IN November 1941, when the second British offensive in Libya began, the 33rd Battery of the 7th New Zealand Anti-Tank Regiment consisted of four troops, each of four guns. Three troops were armed with two-pounders and one with the old 18-pounder field gun modified for use against armoured fighting vehicles. The two-pounders were carried on the decks of specially constructed lorries, termed portées, which were fitted with ramps and winches to enable the guns to be quickly hoisted into place. Special fittings on the lorry enabled the trail and spade to be clamped firmly to the deck so that the gun, pointing over the rear of the portée, was ready for immediate action.

During the training in preparation for the campaign, the regimental commander, Lieutenant-Colonel T. H. E. Oakes,

Biographical details of those named in this account are published on p. 31.

Portée tactics had to be based on the fact that the gun was high off the ground, with the gun-shield the only protection for crew and weapon. This shield could ward off small-arms fire only from the direct front, so that against crossfire, explosive shells, mortar bombs, and armour-piercing projectiles both gun and crew were vulnerable. It was laid down that this vulnerability should be reduced by exposing the gun and its crew to enemy observation for the shortest possible time. The men were taught to fight their guns from behind whatever cover, in the form of ridges or folds in the ground, was available. First the gun made for such cover; then the vehicle was backed up until the barrel of the two-pounder cleared the concealing rise—that is, to a hull-down position. A few shots were fired and the portée was again run down under cover. That process was repeated, with the gun changing its position as often as possible to confuse enemy gunners. The lie of the land did not always permit this, but on several occasions in the 1941 Libyan campaign these tactics were employed with notable success, thanks largely to the thorough training of crews and drivers.

The initial role of the New Zealand Division in this campaign depended on the success of the armoured divisions of the 30th Corps, which opened the fighting on 18 November by driving across the Libyan border with the intention of first searching out and destroying the enemy tanks, and then continuing westward to relieve beleaguered Tobruk. At first reports were most favourable, and accordingly the three brigades of the New Zealand Division, operating under the command of the 13th Corps, set out on previously allotted tasks. That of the 6th Brigade, which had under its command the 33rd Battery, was to move westward along the Trigh Capuzzo

Trigh Capuzzo, marked on the map as a motor road, was in fact a series of tracks to the south of, and running roughly parallel to, the main Bardia-Tobruk highway. Before turning north to Tobruk, it passed between the features of Sidi Rezegh and Belhamed.

On the afternoon of 22 November, when the brigade was on its way towards Bir el Chleta, urgent messages from 30th Corps showed that the early reports of British armoured successes had been optimistic. Far from being destroyed, German tanks were pressing in strength against Sidi Rezegh, now held by the Support Group of the British 7th Armoured Division. The 30th Corps urged that the 6th Brigade should hasten to the relief of Sidi Rezegh. Headquarters New Zealand Division ordered the brigade to fall in with these demands. The brigade pressed on, halting at eight o'clock to laager for the night some miles to the east of Bir el Chleta.

Because the German armour was still strong, and not as weakened as the first reports had indicated, a heavy responsibility was thrown on the New Zealand artillery, and especially on the Anti-Tank Regiment. The British tanks, outgunned by the German tanks and the very effective 88-millimetre and 50-millimetre anti-tank guns, were far too hard pressed to spare much of their strength to protect the New Zealand infantry.

The 6th Brigade kept a strict lookout during the night of 22–23 November. The 33rd Battery's two-pounders were placed round the brigade perimeter, and outside them the infantry manned a series of listening posts. In relays, one gunner watched at the firing position of each anti-tank gun while his crew-mates slept beside the portée. The night was tense but without alarm. At 3 a.m. the march to Sidi Rezegh was resumed with two battalions forward, the 25th on the right and the 26th on the left, the B echelon vehicles behind them, and the 24th Battalion to the right rear. In the darkness L Troop was delayed, and it was a quarter of an hour before Lieutenant C. S. Pepper,2 the troop commander, led the four portées after the rest of the brigade.

The troop caught up with the 24th Battalion, under whose command it had been the previous day, at first light, just as the brigade group halted for breakfast. The formation had set out with the intention of swinging to the south to avoid a German force known to be at Bir el Chleta, but in the darkness an error in navigation had resulted in the halt being made right on top of the German position, and when the troop arrived a small engagement was raging. The brigade had clashed with part of the headquarters of the German Afrika Korps. The Germans had a few tanks and armoured cars, but those were quickly dealt with by a squadron of Valentine tanks of the 42nd Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment, which was in support of the 6th Brigade. In a brisk fight several of the enemy were killed and valuable documents and some high-ranking officers captured. None of the battery's guns had a chance to fire, but there were several casualties among the transport drivers.

The order of march had been changed overnight, and L Troop now found itself under the command of the 26th Battalion. There was no longer time for breakfast, and the brigade resumed its move towards Sidi Rezegh, the gunners allaying the keen appetite of early morning with a snack from the ration boxes and a short drink from their water bottles. In this campaign it was seldom that they were able to have a full meal prepared by the battery cooks. Each gun carried rations for five days, consisting of biscuits, bully beef, tins of meat and vegetable stew, jam or marmalade, cheese, tea, sugar, and canned milk. The gunners augmented this with whatever they could buy from the Church Army canteen or had received in food parcels from home: generally tinned sausages, tinned fruit, and cake.

The brigade made for the Wadi esc Sciomar, a break in the escarpment three miles east by south of Point 175, a convenient place from which to reconnoitre the position and plan its action. L Troop was on the left front of the 26th Battalion group, followed by four of the Valentine tanks. The gunners were surprised that they and not the tanks headed the advance; but the Valentines, heavily armoured and slow, were not as manoeuverable as cruiser tanks, and not as well fitted for the lead as the more mobile portées.

