DESERT ORDEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 March 1941, Page 6

DESERT ORDEAL

ENDURED BY NEW ZEALANDERS AND SCOT. GREAT PERILS ESCAPED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) LONDON. March 15. After staggering 240 miles in .10 days without boots and without food over the hot sands of the Libyan desert, two New' Zealanders and a Scottish soldier are now patients in Khartoum Hospital. They regard their rescue in the nature of a miracle. They are members of a unit of a light armoured force, surprised near Jebelbishara Oasis by a superior force of Italian armoured vehicles. They were resting after a 2000-mile desert patrol, awaiting dinner. They had left their boots in a vehicle and were resting their feet, when the Italians set fire to the vehicle. The remainder of the unit fought a rearguard action across the desert. The New Zealanders and the Scot and another soldier, carrying one two gallon tin of water and no food, tried to follow desert tracks and searched for their comrades for days. They staggered along, supporting each other rationing themselves to a gulp of water at sunrise and sunset. Their feet were I like balls of fire. The eighth day before noon two R.A.F. planes spotted them, and dropped a bottle of water and food. By then the men were so weak that they were unable to crawl in its direction. ' On the ninth day one soldier died raving mad. The rest, crawled along. On the tenth day' a Free French patrol, returning from a victorious raid on Kufra. discovered the party and carried them to Tekla, a French border post, whence they were flown into Khartoum.