RELEASED IN BARDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1942, Page 2

RELEASED IN BARDIA

NEARLY SEVEN HUNDRED NEW ZEALANDERS ARRIVAL AT BASE CAMP IN HIGH SPIRITS. ONE MAN KILLED DURING BOMBARDMENT. (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.) CAIRO, January 7. After 37 days as prisoners in Bardia, close on 700 New Zealanders returned to their base camp by train from the Western Desert railhead tonight. Although they were on starvation Nations throughout the whole period in the German compound in Bardia, they were in high spirits. Throughout the terrific naval, Army and Air Force bombardment which was the prelude to the fall of Bardia, only one .New Zealand prisoner was killed. He was away from the compound, gathering firewood, at the time. • ■ ■ Most of the recaptured New Zealanders who arrived tonight were men of the Fifth Brigade, commanded by Brigadier Hargest, M.P. They said the senior officers, including the brigadier, were taken away from Bardia in the first few days. Before the main British onslaught on Bardia started all New Zealand officers and prisoners had been evacuated from the town. Seventy-eight officers are said to have been taken from Bardia in three days. Three hundred New Zealand prisoners were marched to a German hospital ship in one day, but the German skipper refused to take them from Bardia.