OUT OF CAPTIVITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 May 1943, Page 3

OUT OF CAPTIVITY

NEW ZEALANDERS RETURN TO EGYPT HIGH MORALE IN PRISON CAMPS. RED CROSS ORGANISATION PRAISED. (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) ALEXANDRIA, May 13. While the world was learning that the 19th Light Division had surrendered to Lieutenant-General Freyberg in Tunisia a group of New Zealanders who were captured by some of the same German infantry in the battle of Sidi Rezegh, in Cyrenaica, were landing in Egypt today after 18 months of captivity. The first news in English that these New Zealanders had seen since November 19, 1941, were stories of the capture of General von Arnim and the end of the North African campaign. They were taken in one of the Eighth Army’s first and toughest battles—the struggle to join up with the Tobruk garrison in the second winter of fighting in Libya. They have returned to find that at least 150,000 Axis prisoners are in British camps after the last major battle in Africa. Excited civilians, Red Cross girls and troops on the docks waved newspapers and shouted the news to 400 repatriated men who were crowding the decks of two hospital ships which brought them to the end of the last stage of their journey from Italy. Keen as they were for news of the campaign, the repatriated New Zealanders showed most enthusiasm for news of their old units. Even before the ships had berthed they called down: “Where’s the Div.? Where’s the battalion?” On the docks they were surrounded by friends and Red Cross workers with beer, fruit, cigarettes, newspapers and answers to their dozens of excited questions. Though they said that re-cently-captured men had brought news to the Italian camps of our successes, they found it difficult to believe that the Germans were not still “just on the:road somewhere.” The morale in the Australian and New Zealand prisoner of war camps in Italy, even among the men who had been there up to 24 months, was extremely high, they said. There was no sign of despondency. All were enthusiastic in praise of the Red Cross organisation of weekly parcels. Almost all the 108 New Zealanders had been captured in desert battles, mainly as protected personnel in field dressing stations. The wounded were from several of the main desert battles. One gunner was captured early in the Greek campaign and taken through Albania to Italy. Among the party is Driver George H. K. Jowett, Masterton.