BUILDING DESERT ROADS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 143, 18 August 1941, Page 3

BUILDING DESERT ROADS

MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT COMPANY

WORK IN WESTERN DESERT

Bringing a new and fuller meaning to the expression " medhanijsed warfare,'* there is a New Zealand unit operating m the Western Desert which is rapidly becoming one of the best known in that stretch 01 arid, waste where there is probably as great an assortment of Empire so, Miters as one dould wish to see. It is what is termed a mechanical equipment company, its weapons being varieties of heavy machinery which have become familiar to the people of the Dominion through their use by the Public Works Department, local bodies and contractors.

It is not easy to appreciate to the full the vast possibilities in the employment of such equipment with the advantage of trained personnel in the thousand and one tasks that the army finds have to be done in turning strategical positions into impregnable fortresses. Rocks andi dust and a, surface that it would be impossible to do anything with by hand are being transformed by carryalls, bulldozers, rooters and draglines with a £?)eed that is a revelation to those with a knowledge of the type of country in which they are working. The road travelled over rough outcrops across a flat wild.erness, more like the popular idea, of the country around the northwest frontier of India, and the parallel was drawn closer as it climbed abruptly by tortuous turns past ravines in which there were Indian troops living; in little sandbag forts.

At the top on a plateau these giant machines were working at full pressure shifting rock and spoil with fascinating ease. The officer in charge of the work pointed with pride to special equipment which had, proved fts value and showed such things as the well-known auto patrol seen so often on the highways of New Zealand operating in entirely new conditions but with equal efficiency. The job on which this particular section is engaged is one had been given up as iimpossfble by ordinary means, but within, a very short time amazing progress has been made, and the authorities are delighted with the success of this new departure in army en j gineering. The adaptability of the men employed is one of the pleasing features that is apparent to. a, casual visitor, and it is possibly one of the big factors in the success of the undertakings that they are carrying out. Of a rugged type the men have lived in civil life in back country settlements, and they find that their experience stands them in good stead. The long hours of work, too, are nothing new to many of them, but in the Mid,die East the conditions are far more strenuous. ;