7.
THE CHINA MAIL, JULY 28, 1941.
CHINA MAIL
WINDSOR HOUSE
NAZIS IN NORWAY
Fresh evidence of what happens to the people of a law-abiding and peaceful country when the German Army has crushed out or- ganised resistance and the Nazi Gestapo has taken over control is supplied in the documents seized in the British raid on the Norwegian Lofoten Islands and summarised | in a White Paper. All freedom has vanished in Norway. The Gestapo rules supreme, with thel native police coerced into: acting as its instrument.! Gestapo authority is prac-| tically unlimited. It may} forbid a Norwegian to practice his trade or pro-, fession, prohibit assem- blies or judicial inquiries,! suspend pensions, levy prices, or confiscate all a man's possessions and send him to gaul or to his death. Even the conquering army is instructed not to inter- fere with the new misrule. It may act only if called upon to enforce compli- ance with Gestapo edicts.
Yet careful reading of the documents reveals something more; some- thing which German pro- paganda would hardly
TEACHER: MENTA-SAN, WHAT IS THE SIZE OF THE JAPANESE
EMPIRE 7
MENTA-SAN: PLEASE TEA CHER, WE HAVEN'T YET READ THE MORNING PAPER.
Wind, Sand---
And
War
The temperature usually is well over 100, and if the wind, as it often does at this season, kicks up a sand storm, it creates an inferns which it needs a Dante to describe
the
or carry battle back to Mussolini. He lives in a trailer captured from some! Italian general in the British of- fensive of last Winter. It is one of a number of widely dispersed
in the upen, plain, In it the general has a bedding roll, a little table 011 which to work and an
wish the world to know. "IN the Solum area our patrols of the Khamsin justify any one in German advance
were again active," says the murdering his wife. Norwegians, despite close Cairo communique. That does not espionage and the severest tell much except that the war still Is on in this burning waste of regulations, are still fight-sand. ruck and desert scrub ing back as best they can. through which runs the Libyan-
vehicles, standing Egyptam frontier, marked by Sand, pulverised to the nenes A letter of instruction to Mussolin's barbed wire fence. of flour, gets into everything. 11 the German police com-But behind such brief and vague is septic and slight scratches be-
communiques is bravery and en- come festering sores. plains of Norwegian un-durance in the midst of extreme The detailed ordnance naps ceaseless show place names on the escarp- willingness to accept physical hardship and
vous strain which must be ment, but these names usually in- 'domination and their set seen to be fully grasped.
dicate only a point where faint Perhaps the nature of the fight- caravan tracks cross, perhaps the tomb of some Arab saint. There the understood if the setting is sketch- are a few fortresses built by the Italians, such as Capuzzo, which
determination to remain] ing in this desert can best be anti-German. "At
Mediterranean shore where
the
By- Harold Denny
electrici light. That is about all. His meals: are brought from the cook teul some yards away.
C
*
*
The morale, courage and endur- ance of these British desert fight- ers are beyond praise.
Many of them have been campaigning con- critical moment," it says,d first.
The Western Desert is one of
stantly for seven months without "they pursue a deliberate most
the
disagreeable places
a day's rest or leave, through General Wavell's drive of last; policy of holding back and which ever became the stage for
Winter clear to Benghazi, then waiting to see in order to military campaign. It has none of the relieving beauty often found
back in that disappointing retreat, and now out here patrolling, gain time." They make in the Sahara or our own South-
harassing and defending the west- "only a pretence" of fall-western desert. Except along the
ern approaches to Egypt. They ing in with German poli- turquoise waters break over jag-
admit that they are tired, but they onure the scene of frequent patrol remain cheery and uncomplaining. cies-policies which would ged white rocks and roll in
sandy beach, as at Mersa Matruh, encounters, and Sofafl on the relegate them to the role where ages ago Cleopatra used to height at the edge of the escarp-
it is ment.
Here is what it is like when of obedient serfs of their go bathing with Antony,
stark ugliness.
