Post by Dave Homewood on May 31, 2021 15:09:24 GMT 12
NOT SO QUIET ON THE DESERT FRONT
FRANKTON SOLDIER’S LETTER
An interesting account of the fighting in the Western Desert a few weeks ago is contained in a letter from a Frankton soldier serving with the artillery. "We have been up against the Hun again,” he says, “and it was a great scrap. It took us six days and we covered 1000 miles. We had got fairly close to the enemy one evening, and all was quiet. Each of us had dug a trench and we were having a quiet cup of tea when there was a great droning in the sky. ‘Stukas'.’ cried one and made a bolt for his slit trench, followed closely by his batman and the padre, who is travelling with us this trip. I also dived for cover, with a cup of tea, and had just got down from the truck when there were many loud explosions, and all kinds of shrapnel flying.
"My trench was 20 yards from the truck, and I decided that as I am no sprinter the rear wheel of my bus would be a good friend, so I accordingly huddled down by it and carefully covered my cup of tea to keep out the dust. By this time the first plane had deposited its load, and the others were beginning to drop their loads. From where I was huddled I had a fair view, and I saw an ammunition truck get a direct hit. It immediately went up in flames. By this time the dust started to blot everything from view, so I hugged the ground more closely and just hoped for the best. The bombs kept going whang all the time, and the air was full of splinters, humming away at a great rate.
“All this time our ack-ack boys were pelting away at him in great style, and doing a great job by keeping him up high. Actually it was only a minute from when the first, bomb fell till the last, but I can honestly say that it was the longest year of my life. As soon as it was all over we stood up and watched the raiders fly away, followed by our A.A. fire. Shortly after that a few patients were brought in, and I elected myself master of ceremonies, sorting out the more serious cases, so, that they could be fixed up first. I also sent for ambulances.
Tank Losses Were Great
“Next morning we woke up at an incredibly early hour, and hopped in closer to Jerry, and the battle was on. He threw tons of ineffective steel at us, and our guns ‘went to town’ properly on him. His tank losses were great. Towards lunchtime the place we had parked in became very hot, so we shifted camp, and had only got nicely dug in when it became hot also, so again we shifted, and this time to a real good possie.
“The wounded started to come in very slowly, and we patched them up and put them in holes for safety. . . . All our trucks lined up in about six rows, close to Jerry’s lines, and some of our battalion sneaked up with bayonets fixed and cleared a path. We sat there waiting, scarcely daring to breathe, listening to an occasional shot or hand grenade. Presently we could see a mass of men coming towards us. It was our infantry returning. They piled on to trucks, and the race began. It was really a race to escape death.
“The trucks were jammed nose to tail, and one could lean out of his truck and touch the next lane at times. Jerry started shooting things at us, and practically everybody who had weapons turned them, in the darkness, to his whereabouts, ready to fire. It was great to see men sitting on the cabs and hoods of leaping and rolling trucks blazing at anything they thought might be the enemy. There were anti-tank guns mounted on trucks on the flanks, and the drivers were swerving all over the place. When the gun pointed towards where the enemy were believed to be the gunners let drive.”
“A Wonderful Show”
“Fires started to break out all over enemy territory. One infantryman saw a Jerry crouched under a truck with a machine-gun, and as we swept past he lobbed a grenade on the Hun. Nuf sed. Really, it was a wonderful show. Had it been shown as a movie picture I would have laughed it to scorn as unbelievable that a division could plough through a panzer crowd practically unharmed. Our regiment lost not one man coming out. All that night and day we kept on driving to allow another crowd that had been waiting elbow room.
“Just before dawn I was asleep at the wheel, and now and again as we hit an extra big bump I would wake for a few minutes, then start to nod again and so we went on. At 10 o’clock I could keep awake no longer, so roused another chap and got him to drive. I crawled in the back and slept on what seemed like a pile of tin hats—but I was too tired to care, for I had had only two hours’ sleep in the last 48 hours. Two hours later, and after a cup of tea, I was fit and well again. I drove all the afternoon over the roughest country I had ever struck. At 10 p.m. we stopped and I lay down in my great-coat, put my head on a stone for a pillow, and was asleep in a jiffy ....
“The Jerries Ran”
“At the time of writing we are in the hurly-burly again. Yesterday we set out to deal with a panzer division, and by now it is practically annihilated. The Hun had tank guns and infantry on the side of a hill just over a mile away, and our guns opened up on him, knocked out some truck guns and tanks, and then the infantry; went in. The Jerries ran. They call the New Zealanders ‘Freyburg’s Butchers.’ The infantry have brought back quite a bit of the Hun equipment, including some that he had pinched from our side.”
