TAKROUNA CRAG

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 April 1943, Page 3

TAKROUNA CRAG

STORMED BY NEW ZEALAND TROOPS CREST SCALED BY PARTY OF MAORIS. UNDER HAIL OF BOMBS & BULLETS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 1.40 a.m.) RUGBY, April 28. The men who stormed and captured the height of Takrouna (west of Enfidaville) and held it firmly against counter-attacks, were infantry from a Nev/ Zealand brigade, states a commentator, who adds that Indians took part in the fighting for Jebel Garci, west of Takrouna. In the first case it was a group of nine Maoris who finally fought their way through to the

top, after the lower part of the hill had been won by hard and bitter

fighting. Four of the Maoris took a rough and uncertain pathway round the side of the height. The other five, led by a sergeant, scaled a sheer cliff face, hauling up Bren guns and keeping up their fire as they went. Somehow they achieved the apparently impossible, through a hail of bombs and bullets, and all nine reached the summit and held on grimly until reinforcements arrived. Three of the Maoris were killed in this part of the fighting, butjthe six survivors joined the relief party in driving the enemy from buildings on the crest of the hill and down the slopes behind. Their achievement makes one of the really great stories of the campaign.