DEEDS OF DARING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 February 1941, Page 9

DEEDS OF DARING

<Continued from Page 5.) The next defensive weapon which the desert thrust against them was a muffling blanket of blinding sand. For three days the temperature rose so high that more than one man became delirious, and the ground was strewn with dead and dying birds. Separated on 1000-mile reconnaissances, the patrols were given up as lost owing to a garbled wireless message, but after an absence of a month the three bands of bearded and unwashed but exultant young ruffians reached Cairo with a batch of Italian prisoners and several bags of documents. ASTONISHING EXPLOITS. While examining the northern roads leading to Kufra oasis area in southeastern Libya, one patrol had careered down one thoroughfare in broad daylight and held up a column of lorries in the style of highwaymen. The, haul included official mail giving ail the enemy dispositions in the inner desert area. The second patrol had made contact with Free French outposts in the Chad territory and the third had destroyed an enemy bomber and a large petrol and bomb dump at Uweinat, near the Sudan border.

During the other expeditions in the autumn of last year a patrol returning from a mine-laying trip appeared suddenly before the gate of Augila. a fort in northern Libya, and seized a sentry before he had completed his Fascist salute. Three shells at point-blank range drove the astonished garrison out of the back door, enabling the armaments to be removed at leisure. Then the raiders disappeared into the desert.

Simultaneously. 600 miles farther south another patrol drove the Uweinat garrison up a mountainside leaving a dozen enemy casualties. With the tide of battle in full flood in the north as the Imperial forces pressed along the coastline, one New Zealand patrol and another of English guardsmen set out on Christmas Eve on one of the strangest war time journeys ever undertaken, the object being to cross Libya from end to end anil raid posts 1200 miles from their base, maintaining secrecy by avoiding all wells and navigating a route through unexplored country all the way. TOWN SURPRISED.

They made a rendezvous among the wild northern foothills of the Tibesti Mountains on the Chad-Libya border with a dozen French troops, and the combined raiding party took a long northward detour to south-western Libya. Marzuk, the most important town in the area, was taken completely by surprise. A few Italian soldiers who were passed on the outskirts raised their hands in the Fascist salute, while a group of troops who were called to attention at the gate of the great mud fort were quickly disposed of. While guardsmen of the patrol set the fort ablaze, the New Zealanders and French attacked and occupied the landing ground. The force then proceeded to the neighbouring town of Traghen. whose inhabitants marched out in a body to surrender with drums beating and banners flying. Two more oases were attacked, and casualties were inflicted on the enemy before the patrols turned toward French territory and home. DECORATIONS WON. Every man chosen in the long-range desert group is jealous of his privilege and would not change places "with any man in any army." Many have distinguished themselves by their courage and initiative, and so fair two cavalrymen. Sutherland and Willcox, as recently announced have won military decorations which were the first awarded in the N.Z.E.F. The casualties have been remarkably light. 'Phe achievements of the patrols have been all the more astounding because of the extraordinary difficult country over which they operated. The "real desert" begins only 200 miles south of the Libyan coastline. No rain falls in decades, and the oases are hundreds of miles apart. The intervening country is as lifeless as the moon, with tilted plateaus and thousand-foot dills alternating with limitless plains and depressions, while in places the parallel rows of dune reaching 400 feet high run from horizon to horizon, forming vast and almost impenetratable seas of yellow sand. Such a dunefield is the "Great Sand Sea." 800 miles long and 150 miles wide, lying along the Egyptian frontier like a natural barrier Its presence, together with the Italian barbed wire and fortifications, and the protection afforded by the enormous distances. the absence of water and the tierce summer heat, made the enemy garrisons seem secure against attack BEHIND THE BARRIER, On the other hand the British saw a distinct menace both on land and in the air to Upper Egypt and the communications with the Sudan, so they decided they must know what was happening behind the sand barrier General Waved called together three Englishmen who formerly had made a hobby of exploring in the Libyan desert and within six weeks the officen and men had been drawn from the New Zealand force and the Royal Ar moured Corps to fi rm patrols, each of which, with its own mapping, navigation, medical iipply and repair facilities. was an army m miniature Then tor weeks at a time they dir-appeai <-e! < ver the western horizon on then i swift mysterious forays and reconnaissances. 'Die effect on the enemy ; nnu | known to haw been consider.ibh' for they stopped .;ll m-rimil traffic airing the desert routes after tile 'i:-‘ raid and allowed n<> movement from oasis to oasis without an escort of 1 runs mid aircraft AU earriwns m th< I Libyan interior were heavily rrciMrc j ed in men and material--. while daily! air patrol-: W er«- • irgano-etl over ,i Un! area The pr<>!--nged uncertainly, more over nil th< nerves -->f the enemy paro>. edge By December the mam juij.- < uf the patrols m e;e tern Libya! had Been .achieved, in that the alien-1 lion of th.e enemy had been .ippreci-j ably detracted from the deci.-uw bat > th- area m the north It wa- therefore’ decided in up the tdrepy garn-’ runs far away w,iih-wr-mni Lil.iv.iJ where • mce the French mm: lice the;' enemy had imiLmbledly felt -retire They c>iperated there •■. th 'tie FrccJ French force'- wh-.-'«- -urfi'-e, were} ami'iimi'vd lately