DESERT WORKSHOPS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23482, 10 November 1941, Page 4

DESERT WORKSHOPS

Salvage And Repair By Skilled Soldiers

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) In the Western Desert, November 7. Skilled New Zealand engineering craftsmen serving here salvage aluminium from crashed aeroplanes and convert it to a variety of uses. They melt the metal down, cast it in solid bars and turn it on lathes into useful spare parts. This is a mere sideline in the activity of these men who belong to ordnance workshops, which, with the similar Army Service Corps organisations, must be numbered among the most remarkable repairj shops on earth. They can mend almost anything from tanks to watches; yet they are so mobile and self-contained that they can pack up and be on the move in a few hours. Big Lorries Used Their job is to follow the fighting formations, at a not very respectful distance, and carry out comparatively heavy repairs on tanks, trucks, motor-cycles, guns, typewriters, binoculars and every other kind of mechanical equipment subject to battle casualties or ordinary damage. Their own equipment includes big lorries with trailers carrying electric generators, lathes, drills, gas and electric welding plants, blacksmith shops and even a watchmaker’s bench. With the resourcefulness common to all New Zealand Army engineers, these men seem able to make anything they cannot get from ordnance supplies. I saw the scanty remains of a captured Italian lorry—the parts and steelwork had been unscrewed or cut away for new uses. In a walk of five minutes a visitor might see a machinist making the replica of a delicate gunsight mechanism, a blacksmith forging vehicle springs, a panel-beater smoothing a crumpled mudguard, and an instrument mechanic repairing a prismatic compass. The ordnance workshops have junior partners, in spare light aid detachments, operating nearer the fighting units, but with lighter equipment.