A few miles before the wadi was reached there appeared to the west a large group of British tanks and other vehicles, some of them still smouldering. (It was learned later that on the previous afternoon enemy tanks had forced the 7th Armoured Division's Support Group off Sidi Rezegh after heavy fighting.) Movement among them showed that they were in enemy hands, and Germans in trucks were seen making away to the south and south-west. The range was extreme, but the troop opened fire at the escaping vehicles. Lieutenant Pepper hurried to battalion headquarters for orders, and was told by the battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. Page3, that as there were probably British wounded among the wrecks their safety must be the first consideration. By the time Lieutenant Pepper returned and gave the order to cease fire, the troop had fired about fifty rounds at distances above the limit allowed by the range scales. The Germans were seen to be making off to the west with some captured Honey tanks, but the gunners were forbidden to resume firing. Instead, the troop's guns covered the advance of three of the battalion's Bren carriers, which went over to the mass of tanks and trucks to look for British wounded. An ambulance, packed with injured men, came back to the battalion.

The carriers soon returned and the column resumed its march. At the Wadi esc Sciomar it was apparent that the enemy held Point 175, on the escarpment to the east of Sidi Rezegh, in force. At half past eleven Brigadier H. E. Barrowclough4, commander of the 6th Brigade, issued orders for the 25th Battalion, with the 24th in reserve, to attack and capture Point 175; the 26th Battalion with its supporting arms was to establish contact with the 5th South African Brigade, five miles south-west of Point 175.

The 26th Battalion group set out at once. With the infantry were the four two-pounders of L Troop and eight 25-pounders of Major A. T. Rawle's5 30th Battery (6th Field Regiment). Again the troop led the advance, with the guns in a shallow crescent in front of the battalion column, the order from the right being L1, L2, L3, and L4, the centre guns slightly in advance of those on the flanks. Lieutenant Pepper in his 15-cwt. truck rode behind L2, and the troop 3-ton lorry, containing reserve ammunition and rations, in charge of the troop subaltern, Second-Lieutenant I. G. Scott6, followed L3.

The battalion met the South Africans just before half past twelve. They had been in action the previous day, and had dug in on a rise on the southern escarpment. (Though this was ‘high ground’ by desert standards, the rise was a very gentle one, which did not offer the slightest obstacle to armoured fighting vehicles.) With the South Africans were a few tanks—those of the 22nd Armoured Brigade which had survived the previous afternoon's action. Colonel Page, who had decided to dispose the 26th Battalion on a smaller rise about a mile to the east, met General Gott, commander of the British 7th Armoured Division, who had under his command twelve 25-pounder field guns, the remnants of the regiment which had been with the 7th Support Group at the Sidi Rezegh airfield. These he proposed to site on the east side of the South African position, facing north-east, and he directed that the New Zealand guns be disposed to the east, north, and south of the 26th Battalion area. Should any threat develop against the New Zealanders from the west, the British guns would be moved to cover the battalion's western flank.

THE BATTALION was immediately deployed in an all-round defensive position. Colonel Page placed four of the 30th Field Battery's 25-pounders (E Troop) on the northern side of the perimeter and four (F Troop) on the southern, while L Troop was told to dig its guns in facing east.

Diagram A.

The level ground offered no choice of positions, so the guns were simply sited in line at intervals of about fifty yards along the infantry FDLs

Forward defended localities. This term is applied to the most advanced areas of a defensive position. They are usually sited to support each other by fire. In the case of an all-round defence, as on this occasion, the FDLs marked the circumference of the area held.

Up to this stage the 26th Battalion had not seen the main enemy force. Apart from the South Africans, however, there were scores of knocked-out vehicles, armoured and otherwise, to show that the area had been one of recent desperate combat. The South Africans were only too well aware that their position was known to the enemy. Early that morning three British-type tanks had rolled up to their lines, their turrets open, the crews wearing the familiar black berets of the Allied armoured formations and waving their hands in, presumably, friendly greeting. Approaching slowly, they had ample chance to gain a good general idea of the South African dispositions. When right up to the FDLs, their turrets were slammed down, their machine guns fired a few bursts of unexpected and deadly rounds, and the tanks made good their escape. (Six days later the Germans were to repeat this same trick to break the desperate resistance of the remnants of the 21st New Zealand Battalion and recapture Point 175.) During the morning one other enemy group had approached, quickly withdrawing when engaged and giving the impression of a reconnaissance.

The real blow fell on the South Africans a few minutes after 3.30 p.m. A strong force of enemy tanks with infantry in lorries approached from the south-west, swung across the brigade's western perimeter and, making good use of the knowledge gained from their earlier reconnaissance, drove hard at the defences.

The smoke, dust, and flames of battle, and the position of the late afternoon sun, made it hard at first for the New Zealanders to see what was happening. A few shells, probably overs, landed in the 26th Battalion area. But very soon after the attack started, urgent messages from the South Africans, asking for all the artillery support the battalion could afford, made it clear that the situation was desperate. The 30th Battery's guns were then moved to the western flank and opened fire at the German armoured vehicles and transport.

About four o'clock, when the L Troop gunners had finished digging their gunpits—L4 was actually in position in the pit—all gun commanders were called to troop headquarters, in this case the troop commander's truck. In charge of the four two-pounders were Sergeants T. E. Williamson7, P. Robertson8, T. E. Unverricht9, and T. H. Croft10, of L's 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively. They quickly reported to Lieutenant Pepper, and learned from him that the South Africans were in imminent danger of being overrun, that all the 26th Battalion's supporting guns were to form a line on the western perimeter, and that the troop was to move immediately. The sergeants ran back to their guns. The gunners cursed more or less automatically when they heard that their digging was all for nothing, but the sight of their commander's truck, with Lieutenant Pepper leaning from the cab and beckoning them emphatically to follow him, made it plain that this was no time for recrimination.

