THRILLS OF BATTLE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 6, 21 January 1942, Page 6

THRILLS OF BATTLE

TANKS TO THE RESCUE "Since my lasf letter I feel I have lived a lifetime and 1 am very to be alive to-daywrites Private J. Arlidge in a letter to friends in Wellington. Ilis battalion spent about two weeks in the front line, and about 8 o'clock one morning his truck was sot on (ire .by enemy action. It had much "ammo" on board and quite a lot of "'U.K. stull" and blew up. '•There was ln'iivy fighting and we u-ere all in si it trenches 10 yard? Il'ri■, ii i tin.- I! nek h; 1 re'.atts. "New that 1 am cut <>r it. i <>1 ten lauv.h al 'lie 111 si n siii',' <1 thing-, lull a> !he same time it waxn'l so gn:>d. You would have laughed if you c:;uV have seen two of us stamper up the >o side of a tank for protection a/ter we had lost our trucks and run the I- gauntlet for over fcur miles. "It was on the morning cf

t her 1, an hour and a hair after my truck went up. The order came for j us to get out, as a pitfrong force oi Hun tanks were almost on us. There were shells and mortars and antitank shells and bullets (.303) Hying everywhere. I. did not like tlie idea j of leaving my slit trench as it was below ground, but it was a case of obeying orders or becoming a pri- , soncr of war, or even being crushed j to death by the Hun tanks!. So wc < made a run for it. "A staff car stopped and picked j me up when we hadn't gone 100 j yards. Shortly afterwards our dash- . board was shot away and cut oil the , Ignition. We abandoned the car , and got into a lf>cwt truck, in which ( we went about 1% miles, and then < the steering gear got tangled up in j the barbed wire. We had no time j to clear it away as the Hun tanks had us on the run. I "Several of us were quite some , distance from our own unit, so we started to run for our lives. I myself had given up hope of ever getting out alive. We forgot about the lead flj-ing all around and everything. Then along came a tank division of ours, and a real old tank 1 battle started. Some of us scampered up the side of a tank and were taken to one of our threc-tonners about three-quarters of a mile away. The tank commander gave us a 'good luck' Avave, turned his tank around, and off into the scrap he-went." I only hope he is alive to-day, because ; if it were not for our tanks arriv- i ing we would not be here to-day. < "I did not sec a coward all the I time we were in the front lines. We ' were told we had done a good job , of work."