PLAGUE OF FLIES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 12 August 1942, Page 2

PLAGUE OF FLIES

FROM FIRST LIGHT TO DUSK TRYING TIME I'OR NEW ZEALANDERS (Official War Coot-respondent, N.Z.E.F.) New Zealand Line, Ruwcisak Ridge, Aug. 10. The lull on the El Alamein front continues, but to-day and every day from first light to dusk, the New Zea - landers are fighting a battle against the most relentless enemy they have met. Two weeks of static warfare have brought a plague of millions of flies, which defy traps, nets and poisons and make the summer desert camapign the most trying life imaginable. Spray-guns and fly-swats are front-line weapons and in the forward areas it is uncommon to see a truck, bivouac or tent without white netting I under its camouflage. | Traps made from old petrol, potato and fruit tins kill thousands of flies daily. Now in its seventh week for the New Zealanders, this campaign has been probably the hardest our troops have known. Living conditions from the outset have been the hardest, but always the troops have accepted them cheerfully. One of the cooks for a South Island infantry battalion was telling me about an issue of fresh meat that arrived. He said with a dry smile. “I knew there was something fresh coming up. You could see the flies coming over the horizon before the ration truck.” His advice was to drink my cup of tea off his bench. "You need both hands free to kill these man-eaters,” he said.

MORALE UNIMPAIRED

Day after day of inactivity is something new lor the New Zealand fighting battalions, but it cannot shake their morale. I found maqhinegunners playing their old favourite game of battleships. One gunner, his face and steel helmet under a fly net, was marking on a battered envelope the shots shouted to him by his partner in a trench about 30 yards away. An indignant voice called out: “I can’t hear you,” when a shellburst nearby blotted out an all-import-ant shot at a paper battleship. Shot after shot whistled over, but the machinegunners went on with their game. So it is all along the groups of slit trenches and gun-pits that form our front line. Infantrymen sit smoking and reading, awaiting their chance for action. Though the shallow, scattered slit trenches in this front in no way resemble the front lines of the last war, the forward areas are becoming so familiar that they are known by names similar to those famous in France and Palestine. The tracks to the line are called Willis and Queen Streets. Further back, where movement is beyond the range of the enemy's observation posts, there are sandbagged dug-outs, trucks, and offices dug feet into the ground. With the line between the coast and the Quatlara Depression shortened by recent actions and the consequent possibility of forces being massed rapidly at any point, the enemy’s movements are being watched even more closely than usual. Patrolling planes watch his day activities, and at night patrols and listening posts creep out after information. As the narrow strip of no-man’s-land becomes ever more familiar to the men on either side of its lines of barbed wire, night patrols become more difficult. The enemy, particularly the Italians , who are warned regularly to beware of the New Zealanders at night, shoot out flares and spray the ground with machinegun fire at the slightest movement. But still the patrols go out, and seldom return without information and their full number.

GENERAL IREYBERG RESUMES

DUTY London, Aug. 10. General Freyberg, who was whunded in the neck at Mersa Matruh, is reported to be back with his men. He refused to remain convalescent any longer.