PURSUIT OF ROMMEL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 January 1943, Page 3

PURSUIT OF ROMMEL

DRIVE BY NEW ZEALAND DIVISION ANOTHER INLAND SWEEP. THROUGH ROUGH & DIFFICULT COUNTRY. (Official. War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) TRIPOLITANIA, January 15. Three weeks after their dash had cut off the German forces retreating along the Gulf of Sirte, our fighting columns were ready again for another of their now famous inland sweeps, which have taken them over 1000 miles through western Egpyt and Libya since the El Alamein line broke in early November. , In those three weeks huge supplies . of food, fuel and ammunition were carried forward. Some of our infantry battalions constructed an R.A.F. landing ground, and the route for our ad- . vance was carefully prepared through ' some of the most difficult country we have yet encountered. One reconnaissance party, searching ahead for suitable country 1 for our hundreds of trucks and guns to advance over, found wadis so steep and rugged that in only a few places in 40 miles could even a jeep cross them. But three days ago every detail of the route, including lights to show the tracks for night marches, was complete and, again with tanks, our col- ■ umns rolled out toward the west. Anti-aircraft guns watched overhead along the edges of Wadi Chebir —a former German defence line and the first deep depression our columns have had to cross. Three-ton trucks, guns and limbers lumbered down into the sheer-sided wadi, crossed its wide patches of soft sand and climbed out of it again on to more tens of miles of rock and sand. In daylight we moved in long, wide formations, and at dusk our trucks edged into close formation \to roar on, nose to tail through stul, moonlight nights. A few hours of rest, and jeep horns and the banging of petrol tins woke us again before dawn for still more miles of sand and dust. As yesterday’s trek ended and we settled down for the night, there was an occasional roar of gunfire ahead. BATTLE AT DAWN. In the first cold ligh’t this morning a battle between the New Zealand ■ fighting columns and the Germans in the southern-most defences of Tripolitania began. New Zealand armoured cavalry with 25-pounders, advancing ahead of our main columns of guns and mobile infantry, swept out across sandy ridges to attack German forces occupying high ground about 17 miles east of the main Axis defences along the Wadi Zemzem. Before 8 o’clock the high ground was ours, and our tanks were probing forward in a bitterly cold wind toward positions which the Germans defended with lines of anti-tank guns, heavy artillery and scattered mines. While sweep after sweep of Royal Air Force fighters watched overhead, a battle beh tween our tanks and guns and the German armoured forces and artillery raged through most of the day across country as arid and rugged as any in North Africa. ENEMY DELAYING TACTICS. Though they were using heavy guns, the Germans seemed unwilling to fight any decisive action, preferring to delay our advance with vigorous rearguard battles. Italian and a few German tanks moved in groups of about 20 ahead of us. More New Zealand guns raced forward to support our armoured attacks, and by dusk the greater part of the German forces were withdrawing to the west, leaving heavy guns to battle against our batteries. The closing stages of the battle were watched by hundreds of our troops, who found themselves with a grandstand view when their transport Malted on high ground overlooking a wide basin from where our guns were firing. Till dusk, when thick clouds of dust and smoke obscured almost everything, our guns fired salvo after salvo into the retreating enemy, and the German batteries answered their fire with rounds that fell mainly well clear of our gun line. On the day’s action the New Zealand guns, our tanks, and the heavy armour of the suporting unit are credited with knocking out five German Mark 3 and 4 tanks, a troop carrier and an anti-tank gun.