BACK FROM BARDIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1942, Page 4

BACK FROM BARDIA

RELEASED NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS HARDSHIPS IN CAPTIVITY. ONE SCANTY MEAL PER DAY. (From the N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.) CAIRO, January 8. Dressed in the uniforms of’ Germans and Italians, wearing mostly German caps, and heavily bearded after live weeks’ imprisonment, nearly 700 New Zealanders, who were released when Bardia fell, arrived from the Western Desert last night.

Though ill through lack of food — they were given one scanty meal a day throughout the whole five weeks they were in Bardia—the troops were in high spirits, laughing and joking over their experiences.

The troops brought back with them “Fritz,” a desert dog which went through the whole Libyan campaign with them. “Fritz” was two days old when the New Zealanders left Bagush and went through the frontier wire before the first action of the campaign started. The owner of the dog shared his “bully” with “Fritz" for Christmas dinner. The troops who returned included •the Fifth Brigade headquarters, who were captured near Capuzzo on November 27, elements of the Fifth Field Artillery, Seventh Anti-tank Corps, Fourteenth Light Anti-aircraft Corps, Thirty-fourth Anti-tank Corps, Twenty-second Wellington Battalion, divisional Signals, Machine-gunners, A.S.C., Maoris, and the Seventh Field Engineers. HUNGER & THIRST. The day that Rommel’s tanks went through the Filth Brigade headquarters the New Zealand prisoners were marched by the Huns 18 miles into the perimeter of the Bardia defences. For 24 hours they were without food or water. Together with South Africans, Indians, and British troops, they were herded in a small compound on a headland overlooking Bardia harbour. Day after day they suffered from exposure and lack of proper nouishment. Some of the troops had blankets, but the majority had only their tattered and torn battledress.

The only protection the men had from the biting wind which swept in, bringing rain from the Mediterranean, were crudely-built dugouts. The troops told me they were treated fairly well by the Germans who guarded them the first few days, but they were treated like pigs by the Italians, who took over guard duties later. They were given a plate of macaroni and a piece of mouldy bread once a day. Their Christmas dinner consisted of synthetic rice, two packets of biscuits, 40 tins of “bully,” 201 b. of jam, and 101 b. of cheese among 1100 men. They were also given two caramels and a small issue of cognac. They had two cigarettes a day, with 10 on Christmas Day.

With Bardia cut off from all the German lines of communication—the town was surrounded by British troops and the harbour was in possession of the British Navy—the food and water shortage soon became desperate. As the days passed the faith of the New Zealanders that Bardia would be captured and they would be released never wavered. THE GREAT BOMBARDMENT. Then the greatest naval, air and artillery bombardment of the Libyan campaign started. At midnight on December 30 shells started to crash on the perimeter from all sides, and great flights of bombers pounded the German defences all day. The German and Italian artillery crashed back. Early in the morning of January 2 the Germans started to set light to their stores and equipment. Their artillery had been' wiped out, and only an occasional boom was heard. By 9 o'clock it was over. Bardia had fallen. Throughout the days and nights of the terrific and relentless combined Navy, Army, and Air Force bombardment shells and bombs crashed all around the compound which held our prisoners. Although shells and bombs came dangerously close and splinters flew among them none in the compound were killed or wounded. One New Zealander was killed, but he was away from the compound gathering firewood when he was hit. The New Zealand Divisional Cavalry were the first to go to the rescue of the New Zealanders. Their Bren carriers and the A.F.V.S. loaded their own Christmas parcels and the Divisional Cavalry troops handed over the parcels to the half-starved prisoners. The New Zealanders give fun praise for the treatment they received fro*n the South Africans, who played a major part in the Bardia attack. The South African troops shared their food, water and parcels with the New Zealanders.

Today at the base camp the troops from Bardia are going through a cleaning-up process. They had their first bath since the campaign started, and their first shave for five weeks. They discarded their German uniforms, and are once again spick and span in British battledress. Brigadier. Hargest and the senior officers wet% taken from Bardia by submarine in the first few days. The troops said that 78 officers—New Zealanders, South Africans, Indians, and British—were taken from Bardia by submarine within three days. Only two officers were recaptured, they aie hot New Zealanders.