BEATING THE AXIS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20859, 11 August 1942, Page 3

BEATING THE AXIS

RECOVERING GUNS N.Z. UNITS RECORD DESERT NO-MAN'S LAND I (By Telegraph—Tress Assn.—Copyright,) (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent) (9 a.m.) RUWEISAT, Aug. IQ. Out in a maze of minefields in the shell-torn desert that -is the No man’s-land of the strategic battle for the Ruweisat Ridge area, five New Zealanders have been working night and day to beat the Germans at one of their specialties—the recovery of knocked-out guns and transport. By sheer daring and persistence they have beaten the enemy and have brought back to our lines guns, trucks, and ammunition that are now being used against the Germans. Their latest prize was four German 50 mm. anti-tank guns. German salvage units work under the cover of their tanks, but this New Zealand anti-tank officer and his four gunners —all of them tradesmen whose normal work is repairing guns—have worked without any sort of protection within a few hundred yards of the enemy lines. They have been und6r shell and machine-gun fire. Powerful night flares have sought them and fighting vehicles have stalked them, but in three weeks none of the party has been injured. Hit a Mine One night, while recovering an antitank portee. the front wheel of their bxeakdown truck was blown off by a mine. “We had dragged out one of our six-pounders and were on our way back to get its portee when we hit a mine.” the captain in charge of the party told me to-day. “Fortunately, we were able to replace the wheel with one from another knocked-out portee nearby.” Next day they returned to drag out the portee that had supplied .the wheel. Quite casually he spoke of other hair-raising experiences—of anti-per-sonnel mines that explode in the ait, of flares that showed clearly every nut and bolt of the guns on which they were working. A device which was fixed to the tail of the first German anti-tank gun they tried to recover gave them some difficulty. “We were a bit shy of them at first. We did not want to use a hammer while the opposition was waiting for us,” he said. .past night, when they had to wait while two German fighting vehicles moved from the area in which they were to work was described as “uneventful.” They had returned with only the firing mechanism for .two German guns. Experience at Tobruk It was not until they had made four night journeys through' mine-, fields that the New Zealanders were able to get their second pair of German anti-tank guns. Once a' pa.th through the mines was made for them by Indians, but normally the party leader, an expert on mines, makes the track. One of the German guns which had been knocked out by mortar fire had been rushed up to the Ruweisat battle so quickly that part of the paper wrapping and the original grease were still on. “ Recovery work is not new to these gunners. They are some of the same men who went out .to the Tobrukbattlefields during the winter campaign to salvage our own and German artillery. Their . work in this campaign began after the first New Zealand attack on Ruweisat Ridge. Before the battle reached its present static stage,, .they went out every day to recover guns and transport for their regiment. They have been able to put some of our guns in action again, but wherever they have worked the wrecked German equipment has greatly outnumbered our own.