NEW ZEALANDERS FIGHT FLIES

Southland Times, Issue 24820, 12 August 1942, Page 5

NEW ZEALANDERS FIGHT FLIES

RELENTLESS ENEMY (Official War Correspondent) CAIRO, August 10. The lull in the El Alamein front continues, but today and every day from the first light to dusk the New Zealanders are fighting a battle against the most relentless enemy they have met. Two weeks of static warfare have brought a plague of millions .of flies which defy traps, nets and poisons to make the summer desert campaign the most trying life imaginable. Spray-guns and fly swats are the front-line weapons and in the forward areas it is uncommon to see a truck or bivouac tent without white netting under its camouflage. Traps made from old petrol, potato and fruit tins kill thousands of flies daily. Now in its seventh week for the New Zealanders, this campaign has been probably the hardest our troops have known. Living conditions from the outset have been very hard, but always the troops have accepted them cheerfully. A South Island infantry battalion’s cook, telling me about an issue of fresh meat that had arrived, said with a dry smile: “I knew there was something fresh coming up. You could see the flies coming over the horizon before the ration truck.” His advice was to drink my cup of tea off his bench. “You need both hands free to kill these maneaters,” he said. MORALE UNSHAKEN Day after day of inactivity is something new for the New Zealand fighting battalions, but it cannot shake their morale. I found the machine-gunners playing their old favourite game of “Battleships.” One gunner, his face and steel helmet under a fly-net, was marking on a battered envelope shots by his partner in a trench about 30 yards away. An indignant voice called out: “I can’t hear you” when a shell-burst nearby blotted out the all-important shot at the paper battleship. Shot after shot whistled over, but the machine-gunners went on with their game. So it is all along the groups of slit trenches and gun-pits that form our front-line. Infantrymen sit smoking and reading, awaiting their chance for action. Although the shallow, scattered slit trenches on this front in no way resemble the front-lines of the last war, the forward areas are becoming so familiar that they are known by names similar to those famous in France and Palestine. The tracks to the-line are called Willis and Queen streets. Further back, where movement is beyond range of the enemy’s observation posts, there are sand-bagged dugouts and offices dug feet into the ground. With the line between the coast and the Quattara Depression shortened by recent actions and the consequent possibility of forces being massed rapidly at any point the enemy’s movements are being watched even more closely than usual. Patrolling planes watch his day activities and at night patrols and listening posts creep out after information. As the narrow strip of No Man’s Land becomes ever mor? familiar to the men on either side night patrols become more difficult. The enemy, particularly the Italians,' who are warned regularly to beware of the New Zealanders at night, shoot out flares and spray the ground with machine-gun fire at the slightest movement. But still patrols go out and seldom return without information.