L2 and L3 were the first guns to follow. Their crews had been warned that they would be required to take part in a dusk patrol and were not to take the guns from the portées before it was over. L1 and L4 had to be winched back on the portées and clamped down before they could start to move. Lieutenant Pepper set a merry pace round the northern flank of the battalion perimeter, and the portées, especially the last two, had to travel fast to keep up with him. The four field guns that had been deployed to the north had already moved and were getting into action in new positions, this time preparing to fire over open sights instead of indirectly at distant targets, when the troop raced behind them. Following the original plan, some of the British guns had fallen back to help close the gap on the west of the battalion. The new gunline started from the right with four of the 30th Battery's 25-pounders, then two British field guns, and then two two-pounders en portée, also British. When his truck reached the left of this line, Lieutenant Pepper leaned out of the cab with a red flag. First waving it in violent circles, he pointed to the west. Every anti-tank gunner knew then where his weapon was to go into action, and the direction from which the enemy would appear.

The regiment's two-pounder troops had practised many times the manoeuvre which L Troop now carried out in grim earnest: the quick deployment of guns en portée to meet a sudden attack. After the signal for action, the pointing flag told the gun commanders in which direction their guns were to face. Each wheeled his portée into its place in line facing the enemy. The gunners agreed that nothing they had done in practice could compare for speed with their performance under the stimulus of real action. And there was another time-saving factor: the gun commanders did not have to look for cover. There was none.

It was about half past four by the time the troop's guns, high on the decks of their portées on a bare desert and with a sinking sun shining almost directly against them, swung into position on the left of the line. By this time the enemy was aware of the presence of the New Zealanders for small-arms fire was brought down on the 26th Battalion. The South African position was enveloped in swirls of dust and overhung by smoke, shot through in many places by the flames of burning vehicles, and at first it was impossible to make out individual tanks or trucks. The gunners had been told by Lieutenant Pepper that the South Africans were being overrun and that German tanks would almost certainly bear down on the New Zealand position. ‘There are lots of them,’ he said in warning the gun commanders, ‘maybe over 150. But don't let that worry you. They are only little ones.’

The infantry waited in their slit-trenches for the enemy to come within effective small-arms range. On the right of the gunline the 25-pounders were firing steadily, and still farther to the right the anti-tank gunners could hear the gunfire of the other 30th Battery troop

Diagram B.

‘Keep your engines running all the time,’ said Lieutenant Pepper to each gun commander as he hurried round the troop for a final check. Even though there was no cover, the guns were to be moved after each few shots, so that when smoke and dust obscured the position the enemy gunners would not be able to pick them by their flashes.

AUGUST 1939 was a month of great activity in the German Navy. The war plans of the High Command for commerce raiding in the Atlantic were being put into operation. Between 19 and 23 August, eighteen U-boats sailed for their allotted stations; on the 21st, the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorf, sailed from Wilhelmshaven; on the 24th, a second pocket battleship, the Deutschland, put to sea, her tanker supply ship having sailed two days earlier. To wait upon the Admiral Graf Spee, the tanker Altmark, carrying three months' stores, had sailed from Germany as early as 2 August and, having loaded 9400 tons of fuel oil at Port Arthur, Texas, left there on 19 August for the Atlantic. Until war began, the Admiral Graf Spee was to cruise in an area north-west of the Cape Verde Islands; afterwards, she was to operate on the South Atlantic trade routes.

The broad lines of British naval policy for the protection of sea-borne trade in the event of war with Germany and Italy had been laid down in an Admiralty memorandum of January 1939. Anticipating attacks by raiders, including Germany's three pocket battleships, the memorandum set out the ‘traditional and well-proved methods’ of trade protection. These consisted in the dispersal or evasive routeing of merchant shipping, the stationing of naval patrols in focal areas where cruisers could concentrate in pairs against a superior enemy, and the formation of adequately escorted convoys. Detachments from the main fleet could also be used if required. ‘By such means,’ said the memorandum, ‘we have in the past succeeded in protecting shipping on essential routes and it is intended to rely on these methods again, adapting them to the problem under review.’ On the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939, this policy was put into effect; but it was not always possible to provide adequate escort forces for convoys. This was one of the costly results of the drastic whittling down of British naval strength during the past twenty-one years.

During the last week of August active steps were taken to put the two cruisers of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy in a state of instant readiness for war. At nine o'clock on the morning of 29 August, Captain W. E. Parry, RN, commanding officer of HMS Achilles, received his sailing orders for the North America and West Indies Station. During the morning, two Reserve officers from the Leander and a draft of young ratings from the training depot joined the ship, which left her berth at Devonport dockyard, Auckland, at 1.30 p.m. At the last minute a boat arrived alongside with an additional medical officer, Surgeon-Lieutenant C. A. Pittar, RNZNVR, who at one hour's notice had left his private practice to go to sea. The ship's company then numbered 567, of whom twenty-six officers and 220 ratings were from the Royal Navy and five officers and 316 ratings were New Zealanders.

After clearing the harbour the Achilles proceeded at 14 knots for the Panama Canal; but during the night of 2 September she was ordered by the Commander-in-Chief, America and West Indies, to alter course for Valparaiso, Chile, and she increased her speed to 17 knots. Shortly before 1 a.m. (ship's time) on 3 September, the Admiralty signal ‘Commence hostilities against Germany’ was received. From this time on, action stations were exercised daily at dawn and dusk and the ship was blacked out at night. No ship was sighted on the passage across the Pacific and the Achilles arrived at Valparaiso at midday on 12 September.

During the next six weeks, the Achilles patrolled the west coast of South America and visited numerous harbours and anchorages in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, with due observance of the neutrality regulations of those republics. As in August 1914, the outbreak of war had almost completely halted the considerable German trade in those waters. The only German merchant ships at sea, when the Achilles arrived on the coast, were fugitives such as the Lahn from Sydney and the Erlangen from New Zealand, which had vanished into the Pacific in the week before the outbreak of war and evaded the patrolling cruiser by sneaking into neutral harbours. The advent of the Achilles, the only Allied warship in those waters, sufficed to keep German trade at a standstill and virtually to immobilise some seventeen merchant ships totalling 84,000 tons along a coastline of 5000 miles from the Panama Canal to the Strait of Magellan. Thus was exemplified the truth of the old saying that nine-tenths of naval warfare is made up of the continuous drudgery and monotony of patrol duties and the search for enemy vessels which are not there, but which would be if the patrols were not.

