BATTLES IN BALKANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1941, Page 4

BATTLES IN BALKANS

WORK OF THE NEW ZEALAND MACHINE=GUNNERS SPLENDID STANDARD SET. GENERAL FREYBERG’S PRAISE. (From New Zealand’s Official War Correspondent.) CAIRO, August 2. Few jobs in land warfare demand more nerve and stamina than that of the machine-gunners'. The New Zealand gunners who took part in the Balkan battles demonstrated these qualities so outstandingly that the General Officer Commanding the N.Z.E.F., Major-General Freyberg, when visiting them yesterday, found cause to express his unstinted admiration for the way they had proved themselves. Major-General Freyberg, who reviewed the unit at a ceremonial parade, recalled that he had watched the progress of the machine-gunners with particular interest from their mobilisation, through their early training and the building up of their desert worthiness to their first action. He had been impressed by the state of physical fitness in which they took up battle stations and praised highly the way they carried the guns and other heavy equipment out across country inaccessible to motor vehicles. y Telling the new members that they had a great reputation to live up to Major-General Freyberg urged the unit to maintain its standard of fitness. Because they were divided in action into groups operating in support of formations, of infantry, machinegunners did not often attract individual attention. The deadly fire of our Vickers guns on the northern border of Greece was, however, one of the first tastes the German invaders had. of the British opposition, and the New Zealand machine-gunners left their mark on several other battlefields. Those who served later in Crete worked under extremely difficult conditions, sometimes having to use sandbags and tree trunks instead of tripods to support their guns. These men were as tough as any New Zealand troops. Their training was particularly rigorous, and had included' long desert marches in which the lightest load carried by any. man, apart from regular equipment, was 500 rounds of ammunition. Some were burdened with guns, others with tripods and others with four gallons of cooling water.. One of the finest traits of all the New Zealand fighting men during the Balkans withdrawal marches was the instinctive way in which they clung to their weapons. The severe training of the machine-gunners had proved of value in the preservation of their heavier than the average equipment.