EARLY TREATMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 July 1942, Page 3

EARLY TREATMENT

GIVEN TO NEW ZEALAND WOUNDED MEDICAL UNITS WORKING WELL FORWARD. DRESSING STATION UNDER FIRE. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.”) EL ALAMEIN, July 20. Battle casualties among the New Zealanders are receiving early treatment through the policy of our medical services of keeping in the closest company possible with the divisional units. At Minqar Quaim I saw an advanced dressing station working calmly while shells and mortar bombs burst all round the shallow wadi in which it was situated. Never before have the New Zealanders been so well equipped with ambulances, and this is making possible the rapid evacuation of the wounded and early treatment for shock by blood transfusions and the use of intravenous fluid. In cases of extreme emergency this can be done at the regimentai aid posts which function on the battlefield itself, and most of the ambulances are also equipped for the purpose. The ambulances also work right in the thick of things. The division is fortunate in having the help of a number of ambulances of the American Field Service. Yesterday I visited a main dressing station a few miles beyond the forward troops. A blood transfusion unit and surgical teams were at work restoring the wounded to a fit condition for travel by ambulance to the casualty clearing station and hospital. The most serious cases were being sent by plane. The work was all beipg done under canvas, with the greatest consideration possible for the comfort of the troops. The evacuation of the wounded has proceeded smoothly, morning and afternoon. STRAIN OF BATTLE IN FIGHT FOR EL ALAMEIN. GERMAN CORRESPONDENT’S DESCRIPTION. (fiy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, July 23. Berlin radio quoted a German war correspondent attached to Rommel’s forces who described the fight for El Alamein as heavy and fierce. “General Auchinleck,” he said, “is throwing in all his reserves; El Alamein’s deeplyecheloned positions bristle with minefields, barbed-wire entanglements, built-in field guns, and anti-tank guns. “Our men for seven weeks have borne the brunt of an offensive such as the world has seldom seen, and the desert never before experienced. They must now undergo the full force of positional warfare in which every hour strains the nerves to the utmost. “Day after day, Auchinleck flings in huge tanks against our lines, while a great number of batteries, concentrated on a narrow strip, bombards us ceaselessly.” BRAVE DEEDS DECORATIONS PRESENTED IN DESERTBY THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) EL ALAMEIN, July 20. Two New Zealand N.C.O.’s —one decorated. for gallantry in Crete and the other for his bravery in the first Libyan campaign—were among the eight British officers and men who received their awards from the Duke of Gloucester in the Western Desert yesterday afternoon. They were Sergeants Thomas Gill, British Empire Medal, Wellington, and Mervin Curtis, Auckland. The Duke, who was accompanied by General Auchinleck, pinned the ribbons on the men who stood in line on a small hill in front of the commander-in-chief’s headquarters. Both he and General Auchinleck were particularly interested in the story of Sergeant Gill, A.S.C., who served through every phase of the desert campaign. Sergeant Gill received his decoration for his gallantry in clearing a path for his trucks through thermos bombs dropped by the Italians in the New Zealanders’ first Libyan campaign. In the campaign last winter, he left Benghazi when it was surrounded and made a 10-day march across 300 miles of desert to Tobruk. Sergeant Curtis, who is now serving with an ack-ack regiment, saved the life of a Fleet Air Arm pilot whom he dragged from his plane when it was shot down in front of his machine-gun post just before the invasion of Crete. INJURED IN ACCIDENT FRENCH COMMANDER IN EGYPT, (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.17 a.m.) RUGBY, July 23. General De Larminet, commanding) the Fighting French forces in Egypt, is in a Cairo hospital with a fractured

skull and broken collarbone. He was returning from a visit to a French ! brigade moving up to the front when his car skidded in sand and overturned k twice.