SHATTERED TOWN
DESCRIBED BY 8.8. C. OBSERVER FIRST CORRESPONDENT TO ENTER. SOME ASTONISHING SIGHTS. j "Italian troops were still in the j streets. Snipers' bullets were whist- ■ ling round* us. Fierce fires were blaz- , ing and barracks were burning, i Elsewhere Italian officers and men ; were gathering preparatory to sur- ■ rendering." This was the scene inI side Bardia which confronted Mr Rij chard Dimbleby, the 8.8. C. observer i m the Middle East, when he arrived i in the town soon after its fall to the i British Imperial assault. Mr Dimbleby was the first correspondent to enter Bardia and his dispatch was sent from the centre of the j town by radio-telephone to London, whence it was broadcast yesterday. Describing the attack, the correspondent said that events moved so fast that advance Australian troops standing by were warned that they would j be wanted in a few hours for the final ] assault. "I had managed to reach the I Australian divisional headquarters in i the Fort Capuzzo area when the news! came through, and I received permts-. sion to proceed to Bardia." he said.; "We drove along the Capuzzo-Bardia | road, which had been bombed and I shelled daily since the beginning of’ the campaign. Italian guns were still; searching for us and some shells fell ' uncomfortably close.
j RAIN OF SHELLS. ! "We drove through this rain of shell; | and at the same time heard the noise • of our shells whistling overhead tc I burst in Bardia. . . . XVe were apI proaching the extreme forward area ! Burnt out cars and lorries littered the road. The shelling caused a great pat" of smoko to rise into the air. anc through this our tanks. Bren carriers and we ourselves passed. Reaching high ground we had our first view of . Bardia. j "I was driving our truck. When nearing Bardia we saw an astonishing I sight—crowds of enemy officers and j men with their arms. They had not i been captured and should have been fighting. They could probably have 1 shot the lot of us. but they did not. > They just watched us drive through. . They knew that their fortress had fallen and were gathering voluntarily to I surrender. Many of them ran up to > us crying ‘Surrender.’ “THIS PITIFUL CROWD.” "Through this pitiful crowd we pas- , sed and were the first to reach the town apart from the patrols who were . already inside. The town was already ’ in flames. Italian troops in the streets were making ready to surrender. Others were cowering in cellars and other hiding places. At the foot of a cliff Australian troops found hundreds of soldiers hiding as well as naval ratings. "There were three small ships in the harbour, one of which had been sunk A little black goat ran along the main street crying for its mother, but its mother, like everything else, could not bo found. Generals and high staff officers were nowhere to be found, though they left a fully-laid dinner table in thUmcss. Flags, emblems and a bronze head of Mussolini were left in dreadful solitary state. "This was Bardia. praised, extolled and boosted bastion of the Italians in Libya, cornerstone of the Fascist North African Empire. This was Bardia, now only another step in the ad-, vance of our troops to the west.” ;
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1941, Page 5
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551SHATTERED TOWN Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1941, Page 5
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