THERE'S GINGER IN THE DESERT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 155, 15 September 1941, Page 3

THERE'S GINGER IN THE DESERT

A TANK ACTION

SIXTEEN TO ONE

Sixteen German tanks out of action for one of ours temporarily disabled. TJiat, roughly, is the story of Ginger's tank, one of our land ships always cleared for action in the Western Desert. I found Ginger lying in the shade of a tank on the sand, his flaming head the centre of a swarm of flies, writes the Cairo correspondent of the Overseas Daily Mail. British bombers had just gone over toward Benghazi and there was desultory artillery fire to the west like the thump of an old distant drum. But the tank of which Ginger is gunner had been chipped by direct hits and withdrawn. Meanwhile he and the corporal in command, the driver and the loader, were taking their ease. There were 16 chalk marks an the turret. "I put them there for a photograph," said Ginger. "The real score is in pencil inside." Said the commander: "I did it as we went along. Sixteen in three days." His kindly eyes blinked through the cracked lenses of his smoked glasses. He was veryi softspoken . "How did you find the Jerries?" I asked.. "All right," he said. "Big sunburnt fellows. But they are not so well trained as our lads, and they don't like mixing it. They prefer to stand aff and shoot." '"Until they think we've run out of 'ammo'," cut in Ginger. '"There were eight of us at first outside Gapuzzo," continued the commander, "and the Jerries had . how many would you say, Ginger?" "Sixty," said Ginger. "I,t's confusing, you see," said the commander. '"They kept going round in a semiicircle and sheering off like Red Indians, and what with the dust and the mirage and smoke screens "Anyhow," interrupted the driver, "I saw enough." "It is like a dream," said the commander. "All mad. The miragt makes a tank shoot up as big as a house, and then something concertinas. it." "Tell him about that Jerry who came riding along on top of his tank," said Ginger. "Blast those flies!" "He thought we had no ammunition," said the commander gently. "His sauce," said Ginger. "So T shot his tank bung on the driver's visor, .and that stopped him. He bounced off." "And then we got one," said the driver. "It nearly pushed my chest through my spine'." "IJt does not show much," said the commander. "Those others were the ones which cramped us," said Ginger. "They knocked me off my perch." He pointed to a near scoop out of the solid steel and a dented plate over the track. "That was when they brought up their armoured divisions from To~ brulc way," said the commander. "But we had three more by that time, and we held them from noon till seven, and then we got away." "Having no more to say," said Ginger. "Ah,"' said the commander gently, "if osnjy we had had a battalion on the spot."