DESERT FIGHTING

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 252, 26 October 1942, Page 2

DESERT FIGHTING

STORY OF MAORI CHARGE. DECORATED OFFTCER RETURNS. Formeiiy R.S.M. of the Maori Battalion, with which he has been continuously since, as permanent staff man, he was associated with its earliest training in New Zealand, Lieut.- A. C. Wood, Nelson, is back after being in the thick of the fighting for over 2i years, in Greece, Orete and Libya. He was 23 years of age when he went overseas. Now he is wearing the ribbon of the D.C.M., this ciecoration having been awarded him for his part in leading bayonet attacks against German machine-gun nests at Malemi aerodrome in Orete. Subsequently he was commissioned. He went overseas with the Second Echelon. " They are real devils in action, and it is glorious to be with them," he said, speaking with sparkling eyes of the Maori Battalion. He laughed heartily when informed that German officers had reported them as scalphunters. He commented that the Germans hated the bayonet in close fighting and ran squealing like rabbits. During the fighting at E1 Alamein, the Maoris were ordered to attack the Germans to relieve the pressure on another part of the line. They did it so effectively that they swept all before them at the point of the bayonet right past the objective set for them and into the enemy B echelon (transport). They had to withdraw when British planes started to bomb the German transport. During the attack they killed 600 of the enemy, took 150 prisoners, and destroyed four tanks with their twopounder anti-tank guns. They suffered only 84 casualties, including about 10 killed. Subsequently, it was reported, the Commander of the 8th Army wrote congratulating General Freyberg on the wonderful attack. CIRCULAR DEFENCE. Describing the fighting at Nin Qua Quam, some 20 miles north of Mersa Matruh, Lieutenant Wood said the New Zealanders had a circular defence on an escarpment when the Germans attaeked. Most of the German transport consisted of British vehicles which had been captured earlier in the enemy advance. The New Zealanders were under artillery fire and their positions were being plastered when the Germans started moving tanks round the eastern flank to the south. A company of about 100 German engineers attaeked the front held by the Maori Battalion in order to cut the minefields. Tired of sitting down and being fired at, the Maoris charged and killed all but 15 of the Germans, who were taken prisoners. Starting after midnight on a moonless night, the Maoris with two other battalions made the initial movement oni foot, and ini box-like formation, which paved the way for the divisional break-through at E1 Alamein, during which most of the enemy motorised infantry, taken by surprise, was wiped out. Later Verey lights were sent up, transport arrived, and the Maori Battalion jolned up with the fifth Brigade, which was in' the fortified position know as the "Kaponga Box." Mobile columns were formed of the brigades there. It was the South Africans and the New Zealanders who held up the German advance and fought off the armoured divisions till the Australians could come up about a fortnight later. It was at the end of a six-mile advance, the last mile and a half on foot under heavy shellfire all the way from the ridge, that the Maori Battalion dug in at Alyn Nile on the way to Ruweisat Ridge, and it was there that their commander, the late Colonel E. T. Love, was mortally wounded. While dressing his wounds, Lieutenant Wood was hit in the arm, which is now paralysed. Colonel Love's parents were among the first to greet Lieutenant Wood on his return.