N.Z. COLUMNS IN ACTION

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13056, 26 January 1943, Page 6

N.Z. COLUMNS IN ACTION

DRIVE TO TRIPOLI Armoured Cavalry Open Campaign Successful Actions (Official War . Correspondent N.Z.E.F.) Tripolitania, Jan. 15. In the first cold light this morning the battle between the New Zealanders' fighting columns and the Germans in their southernmost defences in Tripolitania began. The New Zealand armoured cavalry, advancing ahead of our main columns or guns and mobile infantry, swept out across the sandy ridges to attack the German forces occupying high ground about 17 miles east of the main Axis defences along Wadi Zemzem. Before eight o'clock the high ground was ours and our tanks were probing forward in a bitterly cold wind toward the positions the Germans had defended with lines of anti-tank guns, heavy artillery and scattered mines. While sweep after sweep of R.A.F. fighters watched overhead, the battle between our tanks and guns and the German armoured forces and artillery raged through most of the day across country as arid and rugged as any in North Africa. Decisive Action Avoided Although they were using heavy guns, the Germans seemed unwilling to fight any decisive action, preferring to delay our advance with vigorous rearguard battles. Italian and o few German tanks moved in groups of about 20 ahead of us. More New Zealand guns raced forward to support our armoured attacks and by dusk the greater part of the German forces was withdrawing to the west, leaving heavy guns to battle against our batteries. The closing stages of the battle were watched by hundreds of our troops, who found themselves with a grand-stand view when their transport halted on the high ground overlooking the wide basin from where our guns were firing. Until dusk, when thick clouds of dust and smoke obscured almost everything, our guns fired salvo after salvo into the retreating enemy and German batteries answered their fire with rounds that fell mainly well clear of our gun lines. .On tfc.9 day's action, New Zealand guns and our tanks and the heavy armour of the supporting unit are credited with knocking out five German Mark 111. and Mark IV. tanks, a troop carrier and an anti-tank gun. An earlier despatch describing the preparations o fthe Eight Army for this advance, in which the New Zealanders had an important role in the attack, stated: Three weeks after their dash had cut off the German forces retreating along the Gulf of Sirte, our fighting columns were ready again for another of their now famous inland sweeps that have taken them over a thousand miles through Western Egypt and Libya since the El Alemein line broke in early November. Huge Supplies

lii those three weeks huge supplies of food, feul and ammunition were carried forward. Some of our infantry battalions constructed an R.A.F. landing ground. The route for our advance was- carefully prepared through some of the most difficult country we have yet encountered. One reconnaissance party searching ahead for suitable country for our hundreds of trucks and guns to advance over found wadis to steep and rugge that only in a few places in 40 miles could even a jeep cross them.

But three days ago every detail of the route, including lights to show the tracks for night " marches, was complete,'.and again with the tanks our columns rolled out toward the west. Anti-aircraft guns watched overhead along the edges of Wadi Chebir —the former German defence line and the first deep depression our columns had to cross. Three-ton trucks, guns and limbers lumbered down into the sheer-sided wadi, crossed its wide patches of soft sand and climbed out of it again on to more than tens of miles of rock and sand.

In daylight we moved in long, wide formations, and at dusk our trucks edged into close formation to roar nose-to-tail through the still, moonlight nights. A few hours' rest, and jeep horns and the banging of petrol tins woke up again before dawn for still more miles of sand and dust. As yesterday's trek, ended and we settled own for the night, there was the occasional roar of gunfire ahead.