TRUCK ENGINE’S BIG MILEAGE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24022, 10 August 1943, Page 6

TRUCK ENGINE’S BIG MILEAGE

N.Z. TRANSPORT IN THE MIDDLE EAST (N.2.E.F. Official News Service) August 4, As mechanics, in the .crowded base workshops swung a crane over a snubnosed New' Zealand three-ton truck this week, two New Zealand drivers watched the end of the story of‘ an engine that had taken them 25,512 miles, through five countries.' ifi iess than two years Its performance is believed to be a record foi the distance that one driving team has taken one truck on a single engine in the Middle East. It may also be a Middle East record of mileage for one three-fonner engine. In the hurried formation of a new transport company these two drivers met for the first time, as so many others had, in the cab of their truck One, "Scotty” so-called for no better reason than tha 1 he is Irish liked handling the engine His associate dis liked maintenance but could drive anywhere indefinitely, so in October, 1941. they agreed each woulo look *o his separate department, a contract over which they never found reason fo serious argument • Since that day their truck had travelled through Cairo’s jumbled traffic, across the Western Desert into the fire of battle into Cyrenaica. Syria, and >, Palestine then back to Er nt, and through Egypt and the intervening countries to Tunisia. On the return journey to Egypt the engine began to show signs of wear and was limping badly. Finally it ended 21 months of war service in the Nile Delta.