NIGHT PATROLS CLASH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 217, 13 August 1942, Page 2

NIGHT PATROLS CLASH

(Official "War Correspondent.; (Ree. 2 p.m.) SOUTHERN SECTOR, ALAMEIN LINE Aug. 10. A short brisk battle between one of our infantry night patrols and a party of about 18 Germans they met near the enamy lines has been the only close fighting on the New Zealand sector of the front in the last 24 hours.

Our patrol was creeping across No Man's Land in front of its battalion lines when it came unexpectedly on Germans making one of their rare night scouting trips. The New Zealanders threw grenades amongst the Germans and for a few seconds there was a furious exchange of explosives and machine-gun bullets. Other patrols were active all along our front, but they were not opposed. The fairly constant exchanges of artillery fire have decreased to-day because of a dust storm that has swept the lines since early morning. Skirmishes between fighter patrols are becoming a daily occurrence over the New Zealand lines.

Again this morning we had breakfast beneath the roar of planes diving towards each other and the crackle of their machine-guns. Two hurried attacks on our forward positions have been the only daylight bombing raids the Germans have made on this sector for some time.

The artillery is so regular with its shelling of. our positions at mealtimes that the bom'oardments arc now known by the troops as the "lunch programme dinner music." "We would think something was wrong if he did not use a bit of ammunition every night," an infantry sergeant said this morning when we spoke of the regularity of the German machine-gun fire across No Man's Land each night. Despite the enemy's attempts to stop rations reaching the line, the troops in our forward positions never miss a meal. In most cases two hot meals, often of fresh meat and vegetables, are taken up to the line daily.