DODGING BOMBS

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 19, 11 March 1941, Page 5

DODGING BOMBS

— «♦- HOW IT IS DONE IN THE DESERT NEW ZEALANDERS' SKILL IN MOTOR DRIVING (From the Official War Correspondent with the N.Z.E.F. in the Middle East). /- CAIRO, February 13. A lesson in the theory of bomb dodging was given to me today by New Zealand cavalrymen belonging to the Long Range Desert Group, in whose records are amazing exploits in Libya. They described how they were spotted in central Libya one day by an aeroplane which circled over them and swerved away. A few hours later they sighted a fleet of enemy armoured vehicles, which had obviously been warned by the plane, and which they shook off in a brisk running fight through a desert valley. Then they were faced with the task of eluding three enemy bombers and, in the words of an Okoroire (Auckland) trooper, this is how they did it: "We kept the trucks on the and for a., while we had to fceep one eye on boulders ahead and the other on the planes above. When the first plane came over us from the right we watched for the glint of the bombs in the sun as they began their fall. Then, by judging our speed and that of the plane, I reckoned that the bombs would fall behind us, and so I gave 'Tirau' that's my truck—all she had, and k she went like a champion. Sure enough, we heard the 'Boom! Boom! Boom!' of the bombs landing a chain behind us. When the

second plane came over I guessed that if I kept straight ahead I would run smack into the bombs, and so I swerved left. Once again the bombs landed where I calculated they would. We dodged them like this for about half an hour."

This skill in manoeuvring their vehicles is part of the stock-in-trade of the desert raiders. Almost invariably they carried out their attacks from the trucks, using them almost as if they were tanks or similar armoured vehicles. The story of their main engagement— the attack on the fort and aerodrome at Murzuk in co-operation with a Free French detachment— illustrates the principle well. The column of vehicles drove calmly down the main road and saw a group of soldiers at the gate of the fort spring to attention as if about to form a guard of honour.

"We drove straight on down the road and let them have it," a New Zealander said. "While one patrol, consisting of British infantrymen, stayed to set fire to the fort by lobbing in a mortar shell, we New Zealanders went on with the French to the landing ground. Several enemy soldiers were in sight as well as a number of pillboxes, and so we stopped behind a rise and opened up on them.

"One truck" raced to another rise just in time to intercept a party of men entering an anti-aircraft pit, getting in between them and the gun. There was a further example of the way we learned to use our trucks when another one, rounding a corner of the hangar, met machine-gun fire at close range. The driver slammed on the brakes, put the gear into reverse and backed out."