EVE OF BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 October 1942, Page 3

EVE OF BATTLE

SCENES IN NEW ZEALAND LINES BEFORE OPENING OF ATTACK IN EGYPT. PREPARATIONS CAREFULLY CONCEALED. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) EL ALAMEIN FRONT Oct. 24 A chilly autumn evening had settled on the El Alamein front. It was no different from many other evenings when there had been “nothing to report from our land forces. The Germans used the last rays of the sun setting behind them to send across an occasional shell. Infantrymen smoked in their trenches. Dispatch riders and liaison officers hurried between office and trucks with their messages. That is how the front last night appeared to the enemy, and to anyone on our side of the line who had not been in close contact with the careful preparations made for large offensive action. No unusual movement of transport or troops, extra shelling or air bombardment indicated to the enemy that we were about to begin an attack that would shatter his defences and carry our line into his territory. A week’s careful planning and manoeuvring of transport had been used so that the German air reconnaissance would show no development at any particular part of our line. Night working parties stored ammunition behind the positions our guns would take up for their tremendous barrage. Yesterday the New Zealand infantry lay hidden in slit trenches they had dug after their march into the line on the previous night. At dusk they were equipped and ready to begin the attack. “Even his evening hate is less tonight. There were only two shells on that ridge,” a brigadier remarked as he indicated to us a long, low mound that was to be the starting line for the attack. WHOLE FRONT QUIET. The whole front was quiet as the New Zealanders scrambled from their trenches and walked out in extended line, rifles and tommy-guns hanging on their shoulders ready for the advance. Most of them were quiet, but some joked among themselves and with the first American war correspondent to watch a New Zealand at“What are you going to do when you get there?” he asked. “Ask Rommel in a fortnight,” was a New Zealander’s reply. We walked forward 'With them and spoke to a veteran sergeant whose main concern a few minutes before he was among mortars and machinegun bullets —was whether his wife was cutting the lawns round his Auckland home. For many of those men it was their first big attack, but all had rehearsed the action over ground almost the same as their line of advance. They knew that the guns wotild lay down a concentration which senior officers had thought would be one of the greatest barrages of its kind since the Somme. A TREMENDOUS OVERTURE. ' The line of infantry moved ahead, and just as they were becoming silhouetted against the bright moonlight on the skyline a sound like the gathering of all thunderstorms ever heard began behind us. In almost a complete semicircle behind the attack the flashes of the guns danced madly along the horizon and shot out bright streaks to light the area up like day. Then two heavy guns a short distance behind us opened fire, almost blottiflg out every other noise with their roar and wide red glow. Our guns were directed at the German batteries, and plotted and checked up to the last minute. For twenty minutes their screaming shells hammered the enemy guns so effectively that scarcely a shot was answered. Then the whole terrific gun power came down on the defences the infantry were to take. Every three minutes the curtain of fire lifted and fell 100 yards deeper into the German and Italian lines. , „, , Only one-third of the infantry fight-

ing force had so far advanced with the engineers to blast a track through the barbed wire and minefields, with a force of Maoris for effectively dealing with pockets left in the initial advance Word came that the first objective had been taken, and up toward the lights along the starting line came Wellington and South Island men to press forward the attack toward the final ridge that was to be held. The gaps in the minefields were readv. The opposition in the first stage of the attack had been mainly from mortar and machine-gun fire, and again on the second objective our infantry found heavily-armed pockets and snipers. At first. light they were still struggling to drive the Germans from a ridge which commands valuable observation of much of the surrounding country. One half of the attacking force was on the ridge, and the other fighting to capture the heav-ily-defended corner ends. .