El Alamein remembered:

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 10, Issue 458, 20 October 1992, Page 1

El Alamein remembered:

Army museum display opens

By JanSavell It may look unfinished now but staff at Waiouru's Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum are confident that the North Africa display will be a

For three days Army field kitchens will serve authentic North African food, Lloyd Carriers will be available for.rides and visitors will have the opportunity to be photographed in World War

Each of the exhibits is authentic down to the last detail. In one section of the display warm air is blown onto the viewer to match the desert scene while the night scene opposite produces cool air.

involved in the planning of the exhibition that started in July with the theme 'From defeat into victory'. The layout of the exhibition mirrors the experiences New Zealand soldiers would have had

into a different aspect of the campaign. One of the features of the display is a railway exhibit. "The New Zealanders built miles of railway tracks. Many of them are still in use. The conflict

El Alamein remembered

From page 1 was a war of movement, backwards and forwards along anarrow front. The fighting was confined to a strip of only 100 miles," said Capt Richard Taylor, Director of Public Programmes for the museum. A former director of the Museum, Major Cliff Simons, relates an anecdote of his father who served in North Africa:

"He had a photo of himself bathing in a 44 gallon drum, with just the desert all around him. After the photo they had to retreat and then later in the campaign they advanced again. He came across the same drum. The Germans had been bathing in it too." As the troops withdrew the Arab shopkeepers would be taking down posters of Winston

Churchill and putting up posters of Hitler. Staff at the museum wanted to recreate this atmosphere of uncertainty and change. Planning began with a theme and ideas for a half dozen displays. Curators for the museum were asked to lay out all the items they had which might be needed. At this point W02 Fitzwater and Captain Richard Taylor browsed through the 'flea market', choosing what they

wanted for the display. "Sometimes things turn up which we hadn't planned on using. Some tins of tobacco were like this. We were looking for entertainment items but the tins generated a whole new display on smoking. After all, it was one of the soldier's only pleasures," said W02 Fitzwater. The display evolves from its theme and the artefacts available. Some artefacts, like the tools for the railway display, are

on loan from other collections. MrAlanDavies of Christchurch was a major contributor, loaning the Long Range Desert Group which forms the centrepiece for the desert night scene. The display will be opened on Friday 23 October at 10.30am by Brigadier Birch, the Deputy Chief of General Staff. Brigadier Birch is also the Deputy Chairman of the Museum's Trust Board.