INSIDE LIBYA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24772, 24 November 1941, Page 4

INSIDE LIBYA

NEW ZEALAND ADVANCE EXUBERANT SOLDIERS WAR CORRESPONDENT'S DIARY (N.Z.E.F. .Official War Correspondent) INSIDE LIBYA, Nov. 19. New Zealand Sappers gaily tore huge hunks from Italy's one-time Eastern frontier wire to let our motor columns stream into Libya. As I write this, we are still roaming, unmolested, across the broad shingle plains of the former " no-man's land." With the kind of Fascist extravagance that runs to the erection of impressive monuments to doubtful glories, Italy had long ago marked her border with Egypt, not by an imaginary line but by a thick and costly wall of tangled barbed-wire. It stretches from Solium across plateaus, uphill and down, far into the south. In the case of our historic march, it was the most minor of inconveniences. Our engineers severed the tangled meshes in several places and dragged the wire away behind lorries. This left a gap hundreds of yards wide, through which we rumbled at the dead of night. At last we were within earshot of war. Big Guns Thunder Big guns were thundering' across the frontier last night, and to-day we saw our first enemy planes—only a brace, which our anti-aircraft guns sent squirming between white shellpuffs in the blue sky as they fled homewards. But we lost count of the British planes flying back and forth over us all "day, after their number? had reached at least 100. To-day is worth remembering. First, here we are in Libya, starting' our second foreign expedition, and starting it on the right foot. Secondly, here in black and white is the first realisation of our most optimistic hopes for air and land support—planes in the sky, and tanks on the ground. Today we are able to switch our eyes from a swarm of Hurricanes to five heavy tanks, and we know where there are more—lots more. Already the air offensive we expected has opened with thrilling figures for enemy planes destroyed in the air and on the ground. As we enter our second day in enemy territory, I cafcnot help emphasising again the remarkable nature of the circumstances and of the outlook of the men around me. The battle in in Greece and Crete was hard, and nothing approaching despair was seen on the New Zealanders' faces. But I have never before sensed such a confident and almost exuberant atmosphere. There may be grim days immediately before us, but just now, as we enter the battleground and*-the enemy lines, we feel as the German soldiers must have felt on entering, Greece. Even if this almost unreal sense of security were to end to-mor-row, it has had a wonderful moral effect on the New Zealanders. Their trigger fingers grow itchier every day. Football in Desert Can you guess how the men around me passed their time early this morning before the cooks yelled, "Come and get it"? They played football. In battledress and greatcoats, they scrummaged, tackled, and kicked until the cold and stiffness left their limbs. Their shouts and laughter reminded me of a suburban sports ground on a Saturday afternoon, but the noise was punctuated by the boom of field guns. Suddenly the footballs rolled to a standstill, and the men became b.arrackers on the sidelines of.a grimmer arena. A lone German plane had come droning overhead, then 20 British fighters appeared, flying westwards. The men's hopes of seeing the combat were so strong that they burst into words. Men pointed excitedly, yelling to the distant British planes: "Get that Jerry, he's just above you!" As if really they did hear, four fighters broke away and chased the now retreating German into the distance.

NOVEMBER 20 The first shots fired under the New Zealand Command in this campaign found a valuable mark. The main force was still travelling towards the frontier when a report came back of a cavalry repiment's success against enemy aircraft. The cavalry had been "sitting on the wire" for some days, using its armoured vehicles in forward reconnaissance work. One (Jay, an Italian plane flew over, and ma-chine-gunned their frontier positions. The next day a machine offered an encore, but it was shot down by antiaircraft fire from English gunr used by the regiment "First round to us," said the officer who reported this success. Towards dust-reddened sunsets whose fiery glory seemed to hold portents of war, and through long starlit nights, we have been riding into battle in the greatest land armada the desert has yet known. History was made when the full New Zealand field force began to roll across the stony western plains in simultaneous movement for the first time—thousands of vehicles in the 1941 style, covering nearly 40 square miles. Any day may begin to produce thrilling stories of action, but already a dramatic one is being unfolded. Complete Preparations Probably never before in this war have our General Staffs been able to prepare in such liberal detail for a campaign as big as this promises 10 be. Almost every noteworthy activity I have seen or heard of in the last two or three months seems to fit into to-day's picture. Its broader outlines were formed as troops, guns, tanks and planes poured into the Western Desert. Its background was filled by night bombing, daylight sweeps from one end of Libya to the other, and back along the vital enemy supply lines from Italy; and by our brilliant naval successes in the Mediterranean. Then its finer details were drawn by air reconnaissance and ground intelligence experts; by tacticians in three services; and by experts of supply organisation. New Zealanders have played their part in all these preliminary phases, to a limited extent by sea and air, but to a yet unrealised scale on the land. Coupled with these achievements is the constantly-recurring miracle of transport, in the supply of food, petrol, and ammunition, in which our Army Service Corps units have earned a name to be remembered. Many weeks ago, they took up their desert transport jobs where they had left off before Greece, and truck mileages ran up into hundreds of thousands as they carted everything from fuel for British tanks to live sheep for Indian cookhouses. Nurses at Desert Hospital A new "wonder" story emerged from among them when a brand new transport company was formed and was operating within two weeks. Its maiden desert voyage was the delivery of the Second New Zealand Gene-

