BLEAK MERSA MATRUH

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1940, Page 6

BLEAK MERSA MATRUH

BAR TO ITALIAN ADVANCE TARANAKI MAN'S MEMORY RIFLE BRIGADE SERVICE "A strip of sand a mile wide between the sea and a ridge leading up to a plateau, two buildings, a store and a garrison port on a harbour but everything bare, desolate, forbidding without a sign of vegetation, and you have Mersa Matruh as we knew it in 1915-16," said Corporal S. H. Norris, now of the New Plymouth company of the National Military Reserve, but a member of the 1st Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, which was engaged against the Senussi around Mersa Matruh at the end of 1915 and the beginning of 1916 when interviewed last night. As the Italian £rmy will meet a tough obstacle at Mersa Matruh Corporal Norris' description of the country is full of interest, though since his time the post has been strongly fortified. It was a land without water. There were a few brackish wells but the Rifle Brigade men did not dare drink it and their drinking water, was brought by sea from Alexandra during the whola of their stay. The country experienced a rainy season but that was now past except for a few tropical showers which occurred at intervals. Hard, Flat Ground of Plateau. The plateau was as flat as a table and of a hard, clayish substance with no sand. Corporal Norris stated that in the dry season it was ideal for the operations of mechanised units. "When we were there." he said, "we had some of the old T-model Ford cars. We mounted machine-guns on them and drove over the plateau as though it was a road. The plateau extends for miles inland. However, if one of the tropical showers should fall the whole of the mechanised units would be held up for some days. He though t that it would be difficult to disguise any advapce from the Royal Air Force observers. When the Rifle Brigade was there the British forces had only one plane io locate the Senussi and it usually managed to secure accurate information. He expressed the opinion that the command of the sea would also play an important part in the campaign. Corporal Norris recalled that the usual tactics of the Senussi were to ride up at 1 night on horses and fire a few rounds at the camp and then go off as fast as they could. They would recover the dead to secure their uniforms to wear. "On one occasion I had the peculiar experience of firing at men dressed in the uniforms of the Australian Light Horse," said the New Plymouth man.