TOBRUK DEFENDERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 May 1941, Page 6

TOBRUK DEFENDERS

AUSTRALIANS IN GOOD SPIRITS IN SPITE OF FLEAS & OTHER ENEMIES. NEWS SHEET THAT ALWAYS APPEARS. (By 'Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day. 12.20 p.m.) I LONDON. May 21. i The worst enemies of the Tobruk defenders, now besieged for 39 days, are lack of sleep, fleas, boredom and dust, says a British United Press correspondent who has returned to Cairo from the fortress. Hardly a single building in Tobruk has not been hit, but work is still going on inside the town. The harbour and shipping are the dive-bombers’ favourite targets, but ships arrive and unload despite the difficulty of negotiating the harbour because of numerous wrecks. During the last few days, attacks by divebombers have not been so frequent, nor the bombers so numerous. Food and water are plentiful, but beer is unobtainable, which is the only complaint from the Australians, who receive letters regularly and bathe in the Mediterranean despite German planes dive-bombing and machinegunning. The band of the Victorian Regiment daily practises in the open, although the thunder of guns frequently drowns the strains of “Waltzing Matilda,” while the programme is frequently interrupted by a hasty dive into trenches as raiders swoop down. The Australians produce two daily news sheets. One, the “Tobruk Truth,” boasts that it always appears, supporting this claim by coming out after a 1,5001 b bomb had landed on the building in which it is produced.