NO WOMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 October 1941, Page 6

NO WOMEN

IN WIDE WESTERN DESERT AREA NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS HAPPY. CHANCE TO GET SUN-TANNED ALL OVER. (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) (From the Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) ' WESTERN DESERT, October 24. Thousands of square miles of desert from the rearmost British positions probably to distant enemy camps, hold two communities which are the most unusual in the world. They are entirely free from, women. And yet, at any rate ds far as New Zealanders are concerned. they contrive to be reasonably happy. It is unlikely that ever before in history has there been such a concentration of men only in any part of the earth. The Siwa Oasis, where timid Bedouin women flee from British soldiers’ stares, is the southernmost boundary of this exclusively male territory. Eastwards it ends within a hundred 'miles of Alexandria. Over a year has passed since we watched picturesque native families fold their low tents and driving camels, donkeys and goats ahead of them, steal quietly from the battle zone. A New Zealand brigadier recalls a period of duty in the last war at Baba, then the railhead, where he commanded a platoon during the Senussi trouble. Those Nev/ Zealanders thought the surroundings as womanless as ours, until one day, as they watched the daily train depart, they stood agog at the sight of the stationmaster hustling his four wives aboard. He had kept their existence a dead secret’ until the firing of the first shots decided him to evacuate them. One of the advantages of this privacy is that the troops can become sun-tanned all over.