WAR TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 280, 7 March 1941, Page 2

WAR TOPICS

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CAMP AT WAIOURU WITH THE MOUNTED RIFLES LOCAL MEN ENJOY LIFE In a letter from Waiouru Military Camp a local officer gives some interesting information regarding the camp life his letter reading as follows:—' The A. (E.G.) M.'R. now in camp at Waiouru include all mounted men from the districts of Opotiki, Whakatane, Tauranga, Rotorua, Matamata, Morrinsville, Paeroa v Thames and Goromandel. The Regiment with a strength of six hundred and forty including all ranks has now completed four weeks elementary training and all are looking forward to the mobilising of the horses. The Regiment is fortunate in possessing an excellent band which adds considerably to the parade ground efficiency of the troops. As there are only two bands in the camp of some thousands of men of all arms, our band is allotted the duty of providing music for our end of the camp, and units other than our own have the pleasure of being wakened in a manner more conducive to cheerfulness than the usual alarm clock. Most of us are new to Waiouru and before arriving had heard stories which indicated that we could expect snow at any, season. Except for a couple of light frosts and n mild dust storm or two, we have experienced what Ave would call at home, perfect autumn weather, with not one wet day in four weeks. The wind is often a bit keen and the precaution of erecting a ten-foot ti-tree breakwind for the horse lines should add considerably to the comfort of men and beasts. The army bit which has never been popular in New Zealand, lias been condemned, and will if possible be replaced by the ordinary snaffle bit which is in common use in this country. As supplies of new bits are likely to be insufficient to equip the two horse Regiments, farmers are asked to lend or donate bits to the Unit. If these could be given to the lads collecting the horses, an endeavour will be made to keep'a. record and return the bits when the horses are returned to their owners. The horses are to be collected towards the latter part of this week. TITANIC STRUGGLE / EFFECT ON UNITED STATES INDUSTRY IS HUMMING "Industry is humming over here because of the tremenddus scope of the defence programme," writes a Cincinnati businessman in a letter just received by a Wellington merchant. "Let us hope that 1941 does see ' an end to this titanic struggle, Avith Hitler on the shelf for future historians to analyse," he continues. "It is just beyond one's reason to un- ; derstand how iL was possible for one man to disrupt the peace of the entire Avorld. Our Congress is noAV in a furious battle over the Lease and Lend Bill,, which I believe Avill be adopted by a large majority. The public is overwhelmingly in favour of all-out aid to England, and this will of the people Avill prevail.'* SAVING STATIONERY ENVELOPE THRICE USED BRITISH conservation; An indication of the way in which supplies of stationery are conserved in England was provided by a letter received by a Christchurch resident from a prominent British society. His address Avas typed on a piece of paper stuck on to the front of the envelope to cover a previous address. When opening the envelope, he found that this in turn Avas Avritten on a piece oilpaper covering an original address on the fronts of the envelope itself. The envelope had been used three times.

LEFT BY FASCISTS N.Z.E.F. CLUB IN CAIRO COMMENT AT OPENING CEREMONY (From the Official Correspondent with the N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East) The fact that the club's premises were formerly occupied by a Fascist organisation provided food for comment at the official opening of the New Zealand Forces' Club in Cairo. Major-General B. CX Freyberg recalled the critical days in May when Italy was on the verge of entering the war, and consideration was already being given to the question of "rounding up" Italian nationals if the need arose. Amid laughter he told how he had helped to reconnoitre gun positions with the idea of '"putting a few quick shells through these windows if the Fascists didn't come out quickly."

Lady Wavell, who declared the club open, spoke in more serious vein of the origin of the premises. She expressed her pleasure that "these fine -walls" had passed into better hands, and that the rooms which so lately had been dedicated to Mussolini's cult of terror should now become a place Avhere free men of the British Empire would gather and meet as their fathers did in another war. In a more literal sense as well, the conversion of the premises for Ihe New Zealanders' use has had an effect like sunshine flooding into a long darkened room., The complete first floor of the modern building has been transformed with comfortable furnishings and, tasteful interior decoration. Portraits of Fascist leaders and grandiose inscriptions in the Italian tongue have disappeared, and a wall which served once as the humble background to a bust of Mussolini is nov; a fine mural which depicts the simple but real grandeur of the forests and mountains of New Zealand. THE LIBYAN ADVANCE V/ORK OF NEW ZEALANDERS Big, snub-nosed diesel lorries, soma of them with Ihe word "Wop" and a serial number painted over a fascist coat-of-arms on the cab, rumbled into the main New Zealand camp one morning this week as part of a column of dusty truckloads of dustier men. The convoy brought back more New Zealanders—an army troops company of the Engineers—froni "mopping up" operations in the Western Desert and Libya. The Italian lorries were an infinitely small portion of the magnificent prize; in the form of captured war material, won by the British forces in their drive against the enemy. Part of the company's work in the desert was to recover Italian vehicles from the silent, deserted camps in which they lay abandoned, and to put as many of thexn as possible on the road. Tts total "bag" was approximately 400 —still only a small part of the huge fleets of road-wor-thy machines which the Italians left behind. To-day scores of them are seen on western roads and tracks, again carrying supplies and materials of war, but now in the opposite direction. Almost every kind of work that a swiftly moving advance might be expected to leave in its trail fell to these and other engineers detached temporarily fTom the "main body" of the New Zealand force. They have manned water barges and supply points, worked on wharves, cart ed loads of land mines out of harm's way, established recovery depots and levelled aerodromes along hundreds of miles of the coastal belt. Two sappers led a nomadic life driving a road grader somewhere in Libya. They found a mobile home in the form of a trailer which the Italians had apparently used for the transportation of horses, and, hitching it to the grader, they turned it into combined sleeping, eating and store quarters. They wandered contentedly wherever there were roads to be repaired, and got almost as far as Derna„ hot on the heels tof tllei fighting troops.