THE “R.M.T.”

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3105, 13 April 1942, Page 3

THE “R.M.T.”

GREAT WORK IN LIBYA CONVOYS OVER THE DESERT MANY HANDICAPS OVERCOME CAIRO, March 1 “Soft sand ahead.” Often such a message came to them as through days of navigating across the desert and' nights of moving in close convoy by starlight, the men of the New Zc i land A.S.C. carried our troops into the Libyan campaign, provided! them with food, ammunition and petrol fo>' weeks, and eventually carried there back to safety in Egypt.

Experience with trucks in all driving conditions, from the roughest stretches of waste land to the hubbub of mule carts and camels in Cairo’s “mad mile,” have put them among the most efficient convoymen. Watching for trenches, deep potholes and soft sand has become second nature. The same Army Service Corps company which has the distinction of being the first of the New Zealand Division in action when they carried Australian and Indian fighting troops forward in the first Libyan push, has been operating since the earliest days of this campaign.

Working with them during the last four months over many hundreds of miles of desert routes has 1 been the Division’s youngest company—the R.M.T. Formed in a fortnight less .than six months ago, the company began its record in action with the difficult convoys that carried one of the Brigades forward for the spearhead of the attack on Sidi Rezegh. Since then they have had convoys continuously on desert routes. So high is the - standard of maintenance of their trucks, which have worked for periods six days a week across the roughest country, that the unit kept every truck required on the road. Can Handle Any Breakdown Recently I watched these tradesmen working in one of the complete mobile workshops that move with our Army Service Corps companies. Although the equipment is dispersed because of air raids, these desert repair shops handle any breakdown. In two trucks are men working with enough equipment to equip a city garage. The staff car for a young Ashburton major commanding a unit had a new body upholstered, painted and fitted in less than two days.

Blackouts, sandstorms and numerous other difficulties associated with working in the forward 1 area are overcome by these men whose only concern is to keep the transport moving forward. I have seen them working on trucks diuring sandstorms when it seemed, that the whole desert was lashed to a fury of dust aJndi grit. Once the unit’s welders kept an R.A.F. plane in the air for a day which otherwise would have been lost waitiag ror repairs to be made at a station miles away.

The recent reorganisation of the New Zealand Army Service Corps made it one of the most readily mobile units in the Middle East. “We eotud pick up the Division to-morrow and take it anywhere if necessary,’ an Auckland 1 section commander told me.