GETTING READY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 November 1943, Page 4

GETTING READY

FOR THE NEXT FIGHT FRENCH MOROCCAN TROOPS The Goums are getting ready for their next fight, and will soon be in the news again. Who are they? They are French Moroccan native troops. They know all about their own French light machine-guns, the American tommygun, our own guns, but if you give them a handful of grenades, they will rush in anywhere, finishing off the job with rifle and bayonet.

They idolise their French officers. They covered themselves with glory in the final stages of the Tunisian campaign, as soon as they had sufficient arms and ammunition to fight with. A pair of hills, just outside Mistretta, was held by two companies of strongly entrenched Germans. The Goums planned a night attack, clambering quietly upwards over the rocky slope. A shower of hand grenades, then a rush in with cold steel. The Germans were not asleep and opened up with machine-gun fire at 50 yards. But the Goums did not dive to earth for cover; they just went right in. They made short work of the German garrison. Goums look peaceful enough when the fighting is over. Just big children, they grin and smile or, when no one is about, sink back into that curious dreamy contemplation of the Berber, a great past of nomad wanderings sleeping in their features, sons of toil and strife of centuries of Africa’s sun.

They will be waking up into action again and will soon be back in the news. Watch them.