CASSINO AS A TONIC

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 80, 4 April 1944, Page 5

CASSINO AS A TONIC

Maori Takes Queer "Busman's Holiday" "STUCK BACK" IN REST CAMP N.Z.PA. Special Correspondent Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, April 3. The Daily Herald Cassino correspondent tells a story of Major Peter Awatere who went to Cassino as a "tonic." The correspondent met him returning and Awatere said: "I am just going to be reprimanded hut it was worth it to see those boys fight. I was stuck back in that camp because they said I needed a rest after six months in the field with my regiment, but I just had to see this Cassino scrap." The Germans gave Awatere a warm reception'when they spotted him coolly driving his jeep in broad daylight. Shells and mortars crashcd all round him. As he approached the notorious Continental Hotel the air, in his own words, was "lou.iy with Spandau bullets." He reached the Maori positions just as the Germans launched a fierce counterattack. "The lads sat tight and mowed them down as they came in. I saw Germans blown to pieces at point-blank range. Boy! it was terrific!" ~ The correspondent adds that Awatere's queer, busman's holiday, that would have shaken the nerves of most men, acted as a tonic on him.