MASKED TANKS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 301, 20 December 1943, Page 4

MASKED TANKS

NAZIS SURPRISED

N.Z.E.F. PUSH IN ITALY

(N.Z.E.F. Official News Scrvice)

-EIGHTH ARMY FRONT, Dec. 17.

Dragged through mud to lie hidden within half a mile of the German front line, New Zealand heavy tanks joined the attack so quickly that thc\ were largely responsible for the success of the New Zealanders' bridgehead over the main lateral road now crossing the Eighth Army's front m Central Italy. Something entirely new to New Zealand tank crews and probably to the Allied troops in Italy, this bold use of our armour obviously caught the Germans by surprise, and was one of the main factors in breaking up the heavy counter-attacks they launched against our new line.

In this country tank movement is severely restricted by the weather and by endless ranges of steep hills. The Germans have always advantage in moving back from ridge to ridge to overlook every daylight move we make toward them. As they withdraw, and that only when they are forced to, they leave groups of heavy i\ nks ready to strike back at every thrust our infantry make. Consequently, before this New Zealand infantry attack on the strongest ridge the Germans held since the fall of their winter line could be made, tanks and anti-tank guns had to be taken as far forward as possible ready to meet the inevitable enemy counter-attack.

A Night Manoeuvre

Beyond the Moro River—it would be callcd a crock in New Zealand — this ridge rises steeply to a high crcst along which runs one of the main lateral roads between the central mountain chain and the Adriatic coast. Heavy rain had turned the slopes of the ridge to a quagmire. To wait for the tracks to dry out would have meant a delay of many days. The only immediate way to get the tanks to the top was to drag them. While night gunfire drowned the noise and hindered German observation, engineers and tractors climbed the ridge slowly, one by one. and dragged a group of giant 30-ton tanks through knee-deep mud to the crest.

Once under camouflage out on this exposed position about ISOO yards from the German outposts, the tanks' crews were forced to remain hidden through most of the daylight hours. Any movement about the great camouflaged blobs among the olive trees would have brought down on them terrible concentrations of shellfire. As it was they remained almost unnoticed. Only a few mortar shells landed among them. Food was carried up to them each night on men's shoulders and in mule packs. Almost as soon as the infantry attack began these tanks of an old Auckland unit began to struggle forward through the mud, this time under their own power.

It was scarcely daylight when the German counter-attack—lines of infantry with at least nine heavy tanks—came down on the New Zealanders' bridgehead. Against our tanks, anti-tank guns and a terrific i concentration of artillery shellfire it was broken in a few minutes. Machine-gun fire joined in our defences to inflict even heavier casualties in a series of fierce attacks thrown since then against our new line. In front of one of our North Island infantry battalions at least 50 German dead have been counted. Scores of prisoners have been taken. Meanwhile many more New Zealand tanks joined in the battle across the ridge. Under smoke concentrations along tracks cut by bulldozers they climoed out on to the crest to force their way deeper into the German defences and towards the important village of Orsogna. Oil Lookout for Troops One New Zealand tank edging its way across the ridge came upon a group of farmhouses, in which it was suspected German infantry were hiding. "Not a shot'was fired at us, but we knew they were just waiting to snipe at us as soon as our heads showed above the turret," the tank commander said to-day. "Suddenly three Germans came out and surrendered. As we moved off they clung like limpets to the side of the tank away from shellfire. AVe had gone only a few yards when our tanks further out saw Germans moving about the houses and opened up on them with their guns. In a few minutes the houses were piles of rubble. My three prisoners, who watched the fate of their friends grabbed me by the hand and thanked me profusely." Almost every farmhouse and haystack along the ridge contained a hidden German tank or gun. Our tanks now take no chances with them. Behind them as they advance they leave a trail of shattered farmhouses and burning haystacks. Some New Zealand tank crews that cannot yet claim to have knocked out panzers have kept their score of houses in sketches around the turrets. Tanks not severely damaged are being kept in action along the ridge by a group of front-line specialists known to tank squadrons as "flying fitters." As soon as calls come back from the tanks of broken-down engines and radios damaged, "flying fiteers" go as far forward as they can in armoured cars. Then on foot' they carry their technical equipment, often through all kinds of fire, to begin repair work.