BRITISH REVIEWER PRAISES N.Z. HISTORY OF DESERT WAR

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27860, 7 January 1956, Page 12

BRITISH REVIEWER PRAISES N.Z. HISTORY OF DESERT WAR

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

<Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON. January 6. “This is a military history with a kick in it—lessons bristle, interest effervesces, objectivity shrivels,” says a review in the “Glasgow Herald” of “Battle for Egypt: Summer of 1942.” a New Zealand official history by Lieu-tenant-Colonel J. L. Scoullar. There is much to be learned from this book, says the reviewer. “It stands forever to the credit of the New Zealand Government that they resisted considerable public pressure and left their division in the Middle East. “It is good to hear again of such famous fighters as Ipglis. Clifton. Kippenberger and of the old tiger. Freyberg himself,” he says. “There can be no higher praise for them than to •ay they were worthy of New Zealand and of the men whom they led. Bewildered. harassed, weary,, out of sympathy with the higher command and without much confidence in their neighbours, they drew on their own resources of spirit and did more than their share in turning the tide.” High Reputation The reviewer says no tropos who fought in the Middle East had a higher reputation than the New Zealand Division under the “redoubtable” Lord Freyberg. “Unlike the Australians, who fought their first battles against the Italians of Graziani, the New Zealanders began by sharing in the inevitable disasters of Greece and Crete.” he says. “They had heavy losses there and further casualties in the fighting around Tobruk in November, 1941. When Japan entered the war in December that year, Auchinleck lost his only British infantry division to India and two of his three Australian divisions to Australia and it stands forever to the credit of the New Zealand Government that they resisted considerable public pressure and left their division in the Middle East. The heavy burdens which lay upon Auchinleck’s shoulders were aggravated, as they had been for Wavell before him. by the fact that so many of his formations owed a divided allegiance. “Blarney and Freyberg both had charters which they did not hesitate to cite when they thought fit, enabling them to appeal to their Governments when their orders were uncopgenial. and both were strong characters. Freyberg was a magnificent fighting soldier and totally uncompromising. It is no news that he and Auchlinleck •aw eye to eye neither on strategy nor tactics and Freyberg expected confidences to be reposed in him as a representative of the New Zealand Government which he could never have expected as a mere divisional commander. He maintained correetlv tha + his division needed a period of’trainas a formaiton and prevailed on Auchinleck to send it to Syria in the early spring of 1942. When in June Rommel launched the attack which was not, only to capture Tobruk and carry him to the Alamein Line, but nearly to destroy the Eighth Army, the division returned to the desert a really nne fighting instrument. “Yet disagreements between Freynerg and Auchinleck broke out again £m*L.- Over ' 7exed question of an l ?° xes ’ Auchinleck them: Freyberg insisted that divisions should be fought as diviJ2 n J.and though he did not entireljL.. h ifi Wa L the New Division was allowed to compromise.

“Almost the whole of the book is concerned with those two fateful months of June and July. The author took no part in the onerations, but he manages immense detail with considerable skill and the maps are clear and helpful. Only occasionally does the reader feel himself enmeshed in the intricacies of the tale. There are first-class accounts of the breakout from Minqar Qaim on the night of June 27-28 (Freyberg lying wounded on a stretcher saying ‘Another Balaclava’-*- and of the ill-fated attack on Ruweisat Ridge. “The author pulls no punches. He has hard things to say about the standard of staff-work, the shortcomings of armour, constant changes of plan, the tendency of the high command to look over its shoulder, even from the- last ditch. « “Scoullar declines, on behalf of the division. the commonly proffered bouquet that it was the action at Minqar Qaim that blunted Rommel’s spear, but by and large he seems to claim that the New Zealand commanders were the ‘only men in step.’ Perhaps they w*ere. Certainly he poses some awkward questions. Is it true that the vital operation order No 83 of June 26 never reached the division? Was the Second Armoured Brigade ordered to join the division on the crest of Ruweisat at dawn on July 15 or was it not? . Here there is a direct conflict between the clear recollection of the New Zealand officers concerned and the official British account, but whatever the truth and whosoever the responsibility. the muddle caused the loss of the fourth New Zealand Brigade—and led incidentally to the award of a bar to Captain Upham's V.C.”