NEW ZEALAND DIVISION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1943, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND DIVISION

CLASSED BV ROMMEL AS BEST. IN EIGHTH ARMY OBSERVATIONS BY BRITISH CORRESPONDENT (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) LONDON, December 9. Rommel considered the New Zealand Division to be the best division in the Eighth Army. This is revealed by Clifford, a “Daily Mail” correspondent, who has just published a book entitled “Three Against Rommel,” which covers the whole North African campaign. Of the day when Mr Winston Churchill reviewed the army at Tripoli, Mr Clifford. says: “That afternoon Mr Churchill reviewed the New Zealand Division out in the countryside. They all had polished and cleaned themselves,' but nothing could obscure the splendour of their physique or the character and maturity in their faces. If I had been asked to write down the best division in the armies of the British Empire I should have put this one unhesitatingly first. Rommel had already done so. We had captured a piece of paper on which he had listed the divisions of the Eighth Army in order of merit, and the New Zealanders headed it. They were quiet men, not given to boasting, possessing a firmness of spirit that came from thoroughly digested experience. Perhaps some day some one will write this division’s history. It ought to be the best reading of the war.”