Evening star., 1941-10-03
(Secord OF a Series.)
BY GEORGE WELLER.
yoreiEn Correspondent OF The Star
and Chicago Daily News.


and chieaso Daily News.
sAIo, PROVINCE OF GALA
sIDDAMO, Western Ethiopia
Before reaching the Ethiopia
rampant held by Italian troops,
Belgian colonials from the Congo
had to hold together an armed
column OF trucks carrying soldiers,
porters and munitions l,400 miles
across almost uninhabitable coun-
try. The first aim Of the attack
was Asosa in the region drained by
the Blue Nile, about 300 miles north
Of the Italian headquarters here.
Starting from Watsa, in North
eastern Congo, the first battalion
to depart climbed slowly out Of the
Congo watershed, whose crest is
marked by the Congo-Sudanese
frontier, and descended by way OF
Yei to Juba, head of navigation OF
the White Nile. En- route the troops
pitched camp in the region where
Theodore Roosevelt came before the
great war for his last shooting ex-
pedition; where the scarce white
rhinoceros still hides and giraftes
and elephants abound.
At Juba, with the burning bowl OF
the Sudanese plain before them,
the column turned northward along
the White Nile, then still in the
dry season. River boats, with the
current favorable, brought them IN
five days to Malakal, where dwell
the strange, legged Chillouck
people, a cattle keeping tribe OF ex-
tremely thin physique who wear
tan. knee-length tunicS. When the
clothespole Chilloucks first saw the
sons of Congo cannibals, with their
sharpened teeth and tattoo-cors
rugated faces. it was difficult to
say which we're the more surprised.
Column Turned Eastward.
At Melut the column turned
eastward pushing their American
trucks through two days Of blister
ing. waterleSs desert to Kurmuk.
Mai. Isidore Herbiet, known to his
battalion as tata-meaning father
prepared for attack on AsoSa. The
Kings African Rifles, consisting OF
natives from East Africa, were
already moving into line at Asosa
commanded by Col. William john
son, and awaited Belgian help.
Asosa. also called Bari Cossa, is
located at 5,433 feet altitude in a
depression surrounded by hills and
possesses barracks, radio station,
q hospital and an airdrome. 1t re-
ouired three days for the battalion,
with sweating porters carrying ma
chine guns on their heads, to mount
from Kurmuk, Sudanese border
town, to positions outside Asosa.
The combined attack of the Con-
eolese troops and the Kings African
Rifles began on March II, just six
weeks after the Belgians left the
Congo. The Italians were too COM
pletely taken by surprise to meet the
combined thrusts. They abandoned
Asosa. pushing southwark to JOIN
their next garrison along the Ethlo-
plan massif at Ghidami, l2o miles
distant.
The Belgian losses were chiefly
through bacillic dysentery, whose
mortality is 80 per cent, and amoeblc
dysentery, with a death rate OF .
per cent. Sudden changes OF climate
worked devastatingly on the Con-
1olese porters who also suffered
from pulmonary diseases caused by
exposure aboard the double-decker
Nile barges. Accustomed to the
warm, damp nights Of the humid
Congo basin, they caught bronchltls
and pneumonia due to alienation
in the parched and grassy Sudanese
lowland between broiling, windless
days and chill. breezy nights.
Set Pattern for Drive.
Asosa's fall set the pattern Tor
the eventual Allied campaign In
Western Ethiopia. whereby the
British thrust against the head
waters of the Blue Nile became part
of a general convergence of forces
from Kenya to the Red Sea, all
tending to thrust toward Adol;
Ababa and leave the SudaneSe
doorway held by the Belgians as
the only available Italian refuge
and stronghold.
In the broad conception which
Gen. Sir Archibald P. Wavell, then
chief of the British Near East COM
mand, had of the campaign, the
Belgians were the anvil and as
sorted Scot, South African. Gold
Coast, Nigerian and Ethiopian
patriotic" troops were the ham,
mers. The central system Of autos
trade centering around Adds Ababs
eventually began to work like a
funnel dumping fleeing Italian
officers and Eritrean subalterns
down a chute which fed eastward
and southeastward into the Nilotic
valleys of the Baro and Sobat
Rivers.
At Asosa the Belgians discovered
porters who receive wages Of
franc (about 214 cents, the same
as second-class infantrymen would
have spent on sandals from the
Congo. The terrific heat OF the
Ethiopian paths had burned their
bare, calloused feet nearly to the
bone.
Asosa finished with virtually nc
losses except by disease, the battal-
ion was given the far harder task
OF doubling back across the Su'
danese Desert to the Nile port o1
Melut, a distance of about %;
miles, ascending the river as fal
as where it meets the Sobat al
Malakal, then doubling back east
ward again parallel to the Sobat
and Baro Rivers, 275 miles to thu
Ethiopian foothills to close the
open mouth of the bag. The Ital'
ians already had killed the single
Englishman guarding the Sudanes'