Difficult Work for Sappers

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 65, 20 March 1944, Page 5

Difficult Work for Sappers

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) Received Sunday, 9.50 p.m. NEAR CASSINO, March 16. “Yesterday’s bombing of the Cassino area has made much work for the en- } gineers who now have the task of oridging or filling in great craters on the roads used or likely to be used by our armour. Some of these craters are 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. The soft nature of the ground adjoining the roads, much of it under water, make f repairs vitally necessary hut much of s this -work will have to be by bridging _ owing to the lack of suitable material for filling. Working throughout a bity terly cold night in pouring rain, our 5 sappers on one road close to Cassino l bridged a crater with a 50-foot strucf ture and 10-foot buttresses. * “The handling of chilly steel with ] numbed fingers in tho darkness, was an t experience he never wanted again, one , sapper told me this morning. Another [ crater almost as large was filled in bei fore daylight. At the same time American engineers were bridging the Rapido . on highway six. They, too, completed , their job before daylight—a 90-foot l bridge with 10-foot buttresses. The r best idea of the extent of the bombing ’ can be had from air photographs which , show the whole area to be churned up L by great gaping boles. In Cassino , itself the streets are cluttered up with r demolished buildings. Indian and New r Zealand sappers have been working f there under great difficulties.’*