BATTLE IN DESERT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 309, 30 December 1940, Page 4

BATTLE IN DESERT.

NEW ZEALAND'S PART.

ONE MINOR CASUALTY.

(From the Official War Correspondent with n» New Zealand Forces in the Middle Mr. Robin T. Miller.) WESTERN DESERT, Dec. 27.

The most exciting days they lave known were described in vivid detail to-day by New Zealand truck driven who have returned from the front. f or a brief stay at their headquart 4 quiet little bay somewhere along the Mediterranean coast.

The men were members of the operating sections of the Reserve Motor Transport Company, Army Service Corps, whose trucks carried English and Indian troops, into the battle which rid Egypt of the Italian armed forces Nearly 230 drivers and reliefs and officers in three fleets of heavy lorries took the assaulting parties to the verr gates of the enemy positions in the Sidi Barrani area.

It is now confirmed that several of them decided on the spur of tie moment to take an even more direct part in the offensive, following tie charging infantrymen into the enemv positions and helping to round up the surprised enemy troops. Admittedlv their action was irregular, but nndeniablv it was splendid.

Tn addition they were forced time after time to seek shelter behind truck wheels or trenches from bursting shells and bombs, and a rain of fire from machine-gun nests and aircraft. It is believed that one driver firing a Bren pun from his shoulder brought down a diving Italian machine. As yet the unit has suffered only one casualty, a driver who was hurt, but not seriouslv, when his truck ran over a land mine." Unsuspecting Italians. One driver described how his section loaded up with Indian troops and spent the first night in the open some 60 miles from the enemy. Next day the troops practiced debussing. while the drivers were shown maps of the enemy camps and told how to make an entrance. The party then moved up unseen and unheard to a bivouac about eight miles from and almost behind tha objectives.

Italian pilots flew overhead unsuspectingly. "One oT our sections went in at dawn and their camp was falling as rav section passed later in the day," he" said. '•Things pot pretty hot when shellfira came our way, and we steered clear to reach our own objective. When the leading trucks almost ran into machine-gun nests the Indians stood up and threw in hand grenades. "We went right alongside the onter tank traps, where some of our truclcs met a number of tanks whose crews seemed so sj>ellbound that the.v could not hit us. The Indian troops piled out and quite a few of our drivers hopped into the scrap with them. It was some hours before all the prisoners were rounded up. "During the nipht, which was spe-nt in the same camp, a crowd of Italic* came from another position and took few shots at us, but not enough to worry about. Next day we took the Indians to another camp. We had nri' been there half an hour when artilleryopened on us from somewhexe else. Believe me, it was pretty warm. "I dived for a hole, landing on top of two Libyans who had beaten me with the same idea. We were under ehellfire for more than an hour, and when we moved to still another camp a few aeroplanes tried to machine-gun ns. I got about 15 shots away at them. There was no stopping the Indians, and this camp fell like the rest.

"When the area wat finally clearc-i up we wt out for Solium, hut word wareceiverd tliat no useful Italians were left in Egypt. We spent the next two or three days eartinjr prisoners before, returning to the job of transporting supplies."