DEATH DUEL FOR WATER

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 June 1942, Page 3

DEATH DUEL FOR WATER

FLIERS IN WESTERN DESERT

Two Italians dead in a crashed plane, each with knife wounds, their knives still clutched in their hands, and a water bottle with about a cupful of water in it lying between them. A young New Zealand sergeant encountered this when he accompanied his company commander and platoon commander on a reconnaissance in the Western Desert. He said the two Italians were just “cut to pieces.” The water bottle between them in the plane was evidence of the cause of the fight which ended in death for both. The plane had evidently run out of fuel. It was a German machine flown by Italians, and there had been other instances of Italians in German machines having to land because of fuel shortage. This account was related to “The Dominion? by the soldier, who had returned from the Middle East after being wounded in action. He said that there were various reasons given for these Ital-ian-flown German machines running out of fuel, but only the ground crews at the bases from where they started would know the reason why.