THE LIBYA FRONT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 18

THE LIBYA FRONT.

! DESERT MACHINE WAR 1 SUPERIOR BRITISH TANKS. (By JAMES ALDRIDGE.) EGYPTIAN-LIBYAN BOEDER, Aug. 8. A sand etorm is pouring the whole desert into this little headquarters tent where I sit typing. Outside it is 115 degrees in the shade, but there is no ■shade. Around the whole camp, which is a mixture of various armoured vehicles and the familiar type of British Army lorry, there is a cloud of whirling, bitin<* dust that one cannot keep out of one's ears, eyes, shoes, or anything at all. In this particular area, the storm has stopped the whole war. Nothing goes on when the sand blows. Even staff work is hopeless. One just sits in one's tent, trying to keep cool, trying to keep the flies away while outside the sun ■beats through the dust relentlessly on to the hard rocky ground and'keeps the earth at 'boiling, point. But, before this started, I saw a little more of the desert warfare here. Going from advance camp to advance camp in the early dawn with the wet mist still ill the air, I saw in the desert a strange type of warfare. It \\n* scattered. ■sparse and terribly individual as small fighting groups carried the war into Premier Mussolini's fly-swarming desert colony. It is not primitive war as one might I expect. On the contrary, it is most modern. Camels are never eeen ami mules or native soldiers seldom. One sees instead tanks, armoured cars and aeroplanes. And even before these can combat the enemy they must combat desert conditions. One Shell for Each Hit.

British forces are scattered in motorised units over most of Egypt's western desert area. There is no real front line. Each fighting unit makes its own. The Italians never venture into Egypt across the barbed wire which forms the 'border, so the British carry the war into Libya with modern equipment. An armoured car patrol, which consists of only a few vehicles, operates through what they call ; a "break" in the wire. Thw ie a space cut in the border's barbed wire at certain strategic spot*. Going through one or another 'break, armoured cars may patrol for a whole day in Libya and see nothing and come 'back at night or the next dav.

Except for the one essential of enemy life, they could see nothing different in Libya from what they see in Egypt. Certainly life is the same for 'the Italians as for the British. These men in armoured care consider it a hickv break when they meet an Italian tank or two. Their cars, being faster and fitted with -rood anti-tank guns, they zigzag around the usually retreating Italian tanks and let them have it. The car's gunner is allowed one shell £pr each hit and usually succeeds.

I saw one of these armoured cars chasing an Italian tank and every shot was a hit. Looking inside the tank afterwards, I saw the devastating result of the anti-tank bullet which splinters into a million fragments when it pierces the tank wall and digs into the human occupant in a thousand places. The Italians recently have been trying air weapons against armoured cars, but without the success expected. The Italian technique is to catch a email group of armoured cars in the open desert with a large flock of 'planes. These 'planes dive repeatedly and bomb with incendiary and tracer and armourpiercing bullets. The armoured cars and tanks always fight back as they zigzag across the desert. The Italians consider their air weapon the best thing they have against tanks and armoured cars.

Camouflaging for 'Planes. Actually anything that ie high up had the advantage in this warfare. From a small mound you can see miles and miles over the comparatively flat terrain. The dust, being übiquitous, is both good camouflage and a fatal giveaway. If you move an inch, a swirl is caught by the wind and can be seen for miles. Camouflaging is simple in the morning when the dew is heavy. You only have to throw sand over the object to be concealed and the result is a perfect camouflage. Camouflage ie the thing that makes living a little easier out in this bare, God-forsaken land. Using salt bushes that pock the desert and natural little hillocks, you can camouflage pretty well—just as the Finns did by painting things white, but even nearer perfection. I watched an Italian flying back and forth for hours, looking for some camp and never finding it. But everything hangs on that 'plane while it is in the neighbourhood. Once, near headquarters, an Italian bomber flew over and about for an hour or more. We were all anxioue to see whether he would find us, but after a while he flew a little way off and dropped his bombs on something else, which, was unimportant, and we breathed again. It is good having the Royal Air Force keeping the Italians so busy because it makes our camps fairly safe. So far there have been no real hand-to-hand encounters. Rifles and even machine-guns are seldom used, if at all, except perhaps occasionally when the British go out into Libya in the middle of the night to retrieve an Italian lorry or tank which has been bagged during the day. Maybe they meet an Italian party out for the same reason and a few shots make flat quick-ending sounds in the still night. That's all. Waiting for Things to Happen. , Since the Italians never move in the night, it is no use for the British to send out infantry patrols so there are no encounters and no infantry contacting each other here yet. There are not many casualties either. Most are from the weather rather then from the war. Even so, the British Tommy is enduring the heat well and has a low percentage of illness. From Italian prisoners, it ie learned that they are having a much tougher time. The worst illness comes from sores, which fester from any scratch. Flies infect the scratch and the sores do not go away for months. The sand itself is actually very clean, according to medical officers, and there is little risk of infection from it. The sandstorm is dying a little now. I think I can hear a 'plane overhead, and through a flap of the tent I can see someone's head moving out of the tent across the camp and looking up. Outside the tent, only five yards away, is what is called a "slit trench" in which you dive when you hear 'planes near. It is about six feet long and only wide enough to hold you if you are thin and four feet deep. It is banked with sand. I have dived into many, getting filled I with sand inside and out. The 'plane has passed over. Maybe it will come back; maybe it won't. You never know. That is the trouble out here. You never know what is going to happen or when. You just have to wait for things to happen.— NjLN^.