But the restraining influence of the Achilles on that coast was about to be removed. On 1 October the Admiralty received word that the British steamer Clement, 5051 tons, had been sunk off the coast of Brazil on 30 September by an enemy raider believed to be the Admiral Scheer. It was, in fact, the Admiral Graf Spee, who had struck her first blow. Prompt and far-reaching measures were taken to hunt her down. The Achilles was in the vicinity of the Gulf of Panama when, on 2 October, she received orders to proceed south-about into the Atlantic to reinforce the South America Division of Commodore Henry Harwood, who was operating under the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic. From the beginning of the war, the commodore's special care and duty was to protect merchant shipping in the important River Plate and Rio de Janeiro areas. He had under his command the cruisers Exeter (Captain F. S. Bell, RN), Cumberland (Captain W. H. G. Fallowfield, RN), and Ajax (Captain C. H. L. Woodhouse, RN), and for about six weeks, the destroyers Hotspur and Havock. On 5 October the Admiralty informed the Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic, of the formation of eight hunting groups, each of ‘sufficient strength to destroy any German armoured ship of the Deutschland class or armoured cruiser of the Hipper class’.

Thus, the appearance of a single enemy raider in the South Atlantic set in motion a vast naval machine involving twenty-two ships, as well as the despatch of two battleships and three cruisers to Canada for convoy escort duties. In British ships alone, this entailed the withdrawal from Home waters of three capital ships, two aircraft-carriers, and three cruisers, and from the Mediterranean (for duty in the Indian Ocean) of one battleship, one aircraft-carrier, and three cruisers. In addition, the French Navy provided an aircraft-carrier, two battle-cruisers, five cruisers, and several destroyers to operate off the west coast of Africa. These elaborate measures recall the similar widespread dispositions made in 1914 against Admiral Graf Spee's Pacific Squadron and in the hunting of the cruiser Emden.

After a second visit to Valparaiso, where she spent two days making good engine-room defects, the Achilles carried on to the southward. She entered the Strait of Magellan at midday on 19 October, anchored overnight, and cleared the Atlantic entrance the following evening, arriving at the Falkland Islands about twenty-four hours later. After refuelling, the Achilles sailed from Port Stanley on 23 October and proceeded to the southern approach to the River Plate, where she joined company with HMS Exeter three days later. On 27 October the Achilles met the Cumberland, under orders to patrol with her in the Rio de Janeiro-Santos area. Commodore Harwood transferred his broad pendant to the Ajax and the Exeter sailed for Port Stanley to carry out urgent repairs. She replaced the Achilles on 11 November.

Nothing had been heard of the enemy raider for three weeks, and on 3 November the Admiralty informed the Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic, that all German capital ships and cruisers were believed to be in their home waters. Next day, the Admiralty issued orders that Force ‘G’ (Cumberland and Exeter) and Force ‘H’ (Sussex and Shropshire) should exchange areas, an arrangement that would not only give the former ships an opportunity to rest and refit, but also provide Commodore Harwood with the hunting group of long-steaming endurance he so greatly desired. The two forces had actually sailed to effect the change-over when, on 17 November, the Admiralty learned that the pocket battleship was in the Indian Ocean. The exchange arrangements were immediately cancelled and the ships returned to their respective stations.

AFTER SINKING the Clement on 30 September, the Admiral Graf Spee made a cast more than 2000 miles to the eastward and between 5 and 10 October captured and later sank three steamers—the Newton Beech, 4651 tons, the Ashlea, 4222 tons, and the Huntsman, 8196 tons— all homeward-bound from South Africa. On 14 October, south-west of St. Helena, the raider refuelled from the Altmark, to whom she transferred the crews of the sunken ships. Returning towards the African coast, she intercepted and sank on 22 October the steamer Trevanion, 5299 tons, homeward-bound from South Australia. Six days later the raider again refuelled from the Altmark in mid-Atlantic. She then made a wide sweep into the Indian Ocean, but sighted nothing until 15 November, when she sank the small tanker Africa Shell, 706 tons, 160 miles north-east of Lourenco Marques. Next day she stopped the Dutch steamer Mapia but allowed her to proceed. Eleven days later, the Admiralty ordered Forces ‘H’ (Sussex and Shropshire) and ‘K’ (Ark Royal and Renown) to patrol south of the Cape of Good Hope to intercept the raider. But, by that time, the Admiral Graf Spee was back in mid-Atlantic where, on 26 November, she had refuelled from the Altmark and re-embarked the masters and senior officers of the ships previously sunk.

The Achilles remained in company with the Cumberland till 5 November and then patrolled the coast from Santos to Rio de Janeiro, where she arrived on 10 November and spent two days. Returning south, she met the Ajax on 22 November and spent the day searching for the German merchant ships Lahn and Tacoma, which had escaped from Chilean ports. The search was unsuccessful, both German ships arriving at Montevideo during the afternoon. After refuelling, the Achilles started next day on another long, independent patrol which took her more than 2000 miles to the north. By the morning of 3 December she was off Pernambuco.

AT 5.20 ON THE MORNING of 13 December, the British squadron was in a position about 240 miles due east from Cape Santa Maria on the coast of Uruguay, and some 350 miles from Montevideo. While daylight was breaking, the ships again practised the tactics to be employed against the enemy raider. The ships' companies fell out from action stations at 5.40 a.m. and reverted to their usual degree of readiness. The squadron then re-formed in single line ahead, in the order Ajax, Achilles, Exeter, steaming north-east by east at 14 knots. The sun rose at 5.56 a.m.

