SOLDIER INTO TOURIST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 370, 26 July 1946, Page 22

SOLDIER INTO TOURIST

POOR PEOPLE-POOR US. By John E. Broad. H. H. Tombs Ltd., Wellington. KIWIS ON TOUR IN EGYPT AND ITALY. i A. S. Helm. Whitcombe and Tombs, t F the many books which have been written and will be written by New Zealanders about their war experiences, none will be so moving as those by escaped prisoners of war. Poor People-, Poor Us (a proverb of the Italian countryside) will take its own place in this literature of captivity and liberation. Corporal Broad first attempted to escape in the Western Desert, but was recaptured. Another opportunity did not come to him until September, 1943, when Allied landings in the South encouraged the prisoners at Acqua Fredda, in the hills North of Naples, to escape en masse and march out of camp under the rifles of their demoralised Italian guards. The prisoners had then a crucial decision to make: to attempt to reach the Allied lines at once or to wait in hiding for the expected advances of our troops to bring them release. Corporal Broad chose the latter gamble; he and his companions stayed holed-up in the Appenines in a series of caves and other hiding places shown to them by the peasants who fed them during seven weary winter months when they themselves were practically starving. The selfless devotion of these simple people to these alien prisoners is as amazing ‘as it is magnificent. New Zealanders who have tasted the hospitality of the

Italian peasantry would wish somebody, to be vigilant on their behalf to see that their humble benefactors did not suffer from any similar twist in the whirligig of Italian politics. The men and women who risked their lives daily to succour British prisoners deserve a special respect and gratitude. John Broad’s diary of his life on the run in,the mountains of central Italy, based on day-to-day notes recovered after his escape, is a remarkable record of suffering and endurance. Here and there the book throws interesting sidelights on the states of mind of hunted prisoners of war--for instance, the suggestion that they sometimes "auto-sug-gest" their own recapture by the search. ing enemy. It is a relief to the reader that stich a chronicle of frustration, migery, and suspense ends happily in the prisoners’ ultimate escape to the British lines. Kiwis bn Tour in Egypt and Italy is a pleasant, urbane book at something above the guide-book level recounting the experiences of a level-headed wellinformed New Zealander, partly as a soldier on leave and partly in his cap-, acity as official guide to New Zealand troops visiting Rome. In Egypt Helm visited both Coptic monasteries and some of the lesser known Moslem festivals, and he evidently felt a real desire to meet and understand the Egyptians as human beings. In Italy he summarises much history, but he also writes with (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) modesty and freshness of his own adventures as‘ a war-time tourist who never lost an opportunity of seeing a new place. His book‘ is illustrated by some good architectural photographs.

David

Hall