WITH THE N.Z. TROOPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 March 1941, Page 7

WITH THE N.Z. TROOPS

FOOTBALL IN THE NEAR EAST. MASTERTONIAN’S EXPERIENCES. Corporal Erl Cross, a former member of the Red Star Football Club and a Wairarapa representative, writing to his mother from the Middle East under date February 18, stated that he was in the New Zealand Army B team which took part in the seven-a-side football tournament at Alexandria when 34 teams from the Army, the Navy and the Air Force competed. The N.Z. “A" team won the final by 261 points to nil. The "A” team won all their six matches and scored 135 points, not having one point scored against them. The N.Z. ‘B” team was not beaten until it met the “A” team. In some of the Navy teams were representatives of large warships, including several which Hitler claims to have sunk. The N.Z. "A” team comprised Burgess. Barton, Shewan, Welsh, Hegglun, Anderson, McPhail. The “B” team was: Hankins. Bartlett, Uttley, Holland, Hearne, Davidson and E. Cross. . . . "Il looks as if the war is just about over in the East as far as Mussolini is concerned. This is my last week "at the school of instruction and by all appearances I should get through O.K. We have only had one bad dust storm, which left inches of dust and dirt in our huts, while tents were blown down all over the camp. While in Cairo last week I met Sid Spicer and several other chaps from Masterton. In coming across in our ship we had a lecture delivered to us by Major Marsack, of Masterton.”