DIGGER’S DIARY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5596, 24 March 1943, Page 3

DIGGER’S DIARY

LAST WAR MEMORIES . ACTION AT MAILLY MAILLET (By A. K. Greves) No. 2. Wednesday, March 27.—We11, here we are, midnight, out under the blue sky again, but no mud to contend with. The few hours sleep will be under a hedge, for at 4 a.m. I leave with oil for guns. Wo left Picquingy at nine this morning and we passed through Amiens. Portions of the city were showing the effects of Fritz’s aeroplane bombs. Numerous fires were still smouldering. While passing over some of the bridges near the city they were being mined with Bin. shells by members of the Royal Engineers in readiness to be blown up should Fritz continue to break through.

On the outskirts of the city one well-grown French youth rushed out of an estaminet with a bottle of beer and had to hand to me one of the very few T-T’s. in the outfit. After leaving the city behind, the real horrors of warfare revealed itself.

When troops go into battle one can expect to see mutilations of all descriptions—such as men with limbs blown off, eyes shot out, or disembowelled, or perhaps blown to pieces, but to see refugees clearing out before an invader might upset the hardiest of troops.

Refugees were strung out for miles. Old Qien, women, children, weary, dusty, and perhaps hungry—all with the same ambition, to put as much distance between them and the advancing grey hordes, perhaps also knowing there are tw’o classes of people in the world—human beings and Germans.

There were two cases of which I took particular notice of. One, a girl of about 20 years of age, all her worldly possessions in a small carpet bag, stepping it out for the back areas alone she appeared to have the fear of God in her eyes, well knowing what her fate would be should she be overtaken by the invader. She seemed to have no interest in the troops that were going in to fill the gap. Next came an old couple. Each must have been in the vicinity of 80 years of age. The old man, evidently a cripple, was sitting in a wheelbarrow, being pushed along the road by his aged wife. Every ten or fifteen yards she would have a spell. How far they had travelled we did not know, and we could not assist them as we were going into the battle that was raging on the horizon.

Others were more fortunate, carrying their belongings in farm waggons with children trailing up the rear. These scenes gave one considerable thought—what might happen should an invader land on the shores of New Zealand ?

Here and there among the refugees would be a walking wounded British soldier. There were also quite a few soldier stragglers who had evidently lost touch with their units. Even some members of the observation balloon units were all packed up and making for the back areas. Things seemed to be in a bad way and no one knew what we were going to be up against within the next 24 hours.

About 5 p-m. we halted to water and feed the horses and also had a little nourishment ourselves. Everyone was feeling contented—for a while. Passing through a deserted village about' 10 p.m. we halted opposite a battery of Royal Field Artillery on the march—all complete, but minus their guns (eighteen pounders). Where are your guns, says one of our gunnners to the R.F.A. Battery Sergeant-Major? “Jerry’s gort ’em,” came the reply, and he then enquired when we were going up to see where the old Hun is. The final retort from the S.M. was, “and you will soon be coming back again.”

About an hour after the previous little episode we dropped into action near the Mailly Maillet railway station. The ammunition limbers and detachments not required at the guns returned to horse and waggon lines which are out under the sky. All the disrobing I am going to do is to take my boots off. (To be continued).