10 Maxims. After the surrender, when the little force had been completely . surrounded, the German commandant congratulated the British commander, Colonel Grant, on his excellent defence ,andf expressed surprise at his being able to hold out so long.

At Namutoni, on June 17, after seven prisoners had escaped, the others were marshalled in the courtyard, when they were told by the German commandant that they seemed to have an altogether wrong impression of the war. He then ggfve out the following “news” as “official.” That Warsaw had fallen on May 11, and that 240,000 Prussian (prisoners had been taken; that on May 12, Calais fell, and General French and 172,000 British prisoners were captured; that the French Fleet had been sunk in the harbour of Calais; on June 9 London was bombarded by land and from the sea by the German troops and navy; that Ireland had ; declared her independence, while ] Scotland had risen against England, and further, that at the end of the war —in about two or three weeks — : it would be an -easy matter for the Kaiser to send out a fleet to put things straight in South West Africa. On July 15 the. Germans at Namutoni, in view of the advance of the South Africans, under General Britz, who had been hoisted the white flag over the fort/and the “prisoners” took possession, at the same time taking five officers and 170 men, 90 wagon loads of provisions, 12 wagon loads of ammunition, and six water-boring machines. Private Gourlay confirms the poisoning of the water well by the Germans at Sandfontein.