FOR SEVERAL technical reasons, the fire of the Ajax and Achilles became ineffective for more than twenty minutes from about 6.46 a.m. The Graf Spee, however, failed to take any advantage of this, but continued her retirement to the westward at high speed, making frequent alterations of course under cover of smoke-screens. Still fighting gamely with her two after guns, the Exeter hauled round to the westward at 6.50 a.m. She had a list to starboard and several compartments flooded as the result of an 11-inch hit under her forecastle. The Graf Spee's range from the First Division (Ajax and Achilles) was 16,000 yards at 7.10 a.m. when Commodore Harwood decided to close in as rapidly as possible. Course was altered to the westward and the Ajax and Achilles steamed at their utmost speed. Then the Graf Spee turned sharply to port behind smoke and headed as if to finish off the Exeter. But, four minutes later, she altered course back to the north-west until all her 11-inch guns were bearing on the First Division. The range was now down to 11,000 yards. The Ajax was quickly straddled three times, but was not hit. The enemy's 5.9-inch gunfire was ragged and quite ineffective. At this time the shooting of the Ajax and Achilles appeared to be very good and a fire was seen in the Graf Spee.

The Ajax received her first direct hit at 7.25 a.m. when an 11-inch delay-action shell struck her after superstructure at an angle of ten degrees to the horizontal. It penetrated 42 feet, passing through several cabins and the trunk of ‘X’ turret, in which the machinery was wrecked, and burst in the commodore's sleeping cabin, doing considerable damage. A piece of the base of the shell struck ‘Y’ barbette

The circular steel structure, below the gun-house, enclosing the lower part of the turret.

THE ACTION had lasted exactly eighty-two minutes. In that brief period, the Achilles had fired sixty tons of 112-pound shells in more than 200 broadsides. Every one of the 1200-odd shells and cordite charges fired had been manhandled from the magazines to the hoists, from the hoists to the loading trays, and then rammed home. All four turrets reported that after firing from sixty to eighty rounds, the guns began to fail to run out immediately after their recoil, due to heating up, and had to be pushed out by the rammers. The guns remained very hot for some hours after the action. ‘The guns' crews,’ said one turret officer, ‘worked like galley slaves, loving it all, with no time to think of anything but the job. The whole of the turret from top to bottom thought the action lasted about twenty minutes. The rammer numbers were very tired towards the end, but did not appear to notice that till it was all over…. Men lost all count of time. They spoke later of “about ten minutes after opening fire” when actually more than forty minutes had elapsed….’

‘Toward the end of the action,’ reported Sergeant F. T. Saunders,

Killed in action off Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, 5 Jan 1943.

THE IRREGULAR ARC on which the Ajax and Achilles had steamed and fought had brought them by eight o'clock to a position barely twenty miles north-west of that from which they had first sighted the enemy. Shortly after nine o'clock the Ajax recovered her aircraft, which had been up for two hours 35 minutes. At 9.45 a.m. the commodore ordered the Cumberland, which had been refitting at the Falkland Islands, to proceed to the River Plate at full speed. She sailed from Port Stanley at noon and made the passage of 1000 miles in thirty-four hours. Meanwhile, the Admiralty had taken steps to meet the situation by ordering the Ark Royal, Renown, and other ships patrolling distant areas to proceed at once to the South American coast.

The Achilles, over-estimating the enemy's speed, had closed to 23,000 yards when, at 10.5 a.m., the Graf Spee altered course and fired two three-gun salvoes of 11-inch shell from her forward turret. The first fell very short, but the second dropped close alongside the Achilles, who possibly would have been hit had she not already started to turn away at full speed under smoke. She resumed shadowing at longer range. About an hour later, the Admiral Graf Spee made a clumsy and unsuccessful attempt to throw off her pursuers. Sighting the British steamer Shakespeare, she stopped her by firing a shot across her bows. According to the German account, it was intended to torpedo the ship as soon as the crew had taken to the boats, and a signal was made to the Ajax: ‘Please rescue boats of British steamer’. As, however, the crew made no attempt to leave the ship, Captain Langsdorf refrained from sinking her in view of the possible effect upon the treatment of his own ship in Montevideo. When the Ajax neared the Shakespeare, the latter reported that she was all well and needed no assistance.

The afternoon passed quietly until the Achilles sighted a strange vessel and made the signal: ‘Enemy in sight, 297 deg.’

‘What is it?’ asked Commodore Harwood.

‘Suspect 8-inch cruiser. Am confirming,’ replied the Achilles who, at a minute to four o'clock, signalled: ‘False alarm’. She had identified the stranger as the British motor-vessel Delane, whose streamlined bridge and funnel gave her, at long range, a close resemblance to a German cruiser of the Blucher class. Thereafter, the shadowing of the Graf Spee continued without incident until 7.15 p.m., when she altered course and fired two 11-inch salvoes at the Ajax, who immediately turned away under smoke. These were the first shells fired by the enemy for more than nine hours.

At about eight o'clock, being then south of Lobos Island and about fifty miles east of English Bank, the Ajax altered course to south-west to intercept the Admiral Graf Spee should she attempt to escape round that shallow bank which extends for sixteen miles across the northern side of the Plate estuary. The whole duty of shadowing the enemy now devolved upon the New Zealand cruiser which passed inside Lobos, close to the Uruguayan coast, and increased speed to creep up on the Graf Spee before dusk. The sun set at 8.48 p.m., leaving the enemy clearly silhouetted against the western sky. At five minutes to nine o'clock, the Graf Spee altered course under smoke and fired three salvoes, the third falling close astern of the Achilles, who replied with five salvoes which appeared to straddle the enemy. This brief engagement was watched from Punta del Este, the seaside resort of Montevideo, by thousands of Uruguayans, who had a ‘grand-stand’ view and mistook it for the main action. Between 9.30 and 9.45 p.m., the Graf Spee fired three more salvoes, all of which fell short. These Parthian shots were probably intended to keep the shadowing cruiser at a distance. They did not deter the Achilles who by ten o'clock had closed in to 10,000 yards. The enemy's intention to enter Montevideo being clear, Commodore Harwood called off the pursuit an hour later. The Admiral Graf Spee anchored in Montevideo harbour soon after midnight.

For the whole of the next day, the two small cruisers stood alone between the enemy and the open sea. The Ark Royal, Renown, Shropshire, Dorsetshire, Neptune, and three destroyers were all making for the River Plate, but none could arrive for at least five days. The arrival of the Cumberland during the night of 14 December restored to its narrow balance a doubtful situation. Now it was possible to patrol all three deep-water channels.

