DESERT TREK

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 April 1941, Page 10

DESERT TREK

! TROOPER MOORE’S EXPLOIT. i [PER press association.] ! WELLINGTON, April 26. | Writing from Cairo on March 31, ,the Official War Correspondent with ' the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Middle East adds further i details to the story of Trooper ■ Moore’s long trek through the desert for which Moore was awarded the •D.C.M. Moore’s companions were Guardsman Easton, who had a bullet wound in the throat, Private Tighe, and Guardsman Winchester. Moore, himself wounded, led the party on foot for more than 290 miles. Tighe failed on the fifth day and was picked up by a French patrol. Easton was found on the twelfth day but died later, and Winchester was found semi-delirious, but Moore reached the base. The official correspondent goes on: “At Sarra ambulance base, the exhausted, foot-sore men stayed a week. Their’ feet took some time to heal. Easton was given a military funeral by the French, and Tighe, the first man to'give in, was found to be suffering from internal injuries which would have prevented his makipg the trip. Continuing south, the survivors (were taken to Onianga, where they rested five days, followed by two days at Faya. Then they had an eight-day . journey to Fort Lamy, which is 12 ! degrees north of the Equator. This I Free French post is deep in the j jungle of Equatorial Africa and is 1 situated where two rivers meet. From Fort Lamy they flew to Khartoum, whence they. returned to Cairo by

Nile boat and train. To-day, two months after this terrific test of his powers of endurance, Trooper Moore is fit and well and prepared once again to drive an Army truck across the unbroken expanses of desert, the tall sand dunes, and the miles of the baffling sand sea in the process of chasing the last of the Italians out of Mussolini’s mucha vaunted empire in North-East y Africa. , r