N.Z. TROOPS AWAY ON THEIR OWN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 284, 2 December 1941, Page 5

N.Z. TROOPS AWAY ON THEIR OWN

CUT OFF FROM OTHERS CONVOYS “THAT MUST BE GOT THROUGH" I | HOW THE DIVISION HELD THE ENEMY IN I KI UAL TEST. I By Teles'.'.|>h Tros, AssociHlion—Copyright.) (Recd. 12.30 am. Cairo, Nov. 3u. The New Zealand troops and lheii supporting tanks have had as hard lighting as any in the desert campaign, says the Australian War Cor(espondent, Mr. .John Hetherington, in a message to tlte Sydney Sun. The reason is, he points out, that little has been heard of them is because nobody has been ahi', to get through. They have been out on their own with pockets of enemy tanks, guns and troops separating them from other British and Empire forces. Their position, for some days, resembled a blockaded island. They have had wholly to rely on stores which went with them. Throughout Friday night I travelled with an armoured division 35 miles south, convoying ammunition, food and water to them. Nobody knew within miles (then Axis armoured columns might loom up, but the orders were that the convoy must get through, as it did. Mr. Hetherington spent all Saturday with the New Zealand Division in the midst of one of the fiercest battles, with tanks, infantry and guns on both sides hammering and surging for mastery. A divisional ollicer declared: "it is going to be a stitkj day. If we can hold them until nightfall we shall have them where we want them." The New Zealanders, -with the aid of tanks, did hold the enemy, but for a few hours it was "very sticky" indeed. Everybody at New Zealand headquarters breathed freely by nightfall.—U.P.A.