BOMB DODGING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 284, 17 March 1941, Page 3

BOMB DODGING

LONG RANGE DESERT PATROL

(From the Official War Correspondent with lhe N.Z.K.F. >11 the Middle East)

Cairo, February 13

A lesson in the theory of bomb

dodging was given to me to-day py New Zealand cavalrymen belonging to the Long Range Desert Group.

whose record of amazing exploits in Libya has just been released for publication. They described how they were spotted in central Libya

one daj- by an aeroplane that circled over them and swerved away.

A few hours later they sighted a fleet of enemy armoured vehicles, which had obviously been warned by the plane, and which they shook oil in "a brisk running light through a desert valley. Then they were faced with the task of eluding three enemy bombers and, in the words of an Okoroire (Auckland) trooper, this is how they did it; "We kept the trucks on the move, and for a while we had to keep one eve on boulders ahead and the other on the planes above.

"When the first, plane came over us from the light avc watched for the glint of the bombs in the sun as they began their fall. Then, by Judging our speed and that of the plane, I reckoned that the bombs would fall behind us, and so I gave 'Tirau'—that's my truck-—all she had. and she went like a champion. •Sure enough, Ave heard the 'Boom ! Boom ! Boom !' of the bombs landing a chain behind us. "When the second plane came over I guessed that if I kept straight ahead I Avould run smack into the bombs, and so this time I' swerved left. Once again the lombs landed where I calculated thcj r would. We dodged them like this for about half an hour."

This skill in manoeuvring their vehicles is part ol the stock-in-trade of the desert raiders. Almost invariably they carried out their attacks from the trucks, using them almost as if they were tanks or similar armoured vehicles. The story of their main engagement— the attack on the fort and aerodrome at Murzuk iu co-operation Avith a Free French detachment — illustrates the principle well. The column of vehicles drove calmly down the main road and saw a grcu;,> of soldiers at the gate of the fort spring to attention as if about to form a guard of honour.

"We drove straight doAvn the road and let them have it," a New Zealander said. "While one patrol, consisting of British infantrymen, stay ed to set fire to the fort by lobbing in a mortar shell, Ave New Zealanders AA r ent on Avith the French to the landing ground. Several enemy soldiers were in sight, as Avell as a number of pillboxes, and so Ave stopped behind a rise and opened up on them.

"One truck raced to another rise just in time to intercept a party of men entering an anti-aircraft gun pit, getting in between them and the gun. There was a further example of the way we learned • to use our trucks when another one, rounding a corner ol' the hangar, met machine-gun fire at close range. The driver slammed on the brakes, put the gear into reverse and backed out."

Wheel marks on the desert sand

may have just as interesting a story

to tell to the modern soldier or explorer as the footprints of men and beasts have had for ccnturies to experienced natives. New Zealanders in the Libyan long range patrols are impressed with the valuable use to which such .signs may be put.

In the same v/ay that the Bedouin can tell from footmarks the age, breed and condition ol' every camel

in a caravan, a European with years of experience is able to extract a Avealth of information from the marks of motor traffic. Except over moving dunes, car tracks persist for many years. In parts of the Egyptian desert the old tracks of 1916 patrols can still be plainly seen. This persistence of tell-tale tracks has been one of the chief difficulties which the present patrols havo had to face in all their journeys through enemy territory. Once they are spotted from the air, the* tracks of a motor column can Ijo followed up until the column itself is found and bombed.

Five New Zealanders had their

first instruction in the reading of tracks when they accompanied Ivlaj-

(Continued in next column)

or P. A. Clayton, one of the three Englishmen directing the patrol operations, across the Great Sand Sea in two light cars before the raids proper were begun. Two hundred miles beyond tl-e frontier, they spent four days on the main enemy route from Benghazi to Kufra. Major Clayton quietly studied the wheel marks of all the traffic that had passed, while enemy aircraft, in— cent on other things, (lew ui.~uspectingly eve-head.