REHEARSAL IN THE DESERT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21841, 19 December 1940, Page 9

REHEARSAL IN THE DESERT

New Zealanders In Mock Battle Valuable Experience Gained (From the Official War Correspondent with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the Middle East). EGYPT, November 25. On a stony plain which history says was centuries ago a part of the vast granary of the Roman Empire, an infantry brigade of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force advanced recently its preparation for the day when it might oppose the forces of a would-be successor to the ancient Caesars. Three days of manoeuvres, in which the brigade was augmented by ambulance, anti-tank and machine-gun detachments, were the culmination of a period of Intensive training under full active service conditions. Company and regimental exercises preceded the brigade movements, which covered many miles of remote and uninhabited desert. All the exercises were characterised by their realism, not merely from the point of view of the spectacles they afforded, but also because many of the tactics they involved were based on possible moves by the Italians in the Western Desert. In theory at least, the New Zealanders were thus able to pit their experience and knowledge of strategy against the resources of enemy columns. Infantrymen, for example, left camp on an expedition which envisaged an advance by the Italians beyond thenpresent positions near Sidi Barrani. The scheme required contact to be made with an enemy force and a prisoner to be taken for interrogation. Officers directing operations were to be handed from time to time, without warning, notes reporting supposed fresh developments, and were expected to act on this information. Place names used were not the imaginative ones often invented for army exercises; the names and the places were real, and they represented points to which the enemy had no doubt devoted much thought. Could Have Been Real Although the whole conception of manoeuvres being held in an actual theatre of operations may seem odd, their value in making the troops more familiar with the country over which they may have to wage war is obvious. Moreover, the mock battles which were fought could have been real. Every unit taking part had moved out ready for battle, and no emergency would have caught the contingent unprepared. By a coincidence, a report of more than usual activity in the area in which the Italian forces have halted was received on the very eve of the full brigade manoeuvres. Although it had no outcome, it threw into striking relief the contingent's state of preparedness for “the real thing.”

At least one phase of the exercises was no mere war game. To the eye, the most impressive feature of the movements was the display they provided of the mechanised strength and mobility of the contingent. Hundreds of vehicles, ranging from motor-cycles to six-wheeled lorries and carrying men, armaments and supplies, streamed across the broad plateau. With all this transport equipment within comparatively easy striking distance of Italian air bases, there was nothing of mere practice in the precautions taken against bombing attack. Anti-aircraft guns were constantly manned, and keen eyes never left the sky. On the move, vehicles spread out over the roadless plain like leaves scattered haphazardly by the wind.

The first engagement undertaken by the brigade was a night attack on a supposed enemy camp. Two battalions —wave after wave of men disappearing into the blackness of the hour before dawn—carried out the assault on foot, and the sun rose on the troops as they waited for breakfast in the captured position. Transport moved up to them, and all that morning the brigade travelled on across the unchanging desert.

"Enemy” Recognised A surprise lay ahead. The formation had been drawing closer all this time to an English regiment, also on the move, according to a prearranged plan known only to a few. The English troops were to play an enemy role, and the tactics to be adopted by the two forces were to depend on the circumstances in which they met. It was midday when a cluster of black specks on the horizon was recognised as a group of enemy vehicles. The English regiment took up defensive positions along the banks of a shallow depression, throwing to the New Zealanders the unspoken challenge: "Come and get us!” The enemy’s front line troops, lying in natural cover, were completely hidden from sight as two New Zealand battalions advanced stealthily and steadily, strung out across half a mile of desert. A leading section sighted an enemy outpost and dropped to the ground as one man. Then it rose, ran several yards closer, and dropped again With continuous waves of infantrymen reaching their goal, this spectacle was soon witnessed along the entire front, the engagement took place under unaginary barrages of artillery fire, and Bren gun carriers, machine and antitank guns, trench mortars and similar weapons were also in action. The firing °f Ycrey Hghts called the “battle” off after useful experience had been gained by both sides, and the two forces parted company, the New Zealanders to move to a bivouac area for a final night in the open.