British Correspondent Describes Jewish Participation in Battle on Libyan Front

Jewish participation in the battle on the Libyan front is described by the special correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph assigned to the British army there.

“Far in the desert,” the correspondent writes, “at no great distance from the enemy, it was my curious experience to sit in a dug-out talking of German books and valleys, with two men who were German-born, one of holidays in the Bavarian and Tyrolese valleys, with two men who were German-born. One of them was an ex-officer of the Austrian Army. They were British uniforms, the ex-officer being a staff sergeant and his friend a lieutenant of the Palestine Volunteer Pioneer Corps, which does hard work on this front, work all the more valuable because of the labor dearth in this part of the world.

“It is a corps remarkably composed,” he continues. “Even within the small detachment I visited twenty different languages are spoken, while included in it are German-born professional men, illiterate Yemenite Jews as dark as Arabs, and Abyssinian Jews who are as black as Negroes. The corps first saw service in Greece and Crete, where it suffered a high proportion of losses.

“For long months now these men have been working in the desert, the common inspiration of all, however different in type and origin, being a conviction that only in the victory of British arms lies a secure future for Palestinian Jewry. On parade English is used though German is the mother tongue of my two friends, they have altogether abjured it from a passionate resentment against Nazi persecution, and speak English between themselves.”