How N.Zers Opened Gate To Tobruk

Northern Advocate, 24 December 1941, Page 5

How N.Zers Opened Gate To Tobruk

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) CAIRO. Dec. 22.

Five hundred men are lying out in the desert across twice 500 yards of reddish earth and stunted wiry scrub. Their talk is subdued, but now and again you might hear a laugh almost break free and a question caled into the darkness. Their world is black and cold.

It is a night for battle, and that, indeed, is what these men are ready to make of it for the action planned is part of the scheme for the relief of Tobruk—history now, but undying history made by New Zealanders in the lonely Libyan plains. The objective tonight i? Bel Hamid, nothing but a wrinkle on the brim of the escarpment. Silence and blackness form the only barrage that covers the four intervening miles, for this is a. straightout job for the infantry—stealth, surprise and the German dislike of night operations are on our side. Zero Hour Tension To some of the old hands left among the oldest Auckland and South Island battalions which have been chosen for the task the moment is reminiscent of occasions in Crete and the old familiar tension of zero hour comes back. Newcomers to the battalions feel it'as it grips them for the first time. The line is on its feet moving at 9.30. It pusher westwards like a broom across a strip of flooring. Men are black shapes walking with the steady, unhurried gait they learned in months of training. Their boots swish over wizened j bushes and crush the white shells of desert snails. A mile is covered like this in silence without incident. Then the forward section find their steps leading downwards into the bed of a wadi, that runs directly across the front. Suddenly there is a shattering rattling noise. Streaks of red chase one another low across the ground crisscrossing into a crazy, whistling, buzzing web of fire. Bullets Hum By Machine-gun nests are thick along the next crest, and it is their tracers that sweep hotly into the gulley. Bullets hum by thick and close. You drop like a stone and make yourself flat, but not for long. This is the moment when the tension breaks. If ever you felt hesitant you lose that feeling now! The line is quickly getting to its feet tS the cool command: “All right, lads let’s go.”

Like a grass fire fanned by the wind, the roar of the advancing line surges and swells, warm and stimulating to those who make it, chill and nerve shattering to those who listen. Rifles are clenched with dull bayonet forward and feet are quickened to run. Simultaneously all along the line the bayonet charge has begun. The enemy Are rises and falls, mortar bombs crash and flares grope fantastically into the sky. Now bedlam reigns as German posts are located and stormed. Another Hotbed Cleaned

It seems the wildest confusion, but posts are silenced, their crews killed, wounded or put to flight. There is a lull while companies are sorted out and reformed with surprising speed. SLeadily the line moves forward again to the next wadi. Another hotbed of German automatic weapons and mortar nests is cleaned out with another terrifying irrcsistable bayonet charge. The final attack is on the knoll of Bel Hamid itself, secured three hours after the advance began. Casualties have been extraordinarily light, and now the troops dig in, ready for whatever the morning may bring. The first it brings is a diversion. Two Germans bearing a white flag come into our lines on a mission nobody can understand. They are accompanied by wounded. They are put in a Bren carrier which, with New Zealand officers on board, clanks out within 500 yards of the enemy lines. Question of Surrender

One German is sent to bring an officer, who comes out unarmed half way to the New Zealanders. He salutes, and cigarettes are exchanged. Through a German-speaking member, our party asks whether the two men have come on a peace mission—do the Germans wish to surrender ? The Nazi officer laughs. No, no, they only want to take in their wounded. It is the New Zealanders who had better surrender. Our delegation laughs back —It is better that the Germans give up .or thes will be blasted from the face of the earth. The international peace conference breaks up in good-natured stalemate and ends with more salutes and clicking of heels. The New Zealanders and Germans go back to their lines. Battle Resumed

Five minptes later the battle is resumed as the New Zealanders try to make the gap more secure. But the Germans are entrenched on three sides and have Bel Hamil perfectly taped. For two days they plaster the rise with machine-gun and mortar fire, pinning our troops to the ground but failing to budge them. For two days the New Zealanders lie there and take it. By the morning of the second day our advance has gone still further and contact has been made with the Tobruk garrison. Wellington troops have done this in the second amazing night push past the Aucklanders and South Islanders and on to El Duda another four miles westward. They marched right through the German positions and with extremerly little hindrance, reached the objective with the loss of only one man. • The third day the New Zealanders and Tobruk troops, with tank and Bren gun carrier support mop up the last of the nearby pockets of resistance. One thousand, eight hundred prisoners trudge wearily away. The first motor convoy out of Tobruk in eight months rumbles through the night. The gap is open.