GUNS KEEP FIRING

Evening Star, Issue 23882, 12 May 1941, Page 10

GUNS KEEP FIRING

ARTILLERY’S VALUABLE WORK GERMANS SEVERELY PUNISHED < From. Official War Correspondent with ' N.Z.E.F.) CAIRO. May 9. On May 3. New Zealand gunners, ligating defensive actions along the withdrawal routes through Greece, stood up unflinchingly to all the destructive power the Germans could muster. It was in the courage, accuracy, and versatility of our artillery that the enemy met his most costly delays, suffered his heaviest casualties, and lost his best opportunities to overrun the retiring forces. He expressed his respect for them in his efforts from air and land to wipe them out witli a violence beyond conception. But our guns kept firing. The stories which were written in the countless thousands of shells pumped into the German troop concentrations, tank forces, and ' motor columns at ranges from several miles to a few hundred yards are such classics of coolness and endurance that I would find them hard to appreciate if I had not seen some of our gunners in action with my own eyes. The manner in which I first saw the gun crews in the pass to Serbia left unshaken and undeterred by the furious air blitzes became a commonplace spectacle. In other and hotter battles our gunners ignored the air action completely in their deadly concentration on enemy movements attempted under, the cover of this bombing and strafing. ACCURATE SHELLING. Methodical, highly accurate shelling across the Olympus Passes cost the enemy dearly in the few days between the time the first contact was made and the start of the hectic week of withdrawal. Advanced columns were scattered and shattered whenever they appeared within range. One field regiment, laying a defensive fire through a blanket of mist, learned afterwards that it had been the cause of _ great discomfort to two German battalions. Such a comparatively orthodox operation reached an abrupt end for many gun crews on the day of withdrawal. A.line roughly from Elisson to the railway pass, near the sea, became a scene of what must have been the most extraordinary artillery stand made in any war. Here all the rules for normal conditions went by the board as field guns, fought at point-blank ranges, were rushed from place to place and switched! from target to target with a mobility and speed expected only of far lighter weapons. One battery was in action almost a whole afternoon with nothing between its guns and the enemy. A troop commander told me: “ Our targets were anything on feet, wheels or tracks, and we opened on everything that moved. The boys had the time of their lives, and they were absolutely grand. Jerry plastered them with bombs and bullets, but they always bobbed up again, asking; ‘ What do we shoot next? ’ ” Many were the times when the targets were so close that the guns were fired over open sights, and one destroyed a tank at only 150yds. Sometimes the observation posts were merely trees within hail of the guns NAZIS WORRIED. When the Germans began to push troops across the river in rubber boats a New Zealand officer went forward in a wireless truck, watching the operation and relaying information so quickly and exactly that boatload after boatload was blown out of the water. Most of this action was a sort of guerrilla warfare, in which the New Zealanders excelled. That it greatly perturbed the enemy was shown by the fact that not only did the Luftwaffe constantly hunt the gun positions, but German, artillery, mortar, and machinegun fire swept along the hillcrests in a systematic search for observation posts. A few days later Thermopyla Pass became the hottest corner in Greece, when over 100 guns, mostly manned by New Zealanders, blazed for 15 hours at the enemy forces trying to push beyond Lamia. About 3,000 rounds at a conservatime estimate were falling into every known centre of German activity, and our shells drove off the working parties which were trying to rebuild a demolished bridge, silenced the enemy guns, and caught troops and armoured columns in a terrific barrage. j The German casualties and equipment I losses must have been huge, and the | enemy suffered a considerable delay at a vital period in the withdrawal.

Before the guns ceased! firing 1,000 more British troops were well on the road to safety. DESTRUCTION OF TANKS. An indication of the extent of the. damage done is given by the fact that three field guns playing an anti-tank role . alone accounted for 12 tanks in only 90 minutes. A sergeant-major at one gun said: “ We got our chance at dusk after being shelled, bombed, and machinegunned. ' Our three guns were covering a stretch of winding road when 12 tanks attempted to pass along it. Not one got through, despite their speed of 30 miles an hour. One gun alone stopped seven tanks and the others cleaned up the remaining five. We got each broadside on at pomt-blank range by waiting until its nose appeared in the gunsights. My crew had the pleasure of gaining a direct hit, and the tank seemed to disappear in the air.”