KIWIS IN ITALY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 40, 16 January 1945, Page 6

KIWIS IN ITALY

A VIDID PEN-PICTURE

FRONT LINE DESCRIPTIONS

The following is the first of a series of articles wliicli will combine extracts from Lieut. Edgar Griffiths who is. now serving in Italy with the 2nd N.Z.E.F. in a letter to his uncle Mr Charles Gri of Whakatane.

It is over a month since I wrote you a surface letter and i must ask your forgiveness for filling in this time, with airgraphs only. During the period I _have hud airgraphs from Dad ? Peggy, Betty and Buz and lots of magazines from Dad. Thanks so much everybody I can assure you all your letters bring me lots of joy. We had a pretty easy time, in a quiet sector from when Ave left Cassino until the big break through by the Bth Army i^ito the valley beyond Cassino. We were in the central sector then and as the Bth and sth progressed we naturally hnd to push forward to straighten our part of 'the line. I am afraid our quiet time at a place called Menilla didn't do us any good in as much as it went a bit hard when we got amongst the dirt again. .We had been doing quite, a bit of shooting during our 'rest' but for some yeuson or other we were very kindly left alone by Herman. We ex-, officers are goiii# through all sections of artillery work while we are in action and part of our training takes us up to the obsevation posts from where, the officer on duty watches the movements of the enemy and brings down fire on any targets he sees. The O.P. is naturally very close to the. enemy front in fact the one I am talking about was so close that I actually heard a few liuns. singing and whistling one night which I was on picquet. You will understand that absolutely no movement is made by either side during the day in the forward areas for that would certainly be seen by look-outs on cither side and down would come, arty fire in that spot. Well I was the O.P. assistant m J the four daj'S preceding the last two days Jerry was in that sector. We were on top of a hill in a hole approximately sft deep and about tiie same in diameter this was the

living quarters, sleeping, cooking eating and all and as it "wasn't safe to put ones head outside during, the ■daj' you can imagine the cramped existence an O. P. staff lias to put up with. It wasn't so bad until Herman decided to get rid of a pile of ammo a favourite trick of his prior > A to liis retiring from a position. He thinks it better strategy to shoot it off instead of carrying it back for another day. In this, instance he displayed a very unsportsmanlike attitude by taking a particular dislike to the hill we were, on and on the last day I was up there he dropped no less- than 4.00 shells around the hill—mortars, light and heavj' arty all included. The closest lot fell at the entrance to our 'castle' about 15 feet awav and while that '5' was quite close enough one never knew Avhen a plaster would land on the frail roof covering us. Fortunately none did and I can assure you no one was more pleased than this chicken when we were relieved at 8 p. m. We had been lying low since 6 a.m. that morning' and were under lire continuously all day. It is a peculiar thing how being under shell lire affects the bladder —everybody experiences it and wants to get going as soon as things let up. Being stuck in a hole involves complications which can. be overcome but if the bowels take a turn i'n the same (direction it is jiust too bad in cases like the one I have related — it would be certain curtain to venture out until darkness. It is all part of the life of the artillery man though and we get there. I wish you could have seen me descending the hill that nighty 'you couldn't have though because I was moving much too fast. It took us .some days to catch up with Herman alter he vacated this natural barrier for he carried out his usual thorough demolitions—blowing bridges blasting whole houses over the roads and bringing ;down hillsides to block the way. In this particular valley he had carried out something like 30 demolitions in a length of only tour miles. You have no conception how thorough the blighter is and he makes things a little more unpleasant by planting mines everywhere and rigging up booby traps in all sorts of cunning places—l can assure you lie is. no good in. yon Hermie. From this you can readily understand why contact is Sometimes slow —he, no doubt, has all these things under way long before he has to retreat. The actual time it takes our engineers to overcome these haz~i

ards. is little, short of miraculous — to see the extent of the demolitions would suggest months of work to the average person but not so with the engineers. They get to work with bulldozers and Baillie bridges and new bridges or new roads are able to be traversed in two or three days. These boys can take credit for a major part of the victories in ftaly, and when it is considered most of their work is done under heavy fire no praise is too good for them. As I write I am under heavy bombardment from the God ol' thunder but Ills ammo can't do much

harm even though it is pouring down as heavi'.v as an 3' rain I have ever seen. The ground is like a huge, lake after an hour's concentrated thunder storm and I am wondering how long it will be before it starts pouring through my bivvy. This performance takes place every day, this is the fifth in succession—beautiful hot mornings and trejnendous thunder storms about 3 x>.m. dail3 r . I was caught in one yesterday and had the soaking of my life, but that is another story.

Our next position after we got through the valley was in another very pretty spot—we: were amongst golden corn and green grape vines, new tomatoes and lots of other vegetables were coming in but none were quite ready—fortunate for the Ities too, otherwise. Herman •>yould have lifted the lot. We tried the ncW spuds and enjoyed them even though they were OH th? small side. We some awful feeds of cherries at this spot they Avere thick on the trees and how we did make pigs of ourselves. We also traded a few pieces of. bread for six eggs which gave us a luxury we hadn't tasted since leaving Egypt. I fried them up with new potaoes and they tasted just the best. We didn't stay in that spot long but moved one afternoon a few miles further on. This move, proved one of the biggest nightmares I have ever experienced and it and the few days that followed will long remain a very unpleasant memory for the N.Z. Arti!lerj r boys who were there. The move must have been necessary but we had to go into position in full view of the enemy who had an uninterrupted view from both sides of us. The dirty dogs let lis take up position and he then took to us with all he had—some of the batteries were caught before they had pits or slit trenches dug ? and they a unfortunately suffered severe casualties. We fought it out with him for three days, and in the end our

weight of numbers beat hiin down. The last concentration we threw at him was ten rounds gun fire l'rom each of many, many guns into one of his positions—it took less tliant two minutes and reconnaisencc afterwards revealed that we had knocked out ten of twelve guns in that one position. That by the Avay, was the last we heard of Herman for (luring the. night lie bad had enough and as far as we know is still moving back. I need to tell you the indescribable feeling of relief Ave. all enjoyed when the report came through that lie had departed. The suspense of these previous days had been a nightmare, when we were - '9 not at the guns, we had to keep our heads -well below ground and as we Avere amongst dense trees even slit trenches were not proof against shells that hit the trees and Kleflected shrapnel straight down and in all directions. Three chaps on the gun next to ours Avere caught in this way —they took cover in a deep drain but the shell hit a tree aboA r e them and they AA'ere all hit. One poor chap got it in the head and died on the Avar to the dressing station, and others- had nasty wounds but are reported to be doing tine now. One of these boys staggered into my slittie after lie had been hit, and I was most grateful I haid taken a first aid course and Avas able to dress the five Avounds in his back. Tlie poor devil must haA'e suffered terribly for we were still under shell fire and 1 couldn't handle him properly in the trench.

(To be continued)