SURVEY BATTERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 July 1942, Page 4

SURVEY BATTERY

WORK IN DRAWING MAPS LATEST METHODS USED. ACTIVITIES IN MANY CENTRES. (Official War Correspondent N.Z.E.F.) BEIRUT, April 20. IL takes all sorts to make an Army. Unknown among other units of the New Zealand Division, unsung save for those at Middle East Headquarters who know their true worth, the N.Z. Survey Battery of the New Zealand Artillery has worked all through the Middle East, from Aden to Cyprus, from Cairo to the Syrian-Turkish frontier. Their job is to draw maps and when they have finished —draw more maps. The real role of the battery is that of artillery survey, but since its arrival in the Middle East over twelve months ago, it has not been attached to any artillery unit and it has never been a part of the New Zealand Division. They are non-divisional troops. Early in the war the New Zealand Government was asked to supply an artillery survey battery, just as it was asked to supply a forestry unit (now in England), a mechanical equipment company, railway construction companies and a railway operating company. Already the members of the battery —all highly skilled surveyors and draughtsmen, many of whom are from the Lands and Survey Department—have worked on the Delta of the Nile, on the defences of Cairo, in the Red Sea area, at Aden, on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, in the Trans-Jordan, in Palestine and in Syria. They have co-operated with the Navy and the R.A.F. in the work. Thousands of miles have been covered, hundreds of maps have been drawn. It is not a combatant unit in the true sense of the word, but its members are armed for self-protection. So far not one member of the unit has fired a shot in anger, but that day may come, for the unit is now working in a country alive with marauding Arabs and fifth columnists. Latest American instruments and methods are used by the battery In producing highly accurate maps from air photographs, the cnly battery of its kind in the Middle East which is using these delicate modern instruments. Members of the unit have taught themselves the use of up-to-the-minute methods, and they can now turn out maps faster than any other •unit in the Middle East.

Officer commanding the battery is Major J. Stevens-Jordan, formerly of Wellington. All his officers are registered surveyor's and one young officer is regarded in New Zealand as a genius on higher mathematics. ‘There are some people who regard survey and astronomy as witchcraft,” said the O.C. as he showed me around his desert headquarters. When we had finished the tour and I had tried in vain to follow his explanations, I was almost convinced that the work of the battery was witchcraft. I left with my head in a whirl.

Amidst the ruins of another world the battery worked for weeks in the Trans-Jordan. It carried out a ground control survey for aerial photo mapping. Their work took them to ancient Petra, famous Nabatean city, cut out of solid rock; to Kerak, a fine Crusader castle ruin. Detachments from the battery worked at the Ain Musaor, or Moses Spring, produced by Moses striking the rock when the Host was wandering for forty years in the wilderness.

Many famous points quoted in ancient history have been turned to modern use as control points for air photos, and as water points for the Army, with modern power pumps installed. Many of the control points used are ruins of Lawrence’s demolitions on the Hejaz railway. Almost every bridge along the railway bears witness to Lawrence’s raids.

So New Zealand’s survey battery, under the control of Middle East Headquarters, goes about its job with its £50,000 worth of instruments and equipment. In the course of their job in the Trans-Jordan members of the battery scaled rocky heights where no man had ever been before. They proved their versatility and enterprise by completing survey undertakings that had been abandoned by other units as impossible.