ENEMY PEPPERED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 172, 23 July 1942, Page 5

ENEMY PEPPERED

MACHINE-GUN FIRE

Dogged Resistance Shown By New Zealanders N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent. RUWEISAT RIDGE, July 20. As a German armoured force was attacking the New Zealand line on Ruweisat Ridge, a Hawke's Bay machine-gunner selected an armoured car as his target and fired away belt after belt of ammunition against it. His gun was still blazing when the armoured car had closed in almost on top of his gunpit. He kept on firing until the armoured car withdrew. The action of this gunner is typical of the dogged resistance put up by the men of the North Island machine-gun company, whose guns, with a few anti-tank guns, were the heaviest weapons that could fire in close support of the infantry defending the ridge. From the time their light guns and trucks mounted the fudge early in the morning until their positions were overrun by enemy armour late in the afternoon, the machine-gunners were in action continuously against everything from field guns, and infantry, firing about 40,000 rounds. Guntrucks were following the infantry on to Ruweisat when three enemy tanks and heavily-armed infantry fired on them from their flank. The trucks turned and headed directly on to the ridge, while two guns prepared to repulse the attack. A few seconds after their trucks stopped, the gunteams were in action, raking the ridge from which German tank and machinegun fire had come. The remainder of the company's guns, supporting the first attacking group with our left formation, reached their positions. The machineguns with the second group were unable to reach the ridge because of pockets, which cut on their line of advance. When the German 88-millimetre guns opened up against the New Zealand positions, our machinegunners opened their first concentration from about 2000 yards. It was so effective that the German gunners were forced to withdraw. Again the machinegunners peppered them and forced the Germans to take their guns still further back. Whenever enemy trucks and infantry came within range the machineguns went into action against them.