DESERT SCALP-HUNTERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 6 October 1942, Page 4

DESERT SCALP-HUNTERS

IT was naive of Field-Marshal Rommel to complain of use by the British in Egypt of “foreign” troops like Maori scalp-hunters. Most of the evidence that we have had points to Rommel himself being a clean but a hard fighter. Many of his Nazi associates have recorded against their names in the Book of Retribution thousands of cold-blooded murders committed with grim satisfaction on defenceless civilians. With the blood of these on their hands it ill becomes the Germans to talk about “unfair methods of fighting.” Nowhere will Rommel’s complaint enlist the slightest pity. We know the chivalry of the Maoris too well to listen to charges against them of wanton cruelty. The battalion now in the desert, like their predecessors of the last war, have proved splendid warriors. Both in Crete and against Rommel’s troops they have shown themselves masters of the art of bayonet fighting'. Mechanised Nazi soldiers and the Italians dislike cold steel used so effectively. When the Maori’s blood is up the martial spirit of his ancestors kindles within him. He thinks little of danger then. Blood-curdling war cries which are used in bayonet charges may well unnerve the enemy and if in these tense situations he gives no quarter he certainly asks for none. That is war. Yet, if the Maori was ordered to join one of Himmler’s Jewtorturing or civilian-killing expeditions, his heart would sicken within him. Such is the difference between his fighting elan and the cold and calculated cruelty of the Nazi savage. Axis propaganda has been very l'ond ol deprecating the qualities of the innocent country lads from New Zealand and their brown brothers-in-arms. German and Italian soldiers in the front line know better. The Maoris are still in the desert and will do some more scalp-hunting yet.