WESTERN DESERT SPECTACLES

Camp News, Volume 2, Issue 96, 31 October 1941, Page 3

WESTERN DESERT SPECTACLES

Real And Fictitious

(Official War Correspondent,

N.Z.E.F.)

WESTERN DESERT, Sept. 29.

We saw two grand shows here yesterday. In nature they were poles ■ipart—one intensely real, the spectacle of more British pianos than we had ever seen in the desert before massing tor a daylight attack; the other purelj fictitious, a Hollywood film progranum in surroundings that could not have been stranger. ,

We counted a great number of aircraft in the sky at noon. The fighters appeared first,’ three great droves of them, manoeuvring in a wide circle to take battle formation above, behind, and around the fast American-built bombers which came droning out of the east in perfect threes. . The whole huge sky force circled for height and then flew westward and out of our sight.

.The noise in the sky was the deep throated roar and rumble that is the sound of weight of numbersthe sound which in our most hard-pressed days we thought must be the prerogative of the Germans. Long before this is printed a communique will most likely have told of bombs dropped on ships.

nave told oi nemos dropped on snips, dumps and stores at Benghazi or Tri poli and of troops and transport col nmns machine-gunned on the roads. It will not matter if the communique is short and-laconic, for that will mean that these mass raids are no mere novelty. Heartening signs like thismore troops; more guns, more planes- —are ..11 around us. As dusk- fell yesterday ind we gathered under the sky for a padre’s evening service, heavy bombers lifted off the desert one by one and Hew past us, perhaps to clinch by moonlight the operations begun, a few hours earlier by the daylight raiders. The Second Show. And by the time the enemy had started his lame attempt at reprisals that night—dull, spasmodic rumbles and flashes far in the west told m about it —we were absorbed in our second show. We sat on the cold sand and watched the most famous of Hollywood’s movie detectives unravel i thrilling murder mystery on a screen slung from the side of an Army truck. Desert talkies are a new Y.M.C.A. service made possible by the contributions of the New Zealand people to patriotic funds. They have already proved -themselves a complete success. The equipment is so easily portable that the programmes can be brought right io each unit’s door. Provision N of entertainments in the field must be the most extraordinary of the non-strategical changes we have found on our return to the desert. The N.Z.E.F. is perhaps better off in this respect than any other formation, for apart from the Y.M.C.A. cinema unit, there is another which is run by the padres, and in addition there is the force’s own Kiwi Concert Party which

intend* to make regular visits.

Football is in the air again, too, in the Western Desert. Grounds are the big difficulty, but it will be overcome just as it was last year, when most games were played more for their fun and exercise than as seriously competitive events.

It should not be thought, however, that the accent is being placed on entertainment and recreation at this stage of the career of the N.Z.E.F. These are days of serious training under the conditions peculiar to the Western Desert. There are battle exercises and motor ized treks almost every day.