WESTERN DESERT

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 59, 19 December 1940, Page 3

WESTERN DESERT

NEW ZEALANDERS’ PART.

HARD TRANSPORT WORK.

(From Official War Correspondent with N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East.)

CAIRO, December 17. I am writing this on Monday, December 15, in. the "Western Desert. Motor transport drivers and signallers' have spent strenuous days carrying out the limited but not insignificant parts the New Zealand Expeditionary Force has been called on to play in the British offensive.

Long before the push began Army Service Corps transport columns were conveying men and supplies in a constant stream to the forward areas. Night and day through the offensive they have continued this wqrk on an intensified scale. In, the last week their drivers spent hours at the wheel running up thousands of miles of desert travel, and moving further and further westwards as the British forces pressed deeper into enemy occupied territory.

At a later stage trucks and drivers were drawn from many other New Zealand units to form a further huge transport column, which journeyed westwards with supplies, and carried thousands of prisoners back to the concentration area.

Long and arduous hours have been filled in in different ways throughout the offensive by a New Zealand signals company. This detachment, which has been operating with the Western Desert forces ever since Italy entered the war, helped shoulder the big responsibility of establishing and maintaining communications im the rear of the advancing British troops.