This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.
Two British soldiers and six Egyptians were killed and another 213 persons injured in riots that broke out across Alexandria yesterday, reports the Times. The violence broke out an hour before noon when a crowd protesting against the British presence in the city assembled near the Atlantic hotel, which is used as a services hostel, and tried to tear down a flag. British authorities claim that some of the protestors then attempted to set fire to the building and policemen armed with buckshot were ordered to disperse the crowd. Later that day the crowd overran a British military police station nearby the hotel. Five men were on duty in the outpost and they opened fire; two were subsequently stoned to death, and one seriously injured. On Monday evening Cairo, the Times reporter notes, "presented the appearance of a dead city ...
The streets were deserted and dimly lit, the shopkeepers having covered their neon signs to prevent them from being smashed in case of violence ... shipping has been at a standstill [in the Canal Zone].
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