British military might in Palestine was displayed today in a parade marking the birthday of King George VI, with members of the U.N. Secretariat reviewing it from stands near the building in which the U.N. Palestine committee will start hearings next Monday.
Earlier in the day, the thirty members of the Secretariat were taken on a tour of the Wailing Wall and other points of interest in the city, conducted by a special liaison committee organized by the government.
The Camel Corps and British infantry units as well as units of the Palestine police and of the Transjordan frontier force composed the major part of the parade. Royal Air Force war planes made an impressive showing in the sky.
Twenty-three Jews who have been under arrest since last summer on a charge of illegal possession of arms were released today on the occasion of the King’s Birthday. They are the last of the nearly 100 settlers of the Birya colony who were arrested during a British raid on Birya last year in a hunt for arms and members of the underground. Others have been released in small groups previously.
Several other men from the Dead Sea settlement of Beth Aarava were also released. They were arrested several months ago during a search of the colony in which arms were found.
HIGH GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN PALESTINE WARNED OF “LETTER BOMBS”
The Palestine secret service today warned high government officials and prominent personalities to be on guard against the expected arrival of “letter bombs” in the mail. A full description of the envelopes in which these letters are expected is given in the warning, which says that such letters have been mailed from a foreign country to Palestine.
Various government offices and all branches of the Palestine Post Office were similarly warned to watch the mails for the explosive missives. The warning was made following receipt of a report that Scotland Yard men had arrested two persons in Italy with “bomb letters” in their possession stamped and addressed to persons in Palestine.
A hastily-mobilized Haganah unit last night intervened to foil an extremist kidnapping of two Jewish drivers and the stealing of their trucks. Shortly after it was learned that the two men and their vehicles had disappeared, the Haganah went to work locating them. Several hours later ten men found the two drivers and freed them. Later the same force discovered and returned the two trucks.
The offices of the Reuter news agency in Tel Aviv were raided tonight by extremists who removed several typewriters and a telephone.
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