BRILLIANT ACTION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 44, 21 February 1942, Page 8

BRILLIANT ACTION

MAORI BATTALION GAZALA BAYONET CHARGE (0.C.) GISBORNE, this day. A vivid account of the part played by tho Maori Battalion in the recent campaign in Libya is given by Taka Koopu, in a letter to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Tohi Koopu, of Houpoto, East Coast. "On the morning of November 23," he writes, "we attacked the wellfortified town of Solium. Fortunately we came from behind, and though we lost many comrades that morning we succeeded in taking the stronghold, with all its big guns on the escarpment overlooking the town. We held this place for over two weeks under heavy shell fire. "While there, our Fifth Brigade headquarters, with our brigadier, came up with Rommel's armoured forces near Fort Capuzzo just behind us, over-running them and taking a lot of prisoners. These Huns broke away from their strongholds on the border where the Indians were attacking. At times our supply column was cut off, but I can assure you it did not take long before we found enormous dumps of German food in caves, and we captured their water supply depot.

"On the way to Bardia we met the Germans again, on the main highway. The Maoris were entrenched and the German convoys drove directly into the Maori Battalion area. The battle lasted a4l day, and 200 German prisoners were taken, with about the same number of casualties.

"When we passed through Tobruk the battalion again ran into a heavv barrage of shell fire. It was ah enemy stronghold. We drove right into the gunfire, and it was not until we were about half a mile away that we debussed. We got the whole convoy right up without losing a truck. We had only a few injured.

"We attacked that fort and took the place the next day with the reward of about 800 Italian Blackshirts. We were also dive-bombed by Stukas, but we had fighters with us all the time, and these soon shot a few down. Our last and most successful attack came off three days later, further west, at Gazala. There was nothing but attack, and it was by another bayonet cliarge that we were able to take this place at 3 a.m. When the charge came it lasted two hours.

"One could not emphasise this success enough, for it took the Aussies seven days to take the place during the previous campaign. We happened to be the forward company all the time, and so suffered the worst casualties. It took us a week's fighting before the enemy started to run, so that you can see what we achieved in routing the enemy from his main stronghold in Cyrenaica and which led to our early success in Libya. Owing to our great work —five actions in one campaign—and also many losses sustained, we were sent back to rest."