On 15 December the Ajax and Achilles refuelled from an Admiralty tanker. That afternoon, the burial of the German ship's dead took place in a cemetery outside Montevideo. The masters and fifty-four members of the crews of British ships sunk by the raider had been released by Captain Langsdorf.

The casualties in the British cruisers during the action were as follows:—

Officers Ratings killed wounded killed wounded Exeter 5 3 56 20 Ajax — 1 7 14 Achilles — 2 4 7 —— —— —— —— —— total 5 6 67 41 —— —— —— —— ——

In accordance with the custom of the Royal Navy, the cruisers buried their dead in their hammocks at sea.

From the moment she sought shelter in harbour, the Admiral Graf Spee became the focal point of a world-wide flood of radio and press publicity which completely overwhelmed the spate of Nazi propaganda and falsities that made shift to gloss over the ignominy of her defeat and flight. Behind the scenes a considerable political and diplomatic struggle was taking place. The German Ambassador had requested permission for the Graf Spee to remain in Montevideo for fourteen days. On 15 December, he was informed that the ship would be allowed a stay of seventy-two hours in which to make her seaworthy. Captain Langsdorf then informed Berlin that there was ‘no prospect of breaking out into the open sea’, and that ‘if I can fight my way through to Buenos Aires … I shall endeavour to do so’; at the same time he requested instructions ‘whether to scuttle the ship or submit to internment’. His proposal was approved, but he was told that his ship was ‘not to be interned in Uruguay’ and ‘if the ship is scuttled, ensure effective destruction’. Captain Langsdorf addressed a lengthy letter to the German Ambassador protesting against the time limit already fixed and intimating his decision to scuttle his ship.

During the afternoon of Sunday, 17 December, the Admiral Graf Spee transferred most of her crew to the German merchant ship Tacoma, Captain Langsdorf with three officers and thirty-eight men remaining on board to take her out. At 6.20 p.m. she left the harbour and proceeded slowly westward, followed by the Tacoma and watched by thousands on shore. The waiting British cruisers steamed in from sea. The Ajax flew off her aircraft which sighted the Admiral Graf Spee in shallow water, six miles south-west of Montevideo. At 8.54 p.m. the aircraft signalled: ‘Graf Spee has blown herself up’. The British squadron carried on to within four miles of the wreck, the ships' companies in the Ajax and Achilles cheering each other till they were hoarse. ‘It was now dark and she was ablaze from end to end, flames reaching almost as high as the top of her control tower, a magnificent and most cheering sight.’ That night, Captain Langsdorf shot himself. A few weeks later, the rusting wreck of the Admiral Graf Spee was purchased by a scrap-metal merchant.

In a message to the New Zealand Naval Board, Rear-Admiral Sir Henry Harwood (he had been promoted as from 13 December) said he was ‘deeply conscious of the honour and pleasure of taking one of H.M. ships of the New Zealand Squadron into action. Achilles was handled perfectly by her captain and fought magnificently by her captain, officers, and ship's company.’ He visited the Achilles on 18 December and addressed her company to that effect. After the departure of HMS Ajax for England on 5 January 1940, Rear-Admiral Harwood flew his flag in the New Zealand cruiser for three weeks. The Achilles visited Buenos Aires and Montevideo before sailing on 2 February from Port Stanley for Auckland, where she was accorded a tumultuous welcome on her arrival on 23 February. During her memorable cruise, the Achilles had steamed 52,333 miles in 168 days at sea and had spent only ten days in harbour.

WOMEN in New Zealand were not recruited, as they were in Britain, into auxiliary branches of the armed forces immediately on the outbreak of war. It was realised only slowly how great was the unexploited asset of the country's woman-power for defence and industry. Nurses indeed were recruited by the Army as soon as war began; but on the whole New Zealand women were at first left to carry on such voluntary work as they could undertake or to enter industry wherever chance offered an opening. Many women, eager to serve, regretted that more use was not being made of their talents and goodwill. If, at the beginning of the war there had been the experience and understanding of women's capabilities that existed by 1945, no doubt far more effective use would have been made of their services, to the great benefit of the whole manpower position. As it was, the first entry of women into the Services seemed to be unplanned and almost haphazard, and provided a sharp contrast to the energy used to recruit, train, and send into action the country's manhood.

In July 1940 the Women's War Service Auxiliary was formed as the result of a meeting of delegates from existing women's organisations from all over New Zealand. This body, acting through its Dominion council, with twelve elected members and four appointed by the Minister of National Service (the Hon. R. Semple), had official status. Its main function was to co-ordinate the activities of women's organisations to enable them to be used to the best advantage of New Zealand's war effort. The W.W.S.A. was intended to supplement rather than supersede the existing women's organisations which were affiliated to it, and it worked in close and harmonious collaboration with the Department of National Service. It established local committees throughout the country and carried out extensive and important work in civil defence and in various phases of the war effort.

When the New Zealand Women's Auxiliary Air Force was founded in January 1941, the first women's service to be established, the W.W.S.A. handled all applications to enter it and later controlled recruitment for the other two Services. As each of the three Services at different times complained that women were being unduly directed into one of the other Services, it may be presumed that the W.W.S.A. and later the National Service Department

In October 1942 the recruiting of women for the Services was transferred to the National Service Department, still in liaison with the W.W.S.A.

The main rivalry for the services of women was not, however, between the different branches of the armed forces but rather between their collective demands and the competing demand, increasing in insistence during 1944, for women in industry. Late in 1943 the recruitment of women was placed on a new basis. The three Services were to estimate their requirements in advance and then, on War Cabinet's approval, they could recruit the authorised number and no more. Arrangements were even made in 1944 for a few women to be discharged to industry, the needs of which were considered to be superior to those of the Services at that time. This indicated a certain wavering in the policy of employing women in the armed forces; it also denoted a confusion of thought. Since women had generally been considered to do their jobs in the Services as well as men—though on some work they could not replace an equal number of men—and to do some jobs better than men, it might have been possible to have made greater use of women at overseas bases, as was suggested, to release fit men for front-line service and men of lower medical grading for employment at home in industry in the heavier work which women admittedly could not do.

