"WHAT A BLOW."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 81, 5 April 1941, Page 5

"WHAT A BLOW."

LIBYAN CAMPAIGN. N.Z. SOLDIER'S IMPRESSIONS. (0.C.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day. For 20,000 -weary miles, over soft sand or jagged rocks or through mud, we have rocked along together, and it is their faith fulness jio lees than our purposefulncss that Ims given ue the title of 'Middle East No. 1 Transport Service." writes T. V. Kelson, of the N.Z.E.F. Motor Transport, who was a school teacher in Auckland Uefore enlistin,?, in referring to his unit and equipment.

"These trucks have been our homes for nearly nine months,' 5 he says. "Tofrether we have coughed and spluttered through standstorins, and in the summer .-tin they boiled while we sweated."' He tells how his motor lorry covered 400 miles in two days and nearly 1000 miles in a week, swerving from shell craters and gingerly traversing minefields. After nine months' service in the advance into .Libya he was then about to return to Egypt. Supplies for "Mother." The precarious existence of the peasantry, who, in spite of their hard work, had lieeu largely dependent upon Italy for their supplies, greatly impressed the soldier. "We halted for lunch one day on si piece of waste ground, ami, ,, he states, "the family opposite came over. We decided they looked hungry, so turned out our larder for them, and sent "mother' away with about -81b of Hour, lish, macaroni, army biscuits, and bully beef which we had obtained from the vast quantities captured in the Italian c-amps.

'"Smiles and 'gratias' all round, and we felt that we had struck a real blow for ]>iitish generosity to a conquered people." Some of the farms seemed to be well overstaffed; the feeling in making the observation was that more than one of the men there was an army deserter.

The amazing sight of acres of captured war material and many thousands of Italian prisoners in barbed wire enclosures described by the writer. After telling of the difficulties of driving through dust, and sandstorms, and across boulder-strewn country and sand dunes, with visibility rarely more than 1.1 yards, lie tells of the scene at one of the ports captured from the Italians. Deserted Aerodrome. Reaching a. brown desert hill overlooking the town, he saw a deserted aerodrome with hangars gutted and aeroplanes destroyed or captured. 15elow was the harbour with its blue, sparkling surface broken by the wrecks of sunken vessels. These included a large cruiser, gutted, helpless and still smoking. One large ship and a small one had been run aground side by side, and at least half a dozen more lay on the bed of the harbour, with only their funnels or masts showing.

Across the harbour the oil tanks were still sending up great clouds of smoke, eating up Mussolini's precious stocks of oil.

Beyond all this ro>p tlie white domes of the. (own, ami onohnnting like fairy rustles. '■They stretch ill billows, for this is no small town," he write.-;. "On our left the barbed wire confines so many prisoner,-; that it is impossible to estimate them. 1 stand (ill the top of a cab. but the mass >tretilies lioyond my vision. We descend to the left and skirt the top of the harbour. All around on the sand are the Wussies.' paddling their feet or sleeping in the sun after their magnificent effort of the day before. Xow we are low in the valley, and here are acres of lorries, gnus and limbers and stores. What a blow to Italv!"