"ANNIHILATED!"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 5, 7 January 1944, Page 4

"ANNIHILATED!"

LT. BOOTH'S EXPLOIT

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) SOUTH PACIFIC. In the opinion of the men of his platoon, no New Zealand recipient of an award for bravery in the Solomons engagement earr»2d it more than Lieutenant Booth, who received the Military Cross for achievements on Mono Island during its occupation in October and November. He led a platoon which in the late forenoon of October 27 attacked and annihilated enemy mountain guns and mortar posts well outside the New Zealand perimeter. Later on the same day he took a party of engineers to the guns to supervise their destruction, and on the following day covered and re-covered the same ground several times, though Japanese were known to be still in the vicinity and might at any time have launched a strong counter-attack. "Our officer did a grand job of work," said two men of the platoon who were wounded I during the morning engagement. "He split the platoon after we had the first gun out of action, left a small party behind, and moved forward up a difficult ridge to where a mortar post had been observed. In' spite of the fact that the ground we had to cover was in fair view of the enemy, he led us round a small abutment, and charged the enemy position. He was first in with grenades and tommy-gun bursts, and we would have been lost without his leadership." Strangely enough Booth's patrols were themselves "annihilated," according to a scribbled message vyritten by a Japanese who was later killed. This soldier recorded that three New Zealand patrols, each of five men, had been wiped out on their way up the ridge, but whether he was suffering from hallucinations or was counting •the numbers of his own casualties, the fact remains that the New Zealanders went in, did the job, came out again, and were almost intact. The Japanese who wrote the note on a slip of dirty paper unconsciously raised a hearty laugh among the men who later read their own obituary notice. Lieutenant Booth's platoon gathered in a good store of booty from this raid —mountain guns, rifles,, machine-guns, a radio set, clothing, blankets, anti-gas gear, ammunition, rations, and grenades. In the ensuing days this same band of men changed its locality, and in the Malsi and Soanutalu ai-eas, on the east and north coasts of Mono, patrolled deeply into .the interior of the islands and made a few contacts, r but were abje later to report the area reasonably clear of Japanese. Lieutenant Booth is now instructing a jungle training school for New Zealanders •behind the front lines.