LIBYAN CAMPAIGN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 February 1941, Page 4

LIBYAN CAMPAIGN

EFFICIENCY & THOROUGHNESS NEW ZEALANDERS’ PART. WORK OF FIELD ENGINEERS. (From the War Correspondent with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Middle East.) CAIRO. February 26. Another illustration of the fact that, though the parts played by the N.Z.E.F. in the Libyan campaign were comparatively unspectacular, they were carried out with outstanding efficiency and thoroughness, is given in the record of the Field Park Engineers, who have rejoined the force after serving till the fall of Benghazi. The New Zealanders were entrusted with a wide range of responsibilities, whose fulfilment demanded the highest degree of initiative and skill. Not far behind the fighting troops they took Bardia, Tobruk and Derna in their stride as they helped to tackle the immense job of setting the wheels in motion again on the past battlefield. The tasks included salvaging enemy vehicles, the operation of waten • points and power-houses, the running of a special supply column, the removal or destruction of enemy mines, boobytraps and bombs, plus general workshop activities.

At times the company, spread over as many as 100 miles, split into parties, doing different work at different points. Headquarters varied from a bivouac in the desert to a mansion at Derna and a basement, in an Italian monument at Barce.

At the latter place New Zealanders left a remarkable monument to their own ingenuity. To replace a bridge which crossed a deep gully in the main road and had been demolished by the Italians, they built another with steel scaffolding salvaged from an enemy hangar.