Distances are staggering. From you reach the absolute front: German masters. Their
Cairo to Solum is 375 miles as the From Solum southeastward runs
Our little party of two corres-j bomber flies. From Solum dividing old organisations have a ridge sharply
the
pondents, British conducting| Benghazi it is almost as far. From oficer and a chauffeur, found the coastal plain from the desert been dissolved and pro- plateau. The only towns are sun-Benghazi to Tripoli it is nearly main body of the striking force of
600 miles. Over these vast ex- the campaign in a hibited, yet they refuse to baked settlements paced along the
wide sandy a strenuous go in under the pettyallway which hugs the coast and panses both the British and Axis plain at dusk after
highway, now badly marked by generals must move men, muni-day, during which, divided into Quislings and promoted British naval guns, which carries tions, food and water. So when three columns, they had driven traitors placed in authori-on westward from the railhead at you read that one side or the other the Axis forces from Egypt, all
Merga Matruh. After Mersa, advances, say, thirty
miles. it
D
ty over them. Wholesale Matruh there is not a whole build- means little,
Journeying from Cairo to the winding gash near Solum which
dreds of miles of
dead
plain.
Page
Asufficient quantily
of MILK daily, is necessary for the maintenance
of
health & energy
DAIRY
FARM
MILK
ts: most
beneficial form
DAIRY
It's Fresh from the Farm. It's sull Fresh when you get it.
Pasteurised.
Certified T. B. Free.
bottle individual- sealed
HESE FACTS MAKE
the
DAIRY FARM MILK
WHAT IT IS
canned
except one body which held out In Hellfire Pass-that two-mild arrests have failed to pre-ing among all these towns. They
British were utterly wrecked in last Win- front you see
activity leads from the escarpment- down vent sabotage; strikes do ter's fighting
everywhere, but for military rea- to the coastal plain. The officers' take place. Norwegian On the escarpment-the desert sons little of it can be described mess was a lean-to tent, furnished homeĥolders refuse to plateau-there is nothing but hun here. Fur out in the desert you with folding tables and chairs,
come upon advanced headquarters pitched against the side of take in Germans seeking There is no water except from so well hidden you might walk cook ruck. The cook was..concoct
to over it without knowing it Deeping a satisfying dinner from bully
and pore beef, canned salad lodgings and persist in rare brackish wells, nothing
make human life possible; Even below the ground officers boycotting the few pro-the Bedouins, who apparently over maps and order new, disfruit, washed down with tea could scratch out a living from positions for the men up forward Whisky and sodas were served in German Norwegians.
the surface of the moon, have not them of the shifting situation...
as spluttering messages inform our honour.
The officers were tired; some of} tried to live much in this waste:
In another dugout a high R.A.F. them were unshaven; most of them Nazism is finding. It aOccasionally you encounter a hord commander plots the movements had not slept for forty-eight hours, | tough job to remold this of gazelles, scorpions, and dead of his fliers on map. He is in and they did not know when they sturdy people to its patty little vipers the
almost, minute-by-minute contact would sleep again; for they were asp which
with them, now ordering a bomb to move out again that evening) tern of subservience. Cleopatra put to her bosom. Little
some. British column. having: a It was rather amusing to find 'There is evident in these
hard time, now dispatching fight the major of the famous papers an uneasiness as to
This is the season of the Kham-ers to shoot down and drive off Regiment--those most Guard HONG KONG what will happen in Nor.sin, that hot wind which sweeps German bombers punishing a turned out officers in the world
northward from the depths of British ground unit.
with a two days" beard and circles way when the tide turns this desiccated plain and is as Further forward you call on of reddish mud around his mouth the general. who is directly, com- and eyes where he had rubbed his against the whole dicta-wilting as the breath from
furnace. It punishes and depresses, manding, the British: columns. torial system.
The Bedouing say that five days which are trying to counter the
barest desert;
Telse is living
ing squadron to go to the ald of
די
for another crack at the Germans.
(Continued - on "Rago. 10))
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& SAFEST IN