SPOILS OF BATTLE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13243, 20 January 1941, Page 3

SPOILS OF BATTLE

AFTER SIDI BARRANI NEW ZEALANDER’S FIRST HAND ACCOUNT EXPLORING ITALIAN POSTS Writing in an Italian field post office, with an Italian fountain pen on Italian notepaper, Sapper C. J. Edwards of the N.Z.E.F., in a lettergives some interesting “shots” of the battlefield after the first attack by the Army of the NfTe on Sidi Barrani and Solium: — , “The Italians live very differently from us and just seem to scratch a bit of a bole in the ground, put their ground sheet over it and crawl in. They do not live in nearly the comfort that we do, although from signs about it seems pretty evident that they were well supplied with food. I came across an Italian cookhouse in my rambling to-day. It was a hole about six yards square with a fireplace in one corner and on it was a huge pot filled with a stew of some sort, and there was also a pot containing dried peas all ready to cook. Apparently they were just taken by surprise and didn’t have time to do anything but surrender.

“There are thousands of Italian*, rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition. One type of rifle they use is a carbine which is only half the size and weight of our service rifle and gives a much inferior performance to ours. On this rifle the bayonet it attached and folds back against the barrel, while the bayonet itself is a three-cornered, affair, as I say, much inferior to our equipment

Gold Braid—Dress Swords

‘‘And the thing which struck me very forcibly was the fact that their equipment is by no means uniform. Whereas everyone in the British Army has exactly the same stuff, the Italian Army has many varying types of the same article. The Libyans appeared to be fairly poorly clothed, but this is not the case with the Italians. In the case of their N.C.O.’s and particularly the officers', their uniforms are magnificent. The material is excellent and they appear to be tailor-made. They are absolutely covered with gold braid and they certainly make a great show. Making a great show seems to be about all they are capable of, because it has been proved both in Greece and in the Western Desert that they are pretty poor scrappers. I have seen magnificent dress swords taken from their dugoiits—heaven knows what their owners intended to do with them in the Desert. Italian Hospital Taken

‘‘After two days in the battlefields I am now in a position to tell you more in detail. The first place I visited was an Italian Hospital and only the word magnificent will describe it. The tents are the most wonderful I have ever seen. . . The sheets and blankets had just been thrown aside as though the patients had vacated them and beat a hasty retreat'as the British forces approached the hospital. In one tent we found their mess utensils all filled with food —apparently they were just in the process of eating when the fatal blow fell upon them. Their operating theatre was intact and was full of valuable equipment, including a very elaborate set of acetylene lighting. Fortunately all the equipment fell into the hands of the Medical Corps and no .doubt they will make good use of it. . . . Enemy’s Food Excellent , ‘‘We came across several Italian food dumps, and, of course, we had to have a good dekko at these. Gne in particular was quite interesting and contained a terrific amount of stuff all of which can be used in the British Army. There was lime juice, mineral water (excellent stuff, too), salmon, bully beef, chests of tea, cases of ground coffee, tomato paste, macaroni, etc. Their salmon is a kind of Tunny in olive oil, and is very nice indeed. Their bully beef is a kind of steak and is quite pleasing to the palate while the tomato paste makes spaghetti very easy to eat. There’s not the slightest doubt that his food was very, very good, although we did not find any . fresh meat and vegetables*, but there were stacks of oranges and lemons. There were big dumps of ce.reals, ’too, and it would appear that he goes in for that type of food in a big way. . . . ‘‘On a hillside commanding a good deal of the surrounding countryside the Italians had endeavoured to make a stand. There were between 30 and 40 field guns and literally hundreds of machine-guns, and as there were 5,500 prisoners taken from this place and all had their .’fifing.', away, you can imagine just how many rifles there were around. Apparently every Italian soldier carried several hand grenades, and there Avere thousands and thousands just lying around —they make an awful row but so A’ery little damage as far as Ave could see. . : ."••• “In the flood Ave had some time ago, I lost, among other things, my pyjamas, and this proved to. he my chance to replace them.' Just to make sure, I got hold of three pairs so they should see me 'through for a while. One pair is just magnificent* and they Avill sure ..rock* the H boys. They are pale cream a, ; > blue edging, and on the tw6 pockets is a dragon (\"ery flash) worked in blue. Incidentally they are So now I consider myself- to be one of the best dressed men in the Western Desert. . . . (d: r«-; A Road AiisJnajnied “You will know from the papers that from Sidi Barrani to Solium the Italians had constructed a metal road Avith plenty of width and beautifully .curved and banked as it SAveeps across the sandy wastes;' Apparently they were- ; shorti of road bitumen, as none of it is sealed. The Italian, you know, is given ..to mat ing flowing speeches, and -gets , all Avorked up over nothing, and to please his pride he called the- road ‘Dolla Vittoria’ which means ‘The

Road to Victory-’ Unfortunately for him it turned out to be the Road of Retreat, and he has left millions of pounds Avorth of material lying about the place. ... “You Avill probably ‘have read about a number of our tanks catching a Avhole Italian Division of 14,000 men on the march. From my own observation the column of marching men covered about 5-7 miles of road and Avere caught like rats in a trap when our tanks swept OA’er the hill dominating the road, and the Italians did the only thing possible and surrendered promptly. A division, of course, covers every branch of the Army, and the scene on that road is indescribable.. There ar® lorries (big and small), motor cycles, field guns (in most cases with the. breech covers still on them), anti-tank guns, machine-guns, A.A. guns, rifles, hand grenades by the thousands, and many technical tractors containing marvellous' engineering equipment. In addition to all this, the equipment (personnel, I mean) is littered all round the road, and believe' me, 14,000 men can make a very large mess! ... “To sum tip, my impression,., is A r ery difficult —suffice it to say thiat we coA r ered 80 miles each way and don’t think at any period we were out of sight of abandoned Italian material. That, I knoAV, sounds ridiculous, but it is just the plain and utter truth. ... .

“The Italians in every place we Avent had ripped dOAAm the English and Arabic signs and replaced them Avith Italian ones, and from places he had built, and from dumps that he had created, it is perfectly obvious eA-en to a layman like myself, that he was in Egypt to stay; and just as obviously it ne\'er entered his head that he would be pushed out. Buildings eA r erywhere were just plas tered with signs, and a frequent one Avas ‘Viva il Duce’ —they Avere certainly Avell A r ersed in the Fascist ideas, but either their hearts Avere not in the war or they have not got the guts to fight. . . . A Second-hand. Shop

“We even eat our meals (a good deal of which is Italian) on plates which Musso’s hoys very thoughtfully left behind, while I have a first class acetylene lamp which is now doing excellent service. Three hundred yards from here are two Q.M. stores containing enough stationery to keep the G.P.O. in W r ellington going for many months. . . All the lads are very busy writing at the moment, and all are smoking Italian cigars which are very nice. Of course, everyone is armed to the teeth with Italian revolvers and automatics, and to-day we Sad a spot of revolver practice. Another of the lads is busy trying (unsuccessfully from his language) to sharpen a cut-throat razor he picked up. As a matter of fact, the whole place is like a second-hand shop. >< '■ “Bad luck I haven't-' got - a girl friend in Italy to write to, as I’ve got a lot- of Italian: They look nice and interesting, but they’re just like Musso’s Army-r—very pretty and not much use.”