NEW ZEALAND TROOPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1942, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND TROOPS

FIGHTING IN TRIPOLITANIA

CASUALTIES FAIRLY LIGHT. MESSAGE FROM GENERAL FREYBERG. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “The operations foreshadowed in earlier cables are now over. These resulted in turning the strong enemy position at El Agheila and in driving the Axis forces back nearly 200 miles. Our casualties, I am thankful to say, were comparatively light. Three officers and eleven men were killed, eight officers and 53 men wounded and three officers and nine men are missing.” This is the opening paragraph of a cablegram received from General Freyberg by the Minister of Defence, Mr F. Jones. After recording the moves from Bardia to Nofilia, General Freyberg concludes: “The success of the operation was largely due to the skill and efficiency of our drivers and mobile workshops, who nave kept our vehicles in serviceable condition, notwithstanding the roughness of the desert going. I have just visited out wounded in an isolated spot in the Tri--politanian desert. They have received the best surgical treatment in what amounts to a fully-equipped field hospital. They are being carried back by ambulance as soon as the roads are ail clear. The most serious cases are evacuated by air ambulance over many hundreds of miles of desert to our bospitals in Egypt. As usual your Division maintained the high standard and fighting spirit expected of it. The health and spirits of the men arb excellent.” _____