THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 24, 1939
News Snack Bar
BRITISH TROOPS' FIRST DAYS OF MUD
From DOUGLAS WILLIAMS
WITH THE B.E.F. IN FRANCE
BRITISH TROOPS in the line had their first experience of mud this week as the result of 48 hours' unceasing rain. Fields became bogs and country lanes ankle deep in mud.
Road traffic, however, was not affected, owing to the excellent surface of the French roads, and troop move- ments from the bases towards the forward areas continued in a stream.
Flying has been practically impossible during the last two days, owing to heavy mists. To-day, however, the sun came out for the first time, and I made a tour of a section of our forward position to see how the troops had taken- their first baptism of winter weather.
Nazi Propaganda.
Through Post
A conference attended by Chief Constable J. Horwell, of Scotland
Yard, and officers of the Post Office investigation branch was held at the G.P.O. recently to discuss the ques- tion of preventing German propa- ganda leaflets from being circulated in England through the post.
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£4,000,000 For A.R.P.
the
Birmingham's A.R.P. will cost city not less than £4,000,000, it was disclosed at a meeting of the City Council
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More Rush-Hour 'Buses
More 'buses during the rush-hours in London are provided for in new schedules, affecting 22 routes.
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Royal Oak Victims
Four victims of the sinking of HM.S. Royal Oak, whose bodies had
been landed at Kirkwall, were buried
at sea.
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More Wireless
Licences
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en- At Judge
Windsor Castle
Foreman
Taken at a famous. Naval' training school, where hundreds of re- cruits are being put through an intensive training course before being sent to join, ships on active service. They are in various stages of train- The area I visited was another
ing and as new recruits arrive those who have completed training join section of the old French
the Fleets. Maginot
(Copyright, Fox). Line, dotted with blockhouses and strongly defended' by barbed wire Threw Inkwell and tank traps. Everywhere I found great activity in improving and larging defensive schemes.
Detachments of men, their legs An Austrian, Walter Koch, 25, wrapped in sacking, in lieu of gum male nurse trainee, of Rowton House, boots, as protection against the mud. Fieldgate-street, E., who threw an ink were busily digging in the thick clay
well at Judge Konstam when ap- soil, while others were stringing out
pearing before an enemy alien tribun- barbed wire in front of blockhouses.
al, was seemed in the best of spirits, Thames Police-court.
remanded in despite the all-pervading dampness, and they told me that they had had
All
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their first ration of rum the previous Girl Dropped
To Crowd
day on doctor's orders as a preventive against chills.
a
Mr. George Wilson, a general fore-
man, who served at Windsor Castle in five reigns, has retired on pension
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custody at Leather Control
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The Ministry of Supply announces that an immediate census is being taken of stocks of sole leather and cut soles held by boot and shoe re- pairers.
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P
As I contemplated the gashes of the and new trench lines, the soil wet
A girl in danger of being trapped stickly I thought that soldiers of this when fire broke out at the premises war are so far fortunate in that they of L. G. Hawkins and Co., Tileyard, Girl Who
sleep at night in warm billets, instead York-way, Camden Town, of huddling in dug-outs and rude shelters built along the trench line.
Bad weather is unpleasant, but it is far harder to bear when faced in the open country without protection.
The complete calm along the front
was -res-
Holling- Flashed Torch 30 feet to jumping to
cued by an employee, Mr. shead, who dropped her the crowd below before safety himself.
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continues, and it is daily becoming £350 Snatched In
harder to believe that the Germans will attempt any attack in this sector
so late in the autumn and with winter Street approaching nearer and nearer.
The terrain, soaked in rain and Mr. Kenneth Carpmael, secretary
The Home Secretary declined to recommend a reduction in the senZ. tence on the 19-year-old girl who, at Wisbech, was fined £1 and given a month's imprisonment for flashing an electric torch during the black-out.
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churned into mud, is a great obstacle of the Alpha Manufacturing and Elec- Young Mother to any aggressive action, for the trical Company, was knocked
down
strength of our positions is such that by two men in Cedars-road, Clapham Reprieved no attack could be carried out with- Common, S.W., and robbed of £350. out the heaviest losses material.
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after Forty-eight hours
she had of men and Mr. Carpmael had been to a bank in
Lavender-hill and was walking up been sentenced to death at Taunton Meanwhile the army goes whistling the drive leading to his office when Assizes for murdering her five-month- about its work, preparing none the he was attacked. The men, snatch✩ old son, the Home Secretary has re- The G.P.O. issued 683,368 wireless less energetically for an emergency, ing the case in which he was carrying commended a reprieve for Winifred Licences last month when the ap- even though it may be postponed to the money, jumped into a waiting Mary Watts, 19, unmarried, of Ashill, proximate total of licences in force the spring.
near Ilminster. was 9,085,050, aš compared with
8,757,480 at the end of September last
year.
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11,000 Miles To Join Up
Arthur. Nixon Shaw, native of Liverpool, who served in France and Belgium during the Täst war, has travelled 11,000 miles from Mufulira, Northern Rhodesia, to offer his ser- vices.
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Solicitor For Trial
David Morton Milner, of Vanbrugh Hill, Blackheath, S.E. practising -as Milner and Bickford, of High Hol- born, was committed for. trial, at Bow-street, charged with the frau- dulent conversion of £6,873.
Lifeboat Saves
Trawler
was
The Humber lifeboat, which called out to the rescue of a trawler, the Dane, ashore on the Binks Sands, at the mouth of the Humber," took with her 150 fathoms of wire and towed the trawler free.
car.
SCOTTISH PIT DISASTER.-O.P.8. Resque squads bringing in a victim of the
(Copyrig
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