FEELING BITTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1942, Page 3

FEELING BITTER

DESERTED ITALIANS. LEFT TO BE ROUNDED UP LIKE SHEEP. LONDON, November 8. “Italian prisoners are bitter at the way their German friends deserted them—virtually delivered them into our hands,” an observer says. “These shoals of Mussolini’s infantry hadn’t even a chance to be routed, but only like sheep to be rounded up.” Another correspondent says that at the Daba railway station yard fullyloaded railway wagons were left behind by the enemy. On the road to the west, he said, it was an amazing sight—a shambles of wrecked vehicles, blown-up,,burnt-out, or just standing, apparently whole but with their loads strewn out across the ground behind them. Along the road passed convoy after convoy of prisoners. From the commanding officer of a tank unit south of Fuka the correspondent heard how the shambles had come about. He said, “During Wednesday afternoon I was ordered to take the brigade and find the southern flank of the enemy. We moved out into more open country, and about 10 a.m. on Thursday we found large columns of the enemy streaming westward down the main road. This was quickly blocked by two of the regiments, and a number of enemy tanks, guns, and vehicles were destroyed, and over 1000 prisoners taken.”