HUN TANK DRIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1941, Page 5

HUN TANK DRIVE

DAY WHEN N.Z. BRIGADES WERE SPLIT FEARS FOR G.O.C. & STAFF. PROVE TO BE UNFOUNDED. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) TOBRUK, December 3. When the Hun tanks drove a wedge through the New Zealand fighting forces around the Sidi Rezegh-Bel Hamed sector on December E there was some doubt whether the G.0.C., Major-General Freyberg, and his personal staff, had withdrawn in time. It was also feared that the brigadiers and headquarters of two infantry brigades, one commanded by Brigadier Barrowclough and the other by Brigadiei InPlis might have been captured or, worse still, wiped out in the vicious German tank attack. It was eventually established that all were safe. All three, the geneial and his staff and both the brigade headquarters, withdrew in different directions toward the east. Yesterday the three formations gathered together somewhere in Libya. . Though the two New Zealand brigades were split by massed enemy forces—the Germans threw all their available strength into this despeiate attack —the New Zealanders fight on. These New Zealanders of ours are amazing. When we were being spasmodically shelled, the other day I watched two teams playing a scratch game of football —Rugby in the front line. Those players, the personnel of divisional headquarters, showed complete indifference to the shells. It amounted almost to scorn till the

shells started to come thick and fast. Then the ball was left where it had been kicked and not a player could be seen above ground.