BUSY AS ANTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 February 1940, Page 5

BUSY AS ANTS

BRITISH TROOPS ON BELGIAN

FRONTIER

NETWORK OF DEFENCES UNDER CONSTRUCTION. DISCLOSURE BY SOUTH AFRICAN MINISTER. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, February 2. The South African Minister of Native Affairs, Colonel Reitz, interviewed in Cape Town, revealed that the British Expeditionary Force was holding the Belgian-French frontier. He said the troops were as busy as ants constructing a network of defences in this sector, which was virtually unfortified at the outbreak of war. The barbed-wire entanglements wore already 10 miles deep.

A FLARE UP ACTIVITY ON RHINE SECTOR. ARTILLERY & MACHINEGUNS. (Received This, Day, 9.40 a.m.) PARIS, February 3. The Rhine sector, hitherto very quiet, flared up during the past 24 hours, artillery and machineguns being active for a long time on both sides. FRENCH COMMUNIQUE (Received This Day, 9 a.m.) PARIS, February 2. A war communique states that there is nothing to report. LORD GORT RETURNS AFTER SECRET ABSENCE FROM FRONT. LONDON, February 2. B.E.F. headquarters report that the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort, has returned after a secret absence of ten days in England. GERMAN REPORT OPERATIONS ON WESTERN FRONT. EXCHANGE OF FIRE ON RHINE SECTOR. (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) BERLIN, February 2. A communique states that there is nothing to report. A commentator said armed reconnaissance planes attacked a British patrol boat off the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth.

The enemy, for- no apparent reason, opened a lively machine-gun fire against German positions north-west of Solingen on the Rhine. -The exchange continued for half-an-hour. There were no casualties' on our side.