IN HIGH HEART

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 July 1941, Page 5

IN HIGH HEART

THE EMPIRE GARRISON OF TOBRUK CONFIDENCE IN POWERFUL DEFENCES. NOBLE CONDUCT OF NURSES PRAISED. I British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) RUGBY, June 30. Describing his experiences on a visit to Tobruk, an agency war correspondent, who arrived there in an Australian ship with an allAustralian .crew, says the fortress is manned by a typically representative Empire garrison. He had long talks with officers of the Royal Canadian Navy, one of whom described the magnificent conduct of British, Australian and Indian nurses.

The officer said: "They took it all as part of their job, helping their wounded charges from the ship and then turning to give assistance to new casualties caused by bombing. We saw with our own eyes that the women of the Empire can take all the horrors that Goering can rain from the skies — and can take it without a murmur."

The correspondent visited pillbox posts on the edge of the perimeter, where he found the Australian troops in high spirits. Just beyond the barbed wire he saw the remains of three German tanks and between them the graves of three German dead.

Tobruk itself is badly shattered by bombs, and occasionally shells from long-range guns fall in the town, but the garrison goes about constantly strengthening the defences and is ready for the next attack. “Tobruk is the most strongly-defended town on any of the war fronts.” he was told. “We have plenty of Italian guns and plenty of ammunition too, as well as our own stuff. Every second man here has a machine-gun.”

The spirit of the whole garrison, the correspondent says, is summed up in the remark of some Canadians: “This certainly is a break for us, to get into this.”