UNDER SHELLFIRE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 303, 23 December 1941, Page 4

UNDER SHELLFIRE

WIRE WENT THROUGH SIGNALLERS' STORIES (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service) CAIRO, December 21. The story of the linking of the signal' line from New Zealand headquarters at Sidi Rezegh with Corps headquarters at Tobruk, is told by an Aucklander who was with the New Zealand Signals Detachment. With a driver from Kilbirnie and a linesman from Westport, he reached Tobruk on November 30, running, in the last three miles of line connecting with divisional headquarters 28 miles away. Next day the line was dead and the party started back to effect repairs. Under the command of a major, accompanied by men from Tobruk. they nad gone for 17 miles when they were shelled and forced to take shelter in German and Italian dugouts, which had been the scene of heavy fighting a few days before. Tank on Skyline "We got a few souvenirs, and then shelling eased off," said the Aucklander. "I was instructed to go four miles along the line tapping it and keeping watch for enemy tanks. The men from Tobruk were to follow to repair the breaks of which there were plenty." He had not gone far when he saw approximately 30 tanks coming over the skyline in battle formation. He went back to report, and then two of the party proceeded on foot, the trucks following slowly so as not to raise dust. The line which followed the road along the top of the escarpment was badly damaged by shellfire. Under heavy shelling difficult repair work was carried out. New line was laid in places. "The Huns put over a fair heap of stuff. Some was too close for comfort. After dark someone opened up on the party with machine-guns j and tracers just clearing our truck. 1 Only one man was wounded. A few minutes later we found the last break, and, after joining it, went on to divisional headquarters at Sidi Rezegh seven miles away. "Our troubles were not over, However, and we were about to bed down, when the Hun t>egan to plaster the position. After a short rest we moved off and were back in Tobruk again next morning." To be slightly woundea in the thigh by shrapnel near Sidi Rezegh, later bombarded while in hospital on the Tobruk foreshore, and finally find safety in a Polish dysentry ward, was part of the exciting experiences of a signaller from Central Otago. In the first place, while fixing a tank a shell whined over, followed by another, which burst where he had been a few minutes before. The tank took the full blast, the New Zealander unluckily catching a small piece. He was in the first ambulance convoy to get through to Tobruk, where he was quartered -in the makeshift New Zealand Hospital on the waterfront. "We had to eat-food from sardine and bully tins with our fingers," he said. The next day shelling commenced. Shells were bursting all around. The signaller, the only one not able to move out, had to lie on hia back while shells screamed overnead, one actually passing through the tent not many feet above him-

Shelling continued for half an hour, towards the end of which a Polish orderly found him and carried him off to the seashore. After he had been fed a hot meal from a nearby British Army cookhouse the New Zealander was taken off to the Polish hospital, where he was given a bed in the dysentry ward, staying there for several days till he was brought off by the first hospital ship to leave Tobruk.