EARLIER FIGHTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1942, Page 4

EARLIER FIGHTING

•ATTACK ON RUWEISAT RIDGE , i NEW ZEALAND MACHINE-GUNS. IN ACTION AGAINST NAZI ARTILLERY. (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) RUWEISAT RIDGE, July 20. As a German armoured force was attacking the New Zealand line on Ruweisat Ridge, a Hawke’s Bay machinegunner selected an armoured car as his target, and fired away belt after belt of ammunition against it. His gun was still blazing when the armoured car had closed in almost on top of his gunpit. He kept on firing until the armoured car withdrew. The action of this gunnel’ is typical of the dogged resistance put up by the men of a North Island .machine-gun company whose guns, with a few anti-tank guns, were the heaviest weapons that could fire in close support of the infantry defending the ridge. From the time their light guns on trucks mounted the ridge in the early morning until their positions were overrun by enemy armoured forces late in the afternoon, the machine-gun-ers were in action continuously, against everything from field guns to infantry, firing about 40,000 rounds. They were following the infantry on to Ruweisat Ridge when three enemy tanks and heavily armed infantry fired on them from a flank. The trucks turned and headed directly on to the ridge, while two guns prepared to repulse the attack. A few seconds after their trucks had stopped, the gun teams were in action, raking the ridge from which German tank and machine-gun fire