MOVE INTO BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 July 1942, Page 3

MOVE INTO BATTLE

NEW ZEALAND DRIVER’S STORY TROOPS EAGER TO GET AT ENEMY. GERMAN SHELLS OF POOR QUALITY. (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) CAIRO, July 16. How he took reinforcements straight into the battle line was told by a member of a New Zealand battalion who found himself lent to the Army Service Corps for this special job. The way to the front after leaving the main road had been a succession of hold-ups, due to the soft, treacherous nature of the sand, he said. At one time no fewer than 40 tracks were bogged and had to be pushed, dragged and dug out. His truck was full of men who were veterans of Greece and Crete / and were impatient to get close to the enemy. Eventually they got under way again, and at last reached the infantry de* bussing point forward of the Alamein defences. No sooner had the New Zealanders leaped from the trucks then the enemy opened up with machineguns, spraying the whole face of the ridge. “It was a bit sticky for a while,” said the driver. “I had to go further on with artillery, and it didn’t take us long to get under way. Again when we stopped the enemy plastered us, firing machine-guns, artillery, mortars and tracers for a quarter of an hour unceasingly. They quietened down when our artillery got into action; they have got a lot of respect for the New Zealand 25-pounders and also for the Aussie artillery, which they tasted the other day.” . The New Zealanders were helping with the mopping up ‘after the tank battle which resulted from the recent five-mile advance, and they were in good spirits as a result of the success. Enemy planes were being brought down regularly overhead by the R.A.F. and anti-aircraft fire. One Stuka came down in the New Zealand artillery lines, and the pilot, who was not hurt, was captured. The New Zealand driver who recounted his experiences has a poor opinion of the German artillery fire. He said that shells landed more than once not many yards from his truck without even denting the vehicle or hurting anybody. On one occasion a truck full of men was being transferred out of the area when a shell landed only a dozen or so yards away, yet not one man was touched, nor was the tiuck even scratched.