LEFT HOLDING BAG

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 May 1943, Page 3

LEFT HOLDING BAG

GERMAN TROOPS IN TUNISIA MORALE SAID TO BE SAGGING. RUMOURS ABOUT REMOVAL OF LEADERS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, May 6. The morale of the German troops in Tunisia has been affected by rumours about the removal of Field-Marshal Rommel, General von Arnim, and many senior staff officers, to Europe, while the troops are left holding the bag, says Reuter’s correspondent with the United States forces on the Mateur front. The prisoners, he says, indicate that their feeling of hopelessness is heightened by empty stomachs. Some men who were captured from the crack Barenthin Division- in the Jafsa area had not eaten for three days. Some Germans at an advanced mountain post were told not to retreat on pain of being shot. When they went back after running out of ammunition, German officers shot them on the spot. The Germans who related this were taken from fox-holes where they had been crouching for three days, realising that it was equally hopeless to advance or retreat.

TALKING again

MUSSOLINI’S FEEBLE BLUSTER. SAYS ITALIANS WILL RETURN TO AFRICA. LONDON, May 5. The Rome radio said that Mussolini, addressing a crowd from the balcony over the Piazza Venezia, said: “We will return to Africa. God is just and Italy is immortal; we will win. “The creation of Italy’s African empire was announced from this balcony seven years ago. It is not finished; this is not the end of our development, but merely a pause. Many millions of Italians are suffering from ‘African sickness,’ and the only way to cure it is to return to Africa. “Three demands dominate the Italian people; first, honour for fighters; secondly, contempt for cowards; thirdly, bullets for traitors.”

USE OF MINES

TO DELAY ALLIED ADVANCE. MUCH RELIED ON BY ENEMY IN TUNISIA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 10.35 a.m.) RUGBY. May 6. The enemy’s lavish use of land mines in Tunisia, to delay as far as possible the Allied advance, while he organises defence positions in the rear, is described by a radio commentator in Tunisia. The French have encountered thick minefields in the neighbourhood of Pont du Fahs, and mines, in cleverly sited hill positions, have impeded attacks on Jebel Zaghouan, twelve miles to the east. Further east, on the coastal sector, where the Eighth Army is battling its way through the hills, there are many cunningly-placed mines to contend with. None the less. Eighth Army patrols have been able to penetrate deeply into the enemy’s positions.