GREAT DESERT TREK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24790, 15 December 1941, Page 5

GREAT DESERT TREK

NEW ZEALAND DIVISION HUNDREDS OF VEHICLES (N.Z.E.F. Official Correspondent) CAIRO, Dec. 8. Three days ago 1 skirted the corridor to Tobruk, when hundreds of vehicles of the New Zealand Division Headquarters drove from the perimeter and across 300 miles of desert to a resting place for a week. The greater part of New Zealand Headquarters was hemmed in Tobruk when a wedge was driven through the New Zealand troops by German tanks. Then came the German recapture of Sidi Rezegh and Bel Hamid, and the corridor was smashed within three days. Britons, New Zealanders, Poles, Australians, South Africans and Indians had collaborated in the drive to the west, and the Hun had beeh pushed off the high ground of Sidi Rezegh and Bel Hamid. That factor made possible the release of hundreds of New Zealanders from Tobruk. We left Tobruk at 7 o’clock on Monday morning after seven days of spasmodic shelling from a German gun known as “Phyllis” and nights made hideous by constant air raids and German artillery fire. Two shells crashed in front and two behind my truck as we moved along the .road from Tobruk. That was the only incident that caused any misgivings as the big convoy moved 300 miles to comparative safety. - Proof that the British Imperial Forces are clearing the Libyan Desert effectively is the fact that hundreds of New Zealand vehicles moved southeast across the desert and a two and a-half day trek without a shot being fired at them once Tobruk had been left behind. We watched with some apprehension a German tactical reconnaissance plane circle around us early on the morning of the first day out. I felt certain that the pilot would report the movement of our big convoy, and that any moment German bombers would swoop down on us. The sounds of heaving bombing in the direction of Gambut alarmed us when we stopped for lunch. From the eastern sky a great flight of planes started Jo approach, and we were convinced "that we were about to be strafed. As' the planes got nearer, circles of red, white and blue could be distinguished, and we reached for more bully beef and another biscuit with considerable relief. One German reconnaissance Elane was all we saw of Goering’s uftwaffe during the whole journey. On that first day we passed over battlefields where the New Zealanders had fought. We crossed an area which bore unmistakable evidence of a tank battle, and wa saw wrecked German planes riddled with machine-gun bullets and shot down by the brilliant pilots of the Royal Air Force. It was significant that in all the 300 miles across the desert we saw only one British plane down—indisputable proof of British air mastery in the Libyan campaign. Sand churned up by the tracks of tanks told us of fierce tank battles. There were several wrecked and burned German tanks in one agea, and among them was one British tank. Alongside were three graves, with tank recognition flags fluttering above them.

By nightfall on the first day we had crossed the border into Egypt. We had swept in a south-easterly course to avoid the possibility of running into any stray enemy pockets, and we had passed convoys about which we could not make up our minds whether they were friends or foes. So it was with feelings of great relief that we went through the frontier wire built by Mussolini. We i»ere glad to be away from it all. but when we tuned in our radios to the 8.8. C. that night our hearts sank when we learned of Japan’s treacherous declaration of war. Next day we covered 130 miles, a day’s great going for a big desert convoy. We laegered for the night on the road which was to take us to the remainder of the division. By lunch-time on the third day we were in the area where the New Zealanders are resting and re-equipping for any eventualities that may come.