DRIVE TO TRIPOLI

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25135, 28 January 1943, Page 4

DRIVE TO TRIPOLI

GREAT DESERT SWEEP NEW ZEALANDERS’ ACHIEVEMENT (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent) TRIPOLI, Jan. 23. Only in the last three days has any direct action by the retreating Afrika Korps hindered the progress of the New Zealand fighting columns which, since their drive past the southern flank of the German line along Wadi Zemzem, forced the enemy to leave his stronghold and withdraw rapidly towards Tunisia. Now that we have reached Tripoli and are again in contact with other forces of the Eighth Army it is possible to tell the story of what probably will be recorded in history as the greatest desert march the New Zealanders have ever made in their campaigns through Libya and Western Egypt. All the way across the hundreds of miles of desert the Eighth Army has crossed since the El Alamein line was broken early in November the New Zealanders have taken the hard inland route. By careful route planning and superb driving many difficulties were overcome in our earlier inland sweeps, but in this last 400-mile drive from the Gulf of Sirte to Tripoli our columns of tanks, guns, and hundreds of three-ton trucks crossed a variety of the wildest possible country, and at a speed which brought them to Tripoli only a few hours behind the forces driving along the easier coastal route.

Advance Through Wilderness

In the early stages of this sweep the rough terrain slowed down our advance more than the enemy’s delaying actions, and during the last few days it has been necessary for us to cross sheer-sided gullies and seas of sand to oppose his rearguards. About one-fifth of Tripolitania is a country known to the Arabs as hamada—swirling hills completely covered with hard, loose rock. It was over this wilderness that our columns in the first week were striving to stay on the heels of the retreating enemy moving back over his own roads, mining them as he went. Again the quick efficiency of the New Zealand engineers has been an important factor in our success. Their mine-lifting allowed us in places to use the inland highways, and in our pursuit across the open desert they built tracks with bull-dozers and explosives that saved countless hours of digging and pushing trucks out of steep wadis and through soft sand. During the night after the first day s battle in the Wadi Zemzem area the German divisions began their withdrawal. With our tanks probing the way ahead of the main columns, we made an almost unhindered advance for three days. Scattered mines and the pace at which our trucks and guns could follow the tanks controlled our progress more than any attempt the German rearguards made to stop it. It was thought that the enemy had chosen Beni Ulid—the first village of any size we came upon—as a point similar to those by which he held up our advance from El Alamein and Bardia. The great bulk of his transport raced towards this Italian colonial outpost, but again only mines and demolitions were left to hinder us. Some 2500 vehicles, which were seen in the Beni Ulid area, kept up the retreat towards Tripoli. Although there had been less than 24 hours’ continuous contact with the enemy when our advance had been in progress six days, the New Zealand columns had accounted for a number of Italian tanks, some field and anti-tank guns, and a number of machine guns, troop and transport vehicles. The only prisoners taken were stragglers from the 15th Panzer and 19th Xight Divisions, several of whom were 18 years of age and gave their civilian occupation, as schoolboy. Little Enemy Resistance It was not until we had reached the outskirts of Tarhuna—a village on the outskirts of the green Jebel Nefoussa country that runs up towards the coast—that we met any organised opposition. A pocket of German guns set in the hills .about Tarhuna, on the Tripoli road, was effectively by-passed, but out on the small sand sea beyond the road our columns were temporarily halted by tanks lined across our path. Our tanks and guns swept out and engaged them, and after a brief exchange the German armour withdrew to reappear again near Azizia—the village where our day’s march ended last night. „ „ Patrols from the Maori Battalion crept ahead and watched the Germans as they prepared to meet our attack. No attack came, and by the first light of this morning the German tanks, believed to be part of the 15th Panzer Division, had fled from their dug-in positions to the west. The few shells and mortars that landed amongst our transport last night were the only opposition we met on the final stage of our advance on Tripoli. The great effort the R.A.F. made to keep pace with our advance to El Agheila was surpassed by their work in this last forward drive. Even as we were moving forward, fighters moved on to new landing grounds—some of them just cleared by bulldozers —to protect our columns from enemy bombing attacks. In one of the rare bombing raids which the Germans were able to make our forward troops shot down a Stuka.