All the members of the women's branches of the three Services were volunteers. It was unfortunate that they could not go overseas in larger numbers, as this would undoubtedly have stimulated recruiting. The women who joined the auxiliaries were all eager to do more than the minimum of service, and many were disappointed that they could not serve outside New Zealand. Only a fraction of the W.A.A.F. went overseas, while in the W.A.A.C. the proportion was somewhat larger, but no Wrens served overseas.

THE FORMATION of what became the Women's Royal New Zealand Naval Service was discussed as early as May 1941, but it was not until approximately a year later that the Director (Miss R. Herrick) and her deputy (Miss F. H. Fenwick) were appointed and the work of organising the new Service began in earnest. In the meantime some men in the Navy had already been replaced by women. In the offices of the Naval Officers in Charge at Wellington, Lyttelton, and Dunedin, and in H.M.N.Z.S. Philomel, the Auckland naval establishment, civilian women employees had taken over a number of positions, particularly in the supply and secretariat branch, previously filled by naval ratings who had thus been released for active service. Many of these civilian employees afterwards joined as Wrens, on a voluntary basis, and those who did, although first entered in the rank of Wren, were given an antedated seniority which made them eligible for earlier promotion. Those civilians who did not become Wrens were moved to other branches, after Wrens had been trained to replace them, in accordance with the principle that uniformed and civilian employees should not be mingled in any branch of the naval service and administration. The general principle in operation was that the female employees in Navy Office and in such establishments as the Naval Dockyard, Auckland, remained civilians, while those women who worked in specifically naval establishments were Wrens. It should be mentioned here that some highly responsible duties were carried out in Navy Office by civilians, many of them women.

There was considerable discussion on the conditions and status of Wrens in the Royal New Zealand Navy during late 1941 and early 1942. In practice a close imitation of the British model was adopted, with the exception that in New Zealand only a few commissions were granted on entry: most officers in the W.R.N.Z.N.S. were promoted Wrens. The main question of principle involved in the preliminaries was whether women could be asked to work at night. It soon became obvious that a fighting service could not accept a limitation on the times of duty of its women members if they were to be of any real value. At first the members of the W.R.N.Z.N.S. were mostly employed near their own homes, but early in 1943 it was established that Wrens must be ‘mobile’, that is, prepared to serve anywhere in New Zealand.

At first recruitment was carried out through the W.W.S.A. and later through local manpower officers. The W.R.N.Z.N.S. was never wholly satisfied with an arrangement which prevented direct contact between applicants and the Service itself and which was for many reasons cumbersome, even though the other Services were in the same position. It was unfortunate that when in April 1945 Great Britain asked for 200 Wrens to serve at the British Pacific Fleet's Australian bases, the request could not be complied with; the strength of the W.R.N.Z.N.S. was at that time approximately 500, that is 200 below the establishment of 700, and male ratings had already replaced Wrens in some jobs simply because not enough Wrens were available.

A factor which had always made it difficult to supply the Service with all the women it required was the high standard of selection. Of the first 870 applications received up to January 1943, 350 were declined because the applicants were unsuitable, insufficiently qualified, or below the medical standard. Throughout the whole period of its wartime existence the W.R.N.Z.N.S. was below complement and eager for more recruits than were available, although the difficulty of providing living accomodation had on some occasions hampered expansion. The ‘peak’ strength of the Wrens was 519 and approximately 700 women altogether served in this branch of the Royal New Zealand Navy.

THE MOST URGENT naval requirement in mid-1942 was in the signals department. The first Wrens were trained in various types of communications work and immediately began that successful invasion of this branch which might have been predicted from the previous achievements of women in the Post and Telegraph Department. Eventually a substantial proportion of the Wrens acted as visual signallers, coders, or telegraphists at larger and smaller ports and at the Waiouru naval wireless telegraph station. Similar full use of Wrens was made in naval accounting and stores work, while women replaced men entirely as cooks and stewards in officers' quarters and in some smaller naval establishments.

The Wrens soon proved themselves in work which had not previously been undertaken in New Zealand by women. In Auckland both the city and the Navy were equally astonished and delighted by the smartly turned out Wren crew of the Commodore's barge. This launch was kept in a state of smartness worthy of the best traditions of the Service and was handled on the water with grace and assurance. One degaussing range was also taken over entirely by Wrens, including the launch which ran out to ships, and the necessary technical work was capably performed by a Wren officer. Wrens operated the D.E.M.S. (Defensively Equipped Merchant Shipping) cinema projector, and a Wren acted as instructor in the ‘dome’ where films were shown to male ratings as part of their gunnery training before they joined the gun crews of merchant ships. Other Wrens were trained to operate radar equipment and took over watch-keeping duties.

RABAUL, on the north-east tip of New Britain, was captured by the Japanese on 23 January 1942. Its harbour and port, protected from behind by jungle-covered mountains, made it an ideal naval and air base for their campaign in the south and south-west Pacific; they lost no time in fortifying it, building five airfields nearby, and installing one of the heaviest concentrations of anti-aircraft guns in the world.

From Rabaul they occupied New Guinea and the Solomons, but any plan to capture Port Moresby and New Caledonia and to attack the east coast of Australia was frustrated by the Coral Sea battle in May 1942 and the American landing at Guadalcanal three months later. Rabaul, though, was still a menace to the Allies, and its destruction as a naval and air base was one of the chief objects of their South Pacific campaign.

When the main Allied attack started in December 1943 the Japanese were estimated to have two hundred combat aircraft in New Britain and ninety in the New Ireland area, against which the Allies had 531 fighters and bombers in operational condition in the Solomons area. The Royal New Zealand Air Force had two fighter squadrons stationed at Ondonga in New Georgia— Nos. 14 and 15

See appendix for a list of the New Zealand squadrons that took part in the assault on Rabaul between 17 December 1943 and 2 June 1944.