WAIKATO TIMES, 21 SEPTEMBER 1942
FRANKTON SOLDIER’S LETTER
An interesting account of the fighting in the Western Desert a few weeks ago is contained in a letter from a Frankton soldier serving with the artillery. "We have been up against the Hun again,” he says, “and it was a great scrap. It took us six days and we covered 1000 miles. We had got fairly close to the enemy one evening, and all was quiet. Each of us had dug a trench and we were having a quiet cup of tea when there was a great droning in the sky. ‘Stukas'.’ cried one and made a bolt for his slit trench, followed closely by his batman and the padre, who is travelling with us this trip. I also dived for cover, with a cup of tea, and had just got down from the truck when there were many loud explosions, and all kinds of shrapnel flying.
"My trench was 20 yards from the truck, and I decided that as I am no sprinter the rear wheel of my bus would be a good friend, so I accordingly huddled down by it and carefully covered my cup of tea to keep out the dust. By this time the first plane had deposited its load, and the others were beginning to drop their loads. From where I was huddled I had a fair view, and I saw an ammunition truck get a direct hit. It immediately went up in flames. By this time the dust started to blot everything from view, so I hugged the ground more closely and just hoped for the best. The bombs kept going whang all the time, and the air was full of splinters, humming away at a great rate.
“All this time our ack-ack boys were pelting away at him in great style, and doing a great job by keeping him up high. Actually it was only a minute from when the first, bomb fell till the last, but I can honestly say that it was the longest year of my life. As soon as it was all over we stood up and watched the raiders fly away, followed by our A.A. fire. Shortly after that a few patients were brought in, and I elected myself master of ceremonies, sorting out the more serious cases, so, that they could be fixed up first. I also sent for ambulances.
Tank Losses Were Great
“Next morning we woke up at an incredibly early hour, and hopped in closer to Jerry, and the battle was on. He threw tons of ineffective steel at us, and our guns ‘went to town’ properly on him. His tank losses were great. Towards lunchtime the place we had parked in became very hot, so we shifted camp, and had only got nicely dug in when it became hot also, so again we shifted, and this time to a real good possie.
“The wounded started to come in very slowly, and we patched them up and put them in holes for safety. . . . All our trucks lined up in about six rows, close to Jerry’s lines, and some of our battalion sneaked up with bayonets fixed and cleared a path. We sat there waiting, scarcely daring to breathe, listening to an occasional shot or hand grenade. Presently we could see a mass of men coming towards us. It was our infantry returning. They piled on to trucks, and the race began. It was really a race to escape death.
“The trucks were jammed nose to tail, and one could lean out of his truck and touch the next lane at times. Jerry started shooting things at us, and practically everybody who had weapons turned them, in the darkness, to his whereabouts, ready to fire. It was great to see men sitting on the cabs and hoods of leaping and rolling trucks blazing at anything they thought might be the enemy. There were anti-tank guns mounted on trucks on the flanks, and the drivers were swerving all over the place. When the gun pointed towards where the enemy were believed to be the gunners let drive.”
“A Wonderful Show”
“Fires started to break out all over enemy territory. One infantryman saw a Jerry crouched under a truck with a machine-gun, and as we swept past he lobbed a grenade on the Hun. Nuf sed. Really, it was a wonderful show. Had it been shown as a movie picture I would have laughed it to scorn as unbelievable that a division could plough through a panzer crowd practically unharmed. Our regiment lost not one man coming out. All that night and day we kept on driving to allow another crowd that had been waiting elbow room.
“Just before dawn I was asleep at the wheel, and now and again as we hit an extra big bump I would wake for a few minutes, then start to nod again and so we went on. At 10 o’clock I could keep awake no longer, so roused another chap and got him to drive. I crawled in the back and slept on what seemed like a pile of tin hats—but I was too tired to care, for I had had only two hours’ sleep in the last 48 hours. Two hours later, and after a cup of tea, I was fit and well again. I drove all the afternoon over the roughest country I had ever struck. At 10 p.m. we stopped and I lay down in my great-coat, put my head on a stone for a pillow, and was asleep in a jiffy ....
“The Jerries Ran”
“At the time of writing we are in the hurly-burly again. Yesterday we set out to deal with a panzer division, and by now it is practically annihilated. The Hun had tank guns and infantry on the side of a hill just over a mile away, and our guns opened up on him, knocked out some truck guns and tanks, and then the infantry; went in. The Jerries ran. They call the New Zealanders ‘Freyburg’s Butchers.’ The infantry have brought back quite a bit of the Hun equipment, including some that he had pinched from our side.”
WAIKATO TIMES, 21 SEPTEMBER 1942
