VOYAGE TO TOBRUK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1941, Page 2

VOYAGE TO TOBRUK

IN CAPTURED ITALIAN SCHOONER NEW ZEALAND ARTIFICER'S EXPERIENCE. WAR ADVENTURES IN MANY SEAS (N.Z.E.F. Officials News Service). CAIRO, October 25.

On land, in the air and on the sea, New Zealanders wait for the enemy, or go out to seek him, as the occasion demands. But it is in the “Silent Service” of the Empire's Navy that are found probably the least heard of but none the less exciting adventures which form the everyday life of many of the Dominion’s young men. It may be a long encircling sweep of the icy North Atlantic, or a thrilling submarine hunt off the British coast, or a deafening battle, short and grim, with death-diving bombers in the Sicilian Channel. Or it may be, as was the last assignment of a young artificer from Wellington, crawling along the North African coastline in a captured 400-ton Italian schooner—bound for Tobruk and loaded dojyn with precious petrol for the brave&sbeleaguered garrison that has been defying the forces of the Axis for almost six months. Actually, the engine room artificer hails from "Lower Hutt. Before the war he was an enthusiastic member of the N.Z.R.N.V.R. but September, 1939, found him in the Navy proper. Since then he has seen exciting service from Greenland in the north, then east to the infested waters of the Baltic and the Atlantic shores of Norway, then south to the broiling tropics of West Africa and the warm but unfriendly blue Mediterranean. During his many “cruises” he has sailed in cruisers, destroyers and an aircraft-carrier. He has also grown a fine, trimly-kept beard whose main claim to survival, he declares, is that it saves him the laborious task of shaving.

“EVENTFUL ENOUGH.” “The trip to Tobruk was eventful enough —perhaps just a little too much so,” said the artificer, who had dropped in at a New Zealand camp to find his soldier brother-in-law. “For three and a half hours we were “escorted” by a Heinkel. He probably took us for Italians and gave himself the job of looking after us. Then a British plane appeared, and apparently thought the same thing, and had a shot at us. It was a tough spot. Then the Heinkel and the British plane got mixed up in a dog-fight and the next thing we knew they had both disappeared over the horizon —much to our relief. On top of that we went 20 miles past Tobruk, and found ourselves just outside Derna, about half an hour after midnight. The British were raiding that night, and dropping stuff all over the town, with “ack-

acks” pelting flak into the sky. We must have been spotted, for the next thing we knew a searchlight beam was turned full on us and machine-guns opened up from the shore. Three bombers droned overhead, but we couldn’t tell whether they were friends

or enemies. We decided —wisely—to get out of it.” Next day they reached Tobruk—really only just reached it, for they had an engine breakdown not far from the port. They were given a great welcome by the garrison. It was a fortnight before they left. The first tug sent to bring them home failed to arrive, caught half-way by swooping enemy planes. It took 12 planes to sink the tiny vessel. A STRONG FORTRESS.

“They haven’t got a show of taking Tobruk,” declared the artificer. “In fact I can’t understand how we were able to get the Italians out of the place so quickly. They are certainly wellfortified and have some wonderful ‘ack-ack’ up there. I saw them going one night when something like 100 enemy planes' came over. The sky was just ablaze with gunfire. “When we did eventually leave we got a fairly severe shelling as we went out from Jerry’s batteries around the town. They came close enough to splash the water all round us. From just off the coast you can see the puffs of the enemy’s guns sending stuff into the town. You can even hear the rat-a-tat of the machine-guns and seethe dust rise from dhe tanks.”

Practically every member of the crew of the craft was a survivor from some ship lost in action. None of them was over 26 years of age, while the captain was a 25-year-old South African sub-lieutenant from the Royal Naval Reserve. On the schooner was another New Zealander, from Taranaki, who was a survivor from the Southampton. The trip to Tobruk meant being almost continuously on duty, with every man standing by a gun. CAPTURE OF SUPPLY SHIP.

The artificer had been detached from the Neptune, 70 per cent of whose crew were New Zealanders. He had joined the Neptune in England after some thrilling service in the aircraft carrier Furious. This had included carrying planes on raids over Norway, and later carrying planes to ■ Africa for assembly , and forwarding to Greece prior to the Balkan campaign. He was in the Neptune when the Bismarck was sunk, but their ship was at that time kept to port. Not long after, however, they had the satisfaction of being in at the death of one of the Bismarck’s supply ships, in which episode >the New Zealanders contributed a telling part. “We took about 70 prisoners aboard from the supply ship,” he said. “They' certainly were very well treated, and 1 allowed on the upper deck whenever they wanted. They were given good food. In fact if they preferred coffee to tea, they got it.” Another event of which the artificer retains vivid memories was when his ship went into action against the Prince Egene not far from Gibraltar. As far as he could remember, the Dunedin also was in the show. Other times he has come across the Diomede and the Leander doing a fine job of work at various points of the Empire's sea-lanes. He had been stationed in England during the big blitz, and was actually in the Cafe de Paris when a bomb killed a hundred civilians and soldiers who were passing the evening inside. In England, he married an Australian girl, from Bondi, Sydney. Enjoying four days’ shore leave in Egypt, the artificer made himself the welcoipe guest of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and has been spending his time pleasantly looking up old acquaintances before shaking the desert sand from his boots and boarding his ship—ready for the next' adventure, whatever it may be.