MULE PACK COMPANY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 172, 3 May 1943, Page 3

MULE PACK COMPANY.

BEHIND Bth ARMY FRONT LINE.

POSSIBLE TRANSPORT (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) NORTH OF SOUSSE, April 24. Just a fev r miles behind the Bth Army’s front line, on a tracliside, is a grey rocking liorse with a painted saddle of ornate design. Transport drivers slow done to read the sign which surmounts this wooden horse--“First New Zealand Mule Pack Company.’’

Tethered nearby between tall cactus hedges among olive trees is a motley collection of mules and donkeys which only a week or two ago were long-suffering beasts of burden of local natives. Now well fed, groomed, and equipped, they are ready, if needed, for the transport of ammunition and stores to troops fighting their way through mountainous country toward Tunis. The New Zealanders’ mule pack company is operated mostly by men of the Army Service Corps and others from infantry battalions, many of them with training in pre-war days in the Mounted Rifles. All have had experience wita horses, but few with mules or donkeys.

The first human casualty was an officer who was assisting the loading of a mule into a truck when a vicious pair of heels sent him flying. He is a hospital case, but was not seriously hurt. Since then there have been minor casualties, mostly from bites and abrasions, but the animals, for the most part, have been remarkably docile. These sturdy animals can carry useful loads mules about 2001 b inaddition to a 501 b packsaddle and donkeys about half that weight. The 34 mules and 32 donkeys which constitute the platoon are capable of carrying 70,000 rounds of rifle ammunition .and nearly 300 gallons of water. In addition to the water, they could carry nearly 2500 grenades or 700 mines.