ral Hospital to a site near Mersa Matruh, and there again was history in the making, for when I last saw it, tents were being erected to accommodate the first New Zealand nurses to serve in the Western Desert. NOVEMBER 21 Feelings like none we have ever experienced before possess us as our wheels roll westwards. We are moving deliberately to war and we feel as if the opening \ shots of the big battle will be fired at a set time, as if someone will blow a whistle and the battle will begin like a football match, with everyone excited, but nobody surprised. More than five days out from our old positions, we are now within striking distance of the enemy, yet the sensations still persist that it is nbt like the last big push, when the first body-blow the Italians suffered was their own surprise. This time they must know we are up to something. It is not like Greece or Crete, where we had to wait for the enemy to make the first move. This time the initiative, so far, is ours. High-spirited and Eager They told us days ago that we were going on exercises, and still it seems so, even though we daily expect an attack, and possibly opposition on the ground itself. No matter,, how much the enemy knows or suspects, we still are thinking in terms of a successful attack. Rightly or wrongly, it is good for us to think that way, for I have never seen our troops so high-spirited and eager. The steady westward movement of the great land force of which we form a part has been wonderfully smooth on the whole. Our mobility and supply organisations may yet prove 10 be our surprise weapon. The New Zealanders have practised desert moves hardly less assiduously than desert battles, and this day-to-day diary tells how this practice was put to the test. On the first day vehicles bearing the New Zealand insignai crowded westward along the coastal highway from morning until dark, each column nearly 100 miles long—hundreds of miles of clanking armoured vehicles, rumbling lorries, bouncing gun-wheels, and roaring motor cycles not very long off the aslines in American and British factories. To-day they seem inspired by the mood of the men aboard. It is hard to say why the New Zealand troops seemed to be the happiest on the way to the battle, but the men I was with are reacting as they should if they were heading homewards. Perhaps it is because every new campaign may mean a step towards family and fireside. Perhaps it is explained in a typical slogan I heard: "Benghazi, Brindisi. Berlin, then back home*." Whatever the reason, these men are happy to-day. and a sure sign of this is the way close friends are calling one another by unprintable names, shouted from truck to truck. There' have been some heartburnings. Some paries had to be left behind as immediate replacements, and most of these seemed to feel they were born under an unlucky star. Down to Essentials Our force is completely awheel, for even' infantry nowadays ride most of the way to battle on heavy duty tyres. The vehicles are laden with all the materials of desert warfare, and we have jettisoned the bush furniture with which we had made our dugouts homely, since from now onwards we are keeping down to essentials. We moved to strict timetables, and by Hag signals through assembly areas and past checking points. On the second day we were somewhere along the road to Mersa Matruh and Siwa. The Mediterranean is out of sight, but, thinking of the limited water ration, we promise ourselves that we will meet it soon again on the Libyan beaches. Spreading over 40 square miles, the whole of the New Zealand force is congregated here, and nearly 200 miles of gently-undulating country waste stretches before us to the frontier. Between two chilly nights we rest in the open while the next leg of the journey is reconnoitred. I notice that "Whisky," the black and white dog mascot evacuated from Greece, is with his brigade and is happy, too. On the third day, thousands, of vehicles moved off as one. This morning, as the New Zealand forcer, headed westwards in desert formation, the whole desert is our highway and our front is miles wide. There is no more apt description of this spectacle than its comparison with a hugh war-time convoy of ships at sea Compass bearings keep us on our course; the mobile A.A. guns and field artillery are the counterparts of escorting destroyers; and fighters Leep watch above. But never was a sea convoy as big as this. Our desert ships extend to the horizon's flat rim, and far beyond. Further away are specks, and only dust-clouds suggest the location- of those beyond vision. We halt in darkness, but there is a hot stew waiting, prepared at breakfast-time and kept warm in hot boxes. We live on preserved food, now, and water is precious, though ample. Half a mugful must do for our shave and wash, if we do so at all. On the fourth and fifth days we move only at night. By day we shroud our vehicles in camouflage nets, and doze in shallow trenches. Cold, dusty winds <folow, and we are glad to be in battledress. Except for the office staffs, signallers, supply wagon drivers, and reconnaissance parties, we were at a standstill until dusk. Tropical Thunderstorm Last night we thought for a moment that the battle had burst over our heads. Blinding flashes filled the cloudy western sky as a tropical thunderstorm spent its fury somewhere in the distance. Like the effects of a Hollywood film, they split the dusty blackness throughout our journey. It was the eeriest night ride in my life, and desert travel in darkness is impressive enough under any circumstances. The convoy closes in again at nightfall like ships at sea. All you see is the black bulks of the vehicles ahead of and around you, and the noise is like thunder or a heavy surf on a rocky coast. You climb escarpments and drop into hollows with the motion of a ship bucking a choppy tide. You hear your driver fling purple curses at a neighbour who wings too close. But you get there in the end, and the enemy is much nearer.