DESERT RAILWAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24951, 25 June 1942, Page 5

DESERT RAILWAY

SUPPLYING THE TROOPS GALLANT NEW ZEALANDERS (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) CAIRO, June 23. New Zealand's "front line troops in this Libyan struggle have been the railwaymen of the non-divisional construction and operating group. Through weeks of the severest bombing and machine-sun attacks they have known the railway companies have built and operated 215 miles of line that extended almost to the battle front. So close was their final rail-head at Bel Hamid to the rapidly-changing front that the shells from the battle landed a few thousand yards away while they were unloading trucks. One section of the line was spread by the tracks of a heavy tank that passed over it going into the attack. , " Although the Germans directed continuous air attacks against trains, stations, and dumps to try to break the supply line, the company carried supplies ' forward until the last possible hour. When evacuation became inevitable the forward operating company worked feverishly to shift back the supply dumps. When they left the dump's were cleared and engines and rolling stock were at a safe distance from the advance, and the •' scorched earth " policy had removed anything else that might have fallen into enemy hands. Unsurpassed Gallantry The gallantry of the men who operated trains through air attacks and dust storms for three days was unsurpassed on any battlefield. The first warning the engine crews got of German planes above them was when cannon shells screamed into the cabs. One driver took his engine through eight machine-gun attacks before he was wounded. Another driver and his fireman died in their cab when it was raked by machine-gun fire. Others were scalded when cannon shells punctured the boilers of their engines.

"Through all that there was never a word of complaint from our men," one officer told me. "It was a terrific strain on them, driving without lights over new tracks and waiting for planes they could not hear above the engine noise. They worked all night and then had to try'to sleep during the heat of the day." During one of the hardest air attacks a train took seven hours to go 53 miles. Six times the train stopped while the crew jumped clear of machine-gun fire.

■ Daylight raids were common on the temporary rail-head at Bel Hamid, which came within easy reach of the enemy's forward aerodromes. The men handling petrol and ammunition carried on through seven days of air attacks, their only concern being that supplies must go forward. There are stories of men who risked their lives to save petrol wagons, and of men who uncoupled trucks loaded with explosives while nearby wagons were ablaze.

In the last days of the Bel Hamid rail-head, the men who managed the stations and sidings were taken out to their posts and withdrawn in a railcar, which ran ahead of the trains. By this method, tanks, petrol, and ammunition were delivered almost to the battle field. When the enemy found that bombs and machine-guns could not stop supplies going forward an. attempt was made to mine the line. Two German airmen who landed beside the line headed out into the desert on foot, but their mining operations were disturbed by a British patrol. Our railwaymen promptly dragged the plane to the nearest station, where it was handed over to the R.A.F.. That night more tanks were unloaded at the railhead. Work of the Companies Railwaymen have served in the Western Desert through every phase of the Libyan campaign. In October, 1940, they went to the desert to handle the increased military traffic on the western end of the Egyptian State railways system. As the army advanced detachments from the Sixteenth Operating Company worked as far west as Benghazi. Before the campaign last winter the New Zealand railway construction companies had! taken the rail-head 68 miles further into the desert. Further tens of miles of line were added until 162 miles of line stretched between the coast and the new rail-head at Fort Capuzzo. While our'forces consolidated their positions the consfruction companies were at work again extending the line aoross country that had been the New Zealand Division's battlefields three months earlier.

Such famous points as Halfaya. Gundagai, and Bel Hamid became stations on the line. Working through blackouts with an improvised signal system, the operating companies moved between 75 and 80 trains a week over the main section of the line. Their record effort was more than 3000 tons unloaded at a rail-head in one day.