MODERN WARFARE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 July 1941, Page 7

MODERN WARFARE

MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT COMPANY SPEEDY ROAD CONSTRUCTION. NEW DEPARTURE IN ARMY ENGINEERING. (NZEF. Official News Service.) CAIRO. June 30. Bringing a new and fuller meaning to the expression "mechanised warfare." there is a New Zealand unit operating in Ihe Western Desert which is rapidly becoming one of the bestknown in that stretch of arid waste where there is probably as great an assortment of Empire soldiers as one could wish to see. It is what is termed a mechanical equipment company, its weapons being varieties of heavy machinery which have become familiar to the people of the Dominion through their use by the Public Works Department, local bodies and contractors.

It is not easy to appreciate to the full the vast possibilities in the employment of such equipment with the advantage of trained personnel in the thousand and one tasks that the army finds have to be done in turning strategical positions into impregnable fortresses.

Rocks and dust and a surface that it would be impossible to cio anything with by hand are being transformed by carry-alls, bulldozers, rooters and draglines with a speed that is a revelation to those with a knowledge of the typo of country in which they are working. The road travelled over rough outcrops across a flat wilderness more like the popular idea of the country around the north-west frontier of India, and the parallel was drawn closer as it climbed abruptly by tortuous turns past ravines in which there were Indian troops living in little sandbag forts.

At the top of a plateau these giant machines were working at full pressure shifting rock and spoil with fascinating ease. The officer in charge of the work pointed with pride to special equipment which had proved its value and showed such things as the well-known auto patrol seen so often on the highways of New Zeaalnd operating in entirely new conditions but with equal efficiency. The job on which this particular section is engaged is one which had been given us as impossible bj r ordinary means, but within a very short time amazing progress has been made, and the authorities are delighted with the success of this new departure ir> army engineering.

The adaptability of the men employed is one of the pleasing features that is apparent to a casual visitor, and it is possibly one of the big factors in the success of the undertakings that they are carrying out. Of a rugged type, the men have lived in civil life in back country settlements, and they find that their experience stands them in good stead. The long hours of work, too, are nothing new to many of them, but in the Middle East the conditions are far more strenuous.