VALIANT INDIANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1943, Page 3

VALIANT INDIANS

WAR COMRADESHIP WITH NEW ZEALANDERS BRAVE DEEDS IN AKARIT BATTLE. GHURKAS OPEN WAY FOR TANKS (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) JERUSALEM, April 18. The New Zealanders as part of the Eighth Army had fighting associations with many British and Dominions units, and among the most valued is the comradeship-in-arms with the fighting men of India. In the present campaign, the New Zealanders have formed the core of the force which first made contact with the enemy in Tunisia at Medenine and Matmata, then embarked on the successful outflanking movement which forced the Tebaga gap and later drove on after the enemy line on Wadi Akarit had been forced, to pursue Rommel’s retreating forces northward.

It was not till our forces were resting on the plains between Gabes and Wadi Akarit that they learnt that a famous Indian division would form part of the forces which would be entrusted with the difficult task of breaking the enemy’s hold on the Akarit line and the adjoining hills. In the first day of the battle, the Indians took both their objectives, nuggety little Ghurka riflemen doing notable work. As the New Zealanders approached the gap to pass through the Indians the day after the attack, an Indian officer told me something of the battle. He was modestly proud of his men. They had been given a job to do, and they had done it. "He did not stress the difficulty of the task, but later, as our convoy passed through the gap, I realised it for myself. He said in his broken English that as his men put down the last of three tank crossings they laid across a tank ditch, one shell killed his commanding officer and an American observer. Twenty-one members of his unit had also fallen in the battle for the ditch, yet his only comment was that his men had done the job, and that the tanks had gone through. “They are brave, those men,’’ he said, referring to the tank personnel. “They do not hesitate.” He did not say anything about his own part, or that of his men, but when I saw what they accomplished, it told yet another story of the fighting exploits of the Indian troops. He also told me something of the Indian fighting soldiers’ attitude toward the political troubles of his country. Summarised, they were: “Get the war over first.” There is no doubt that the Indian and British troops who cracked the Wadi Akarit positions had one of the toughest assignments of this campaign, and some of the grimmest fighting ol the Tunisian campaign took place in this area. Long lines of prisoners which we saw wending their way back after the battle, were only part of the enemy’s losses, and this section completed the work which the force under Lieuten-ant-General Freyberg began 1 when it forced Tebaga Gap.