The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-04-18
BY ,. n. YINDRICH Copyright 194l By United Press)

Ee grimed and scared by the biting sand and dust of the desert, from British outpost positions all the way between Tobruk and Bengha2i.
 They, the men of the rear guard, {. were caught in the German blitz that has forced the army of the Nile back to the Egyptian frontier and left us here, besieged.
 They have come back afoot, in trucks and in warships which pick cd them up along the coast when they waved. .
 They, and those holding back the Germans and Italians here, are in high spirits. The men who arrive take bath, have a meal and a good sleep and ask to be assigned to duty, preferably where they will at once have crack at Jerry"
 Events of Benghazi
 A 3ovial fair-haired blue-eyed Australian officer from Sydney, his beard, of several days growth, still caked with dust and sand, told me what happened at BenghaN when the German advance guard arrived and met the rear guard of the army of the Nile, left to cover the British retreat.
 Tt was about 3:30 p. m. April A." he said. We saw three armored cars, apparently scouting, coming across country into Benina airdrome outside Benghal. Then we saw the gray tanks with Swastikas painted on their sides, and trucks coming up behind Other trucks came up to the foot of the escarpment where we were stationed, but they were out of range of our guns. They cruised up and down.
 linen four armored cars came up teh dried river bed leading to our positions. A native had waved a gasoline can to them, apparently as c signal.
 We spotted 10 truckloads of in- fantry parked along the road and blew four of them sky high with two Italian trench mortars.
 Bits of truck flew all over the place. The others scattered over the airdrome.
 Italians Attack
 "At 4:30 p. m. 800 Italian infantry men with a stiffening of Germans attacked, with their tanks still cruis- ing around.
 we stopped that attack before 1t reached the escarpment.
 Next convoy of truck arrived at the. airdrome with about 1000 men. Some small Italian tanks appeared but they stayed behind the big German cruiser tanks. The German tanks advanced as far as the es- carpeulnt and finally got on top of 1t. The German and Italian infantry with yifles and an abundance of machine guns started to surround us and their light artillery began pounding us.
 Tt was getting dark when the infantry got to the top of the es- carpment, which is about 200 feet high. They were within 40 or 50 yards of us when we clambered in- to trucks Their aim was wide in the bad light and we got away with out scratch"
 That was the retreat of the Brit ash rear guard from Benghaz.
 Vuy VNO 4V 3bCtWu
 talked to & 34-year- ex-truck driver from Glasgow at his hospital bed. He was the only one of de- tachment of 50 men to get back from Derna, % miles west of here.
 They had waited until the Ger mans were firing on them to jump 1ri their trucks and leave. The gull Mes became so deep that the trucks could not go on. The men burned them and started on afoot. One by one they dropped out from exhaus- tion or from thirst, partly due to drinking the brackish, salty water they found.
 ! "An army cooperation plane dropped up map and @ message fixing . rendezvous where he could be picked up," he said. We had no weapons. We had lost them when our trucks were bombed. We walked for two nights, those who were left and got Q little sleep in the day btine. \ we found Q hut near the coast and entered 1t seeking water. We found some canned Italian food and began to eat 1t. We saw a private automobile coming toward the hut. I saw in 1t @ German officer, wear ing Q navy cap, with pistol in his hand, and there were five others in the car.
 "The car passed the hut in order Co outsrnart us, but all the others In our party made break to escape. l saw Q hole in the floor of the hut which the Italians apparently had made for Q getaway but 1t exit had been blocked. was in the tunnel, making myself as small as possible. A German officer looked down the hole twice without seeing me and then went out to aid In chasing the others across the sand dunes. I heard them firing. I smoked two cigarets and then crept out. saw the auto- mobile still there. crawled along kNne shore away from the Germans. I got to the shore and lit lot of Gigarets together, to give 8 smoke signal to 0 British warship. A boat put of.
 arts all right-come on,'" a sea- man shuoted, so got aboard. If I'd had Q rifle I could have wiped out all those Germans"
 Talked with Driver
 Another truck driver, 22-year-old Australian from Yorkminster, fought six Germans single-handed and captured their eight-cylinder reconnaissance car. I talked to him as he sat at the wheel of his bullet riddied truck. awoke him from his first sleep in two days.
 It was his first sleep in two days.
 It was his first battle and he thought the men he fought were Italians until I told him black en- amelled badge he had brought back as a souvenir was German.