WAR ON WHEELS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 789, 3 September 1954, Page 14

WAR ON WHEELS

R.M.T., by Jim Henderson; War History Branch, Department of Internal Affairs, 17/6. ‘HE latest addition to the War History series traces the adventures and achievements of a comparatively small body of men, the 4th and 6th Reserve Mechanical Transport Companies, 2 N.Z.E.F. From the nature of their work-carters unlimited, anything from serum to shells, from prisoners to mules, in three-ton trucks-the R.M.T. drivers poked into many odd corners, pleasant and otherwise. Their lorries carried Indian troops in an attack on Italian positions at Tummar (inside Egypt) as early as December, 1940. They shared in the fighting and the casualties of Greece and Crete, of Sidi Rezegh and the breakout at Minqar Qaim. They knew the roads, frozen or dust-ridden, of Italy. Their story includes a number of incidents of gallantry and devotion to duty. }> Henderson has written a lively an high-spirited account of these doings, and has space for much of the personal and the comradely scarcely to be found in campaign histories. In these pages we get to know many men as individuals, and this well-sustained, deftly-handled "human interest’ is the book’s special attraction. In Baghdad "George, told the veil had been abolished, and seeing the now uncovered faces, fully understood why they had it in the first place." Perhaps the highwater mark of "escape" literature was reached under shellfire in Libya: "Except when they went out to attend wounded, those two were completely wrapped up in their books .. . the titles were Gunshot Valley and Dead Men Tell No Tales." The only fault that obtrudes itself in this interesting unit history is an occasional outbreak of statistics. Even these can lighten our darkness: it is nice to know it took two tons of petrol for every three tons of beer hauled from Cairo to Nofilia. The maps and illustrations are up to the high standard set by the previous productions of the War History branch.

David

Hall