STILL AT IT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 December 1941, Page 6

STILL AT IT

NEW ZEALAND TROOPS CLEANING-UP OPERATIONS. HIGH STANDARD OF ACCURACY SET BY ARTILLERY. (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service). (Received This Day, 11.20 a.m.) CAIRO, December 7. „ Weather conditions have improved as the New Zealand forces take an opportunity for reorganisation, with cleaning-up operations and mobile patrol activity continuing. A tribute to the accuracy of the New Zealand artillery is contained in the story of parties who escaped from the custody of the enemy at Sidi Rezegh. Two Australian officers, who were captured by an enemy raiding column, were taken to the New Zealand Hospital at Sidi Rezegh. The enemy had left the hospital intact, but ringed with guns, as they defended the position, on the assumption that the New Zealanders would not fire near the hospital. The New Zealand artillery found a perfect range and made the position untenable by destroying enemy batteries, and the Germans withdrew, taking the hospital staff and patients as prisoners, together with a number of prisoners held at the hospital. At this stage the party took over a large vehicle and the Australian officers, several South Africans and a majority of the New Zealanders escaped through the enemy lines. The Australian officers have the highest possible praise for the work of the New Zealand artillery, to whose marksmanship they owe the opportunity of escaping.