INLAND SWEEP BY N.Z.E.F.

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 99, 21 January 1943, Page 5

INLAND SWEEP BY N.Z.E.F.

Battle Of Zamzam

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.I’’.) TRIPOLITANIA, Jan. 15.

Three weeks after their dash had cut off the German forces retreating along the Gulf of Sirte, outfighting columns were ready again for another of their now famous inland sweeps, which have taken them over 1000 miles through western Egypt and Libya since the El Alamein line broke in early November.

In those three weeks huge supplies of food, fuel and ammunition were carried forward. Some of our infantry battalions constructed an R.A.F. landing ground, and the route for our advance was carefully prepared through some of the most difficult country wc have yet encountered.

One reconnaissance party, searching ahead for suitable country for our hundreds of trucks and guns to advance over, found so steep and rt/gged wadis that in only a few places in -10 miles could even a jeep cross them. But three days ago every detail of the route, including lights to show the tracks for night marches, was complete and, again with tanks, our columns rolled out toward the west. Anti-aircraft guns watched overhead along the edges of Wadi Chebir—a former Berman defence line and the first deep depression our columns have had to cross. Three-ton trucks, guns and limbers lumbered down into the sheer-sided wadi, crossed its wide patches of soft sand and climbed out. of it again on to more tens of miles of rock and sand. Attack at Dawn.

In daylight we moved in long, wide formations, and at dusk our trucks edged into close formi'.tion to roar on, nose to tail through still, moonlight nights. A few hours of rest, and jeep horns and the banging of petrol tins woke us again before dawn for still more miles of sand and dust. As yesterday's Irek ended and we settled down for the night, there was an occasional roar of gunlire ahead. In the first cold light this morning a battle between the New Zealand fighting columns and the Germans in the southernmost defences of Tripolitania began. New Zealand armoured cavalry with 25-pound-ers, advancing ahead of our main column’s of guns and mobile infantry, swept out across sandy ridges to attack German forces occupying high ground about 17 miles east of the main Axis defences along Wadi Zamzam. Before 8 o'clock the high ground was ours, ami our tanks were probing forward in a bitterly cold wind toward positions which llie Germans defended witii lines of anti-tank guns, heavy artillery and scattered mines. While sweep after sweep of Royal Air Force fighters wntehrd overhead, a battle between our tanks :iti<l guns and the German armoured forces ami artillery raged through most of the day across country as arid and rugged as any in North Africa. Unwilling to Stand. Though they were using heavy guns, the Germans seemed unwilling Io light any decisive action, preferring to delay our advance with vigorous rearguard battles. Italian and a few German tanks moved in groups of about. 20 ahead of us. More New Zealand guns raced forward to support, our armoured attacks, and by dusk the greater part of the Ger-' man forces were withdrawing to the west, leaving heavy guns to battle against our batteries.

'rhe closing stages of the battle were watched by hundreds of our troops, who found themselves with a grandstand view when their transport halted on high ground overlooking a wide basin from where our guns were firing. Till dusk, when thick clouds of dust ant! smoke obscured almost everything, our guns fired salvo alter salvo into the retreating enemy, and the German batteries answered their fir,. with rounds that fell main ly well clear of our gun lines.

On the day's action the New Zealand guns, our tanks, ami the heavy armour ol the supporting unit, are credited will, knocking out. five German Mark 3 and I tanks, a troop carrier and an anti-tank guu.