BACK TO THE DESERT

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 7, 3 October 1941, Page 7

BACK TO THE DESERT

New Zealand Troops TRAINING CAMPS EVACUATED Big Move Westward (From The Official War Correspondent With The IN.Z.'E.F. In The Middle East.) f CAIRO, October 1. “Somewhere in the Western Desert” is once more today the business address of the New Zealand fighting troops and other field units. And for many of them, in the meantime at least, digging is again their business. During the past few weeks long road columns and crowded troop trains have swung westward across broad stretches of sand and scrub carrying New Zealanders away from the training camps which have held them since their return from Crete. Another formation has, been busy preparing new strongholds as part of the network of defences which make the approach to the Nile Valley a harder nut to crack than it has ever been. Laden with food and war supplies New Zealand Army Service Corps trucks — , the covered wagons of the “colonial carrying companies”, which made the name famous in last winter’s big drive ■—are rumbling again along the desert highways, and our engineers are back on some of the jobs in which they gained similarly fine reputations during their first term here. “Coming Home.” The Western Desert is new ground of course, to hundreds of our troops, but there are still hundreds more to whom this move meant “coming home” from their Balkan adventures. Most of these “desert rats” or “boys from the blue,” as they have been variously called, would tell you that they are not sorry to be back again. Among a handful of soldiers the desert has even older associations —one of these is a brigadier who served here in the last war when a small New Zealand force was used against Senussi troops beyond Mersa Matruh. The biggest change in the desert since we left last is the increase in the strength of its defences and the potential resources for a second and final drive through Libya. « Many Men and Planes. I have never seen so many men on the ground or planes in the air. In the journey from the Nile I passed \ areas which had once been empty wastes but are now business-like aero- _ dromes or bustling military camps, and overtook two more great convoys of fighting troops bound for the desert. Fast fighters and bombers, many of them American-built, fly over us continually. More is being done this time to keep up touch with civilization. For instance, a Cairo daily newspaper has inaugurated a special Western Desert edition, which arrives by air a few hours after publication. In addition, the .N.Z.E.F.’s own newspaper brings home news weekly, while the Y.M.C.A. mobile cinema unit is at present touring regiments with motion picture shows.