The first major air operation from the Solomons against Rabaul took place on 17 December, when a fighter sweep of eighty aircraft—American Corsairs and Hellcats and twenty-four Kittyhawks from the two New Zealand squadrons—left Ondonga at 5.30 in the morning under Wing Commander Freeman. They flew first to the Torokina airstrip at Empress Augusta Bay to refuel, and there the time-table was interrupted by the emergency landing of two American aircraft. As a result the formation was split into two groups, the first, led by Freeman, getting away at nine o'clock, and the second, led by Quill, twenty minutes later.

The New Zealanders flew in sections of four, and at twenty minutes past ten the two sections in the lead, Freeman's and Arkwright's, crossed the coast of New Britain over Kabanga Bay, twenty miles south-east of Rabaul, at 20,000 feet. By now there were only two aircraft in the third section, one having turned home with oxygen trouble and another with a faulty generator.

As the pilots circled above the target they knew they had taken the enemy by surprise, for the anti-aircraft batteries did not open fire at once and there were no Japanese fighters in the air, though dust on the airfields showed where they had taken off. The weather, except for a layer of wispy cloud at 21,000 feet, was clear, and aircraft could be seen lined up on the runways.

After the expulsion of the Italians from Cyrenaica in February 1941, it was decided to transfer the LRDG base from Cairo to a place farther to the west. At first the neighbourhood of El Agheila was considered as a site, but as German patrols were active in that area, Kufra was recognised as a more suitable station.

By this time the LRDG had been expanded to include a Yeomanry (Y) patrol and a Southern Rhodesian (S) patrol. When G, Y, and S patrols were trained in desert work, the LRDG was divided into A and B Squadrons. A Squadron was composed originally of G and Y patrols, and B Squadron of R, S, and T patrols and the group headquarters, which included the signal, repair, and heavy transport sections.

The fort in the Kufra oasis was held by a French garrison of 250 natives, without any form of mobile defence. The outlying oases of Taiserbo and Zighen were unoccupied. Whoever held these oases, situated in the gap between the Kalansho and Ribiana Sand Seas, held Kufra against attack from the north. Consequently, R patrol was despatched from Cairo on 1 April to occupy Taiserbo.

Rommel began his offensive in northern Libya and by 7 April had occupied the whole of Cyrenaica except the fortress of Tobruk. The LRDG was ordered to reinforce Kufra as soon as possible. By the end of the month, as well as R patrol at Taiserbo, S patrol was at Zighen, and the LRDG headquarters, T patrol, and the French were at Kufra, with Colonel Bagnold in command of the Anglo-French force. The detached A Squadron (G and Y patrols, commanded by Major Mitford) was at Siwa, under the control of the Western Desert Force.

Centuries of wind erosion have lowered the surface of the desert at Kufra to a water-bearing strata. Many thousands of date palms surround the white salt marshes and two blue lakes, as salt as the Dead Sea. Fresh water for the irrigation of crops and gardens is obtained from wells. The entire region has a population of less than 6000, more than half of whom live/in the central oasis. The garrison obtained supplies of fresh vegetables and meat by encouraging the natives to cultivate gardens and to resume their trade in livestock with Chad and Tibesti.

T patrol relieved R at Taiserbo on 9 June. This oasis, 157 miles from Kufra, has only 700 inhabitants and consists of little more than a few palms scattered around brackish salt ponds. The temperature rises above 110 degrees and dust storms are frequent. In their attempts to avoid the flies, which were the worst they had ever experienced, the New Zealanders moved their camp from one site to another. At each place they obtained water by sinking a well to a depth of from five to twenty feet. The flies were not the only pest. Corporal L. H. Browne was bitten by a snake but recovered after suffering hours of agony, and Gunner C. O. Grimsey26 was stung three times by a scorpion; the man survived but the scorpion died.

Using this dead scorpion as a model, Grimsey designed the badge (a scorpion within a wheel) which became the official insignia of the LRDG.

The Sudan Defence Force was responsible for supplying the Kufra garrison. Guided by a New Zealander (Corporal Browne), the first convoy, an odd assortment of vehicles driven by inexperienced natives, left Wadi Halfa on 28 April. Some undesertworthy lorries had to be left half way and their loads taken over the last 300 miles in two lifts. Consequently, the delivery of the supplies was not completed until 13 May. By that time there was not enough petrol at Kufra to evacuate the garrison, should it have been necessary. More suitable transport was obtained from Cairo and by the end of June a satisfactory convoy system was functioning.

The LRDG ‘air force’ was created during the occupation of Kufra. Major G. L. Prendergast,27 one of the pre-war explorers of the desert and an experienced airman, joined the unit in February 1941. Realising the value of aircraft to the LRDG, he had two Waco machines adapted for long-distance flying. Prendergast flew one himself and a New Zealander (Sergeant R. F. T. Barker28) the other. These aircraft were used for reconnaissance, liaison with the patrols, for bringing in wounded men, and for flights to Cairo. When Bagnold was appointed to the staff of General Headquarters at Cairo in August, Prendergast became the commanding officer of the LRDG.

Throughout the summer of 1941, while Rommel's army stood at the Egyptian frontier, the LRDG remained in Italian Libya, without hope of assistance if attacked or surrounded. Enemy activity in the direction of Kufra, however, was confined to reconnaissance by Italian aircraft, and no attempt was made to recapture the oasis. The French troops were gradually withdrawn from Kufra and on 18 July the Sudan Defence Force relieved the LRDG of garrison duty. The patrols then returned to their former role of long-distance reconnaissance.

In anticipation of an eventual British advance into Tripolitania, the LRDG explored towards the coast to the north-west of Kufra. Information was gathered about the ‘going’ for wheeled and tracked vehicles, sites for landing grounds, and the local supplies of water. At the end of July, T patrol left Taiserbo for the desert to the south of the Gulf of Sirte. It was in this region that the New Zealand Division outflanked the enemy at El Agheila sixteen months later. One T patrol truck approached at night to within a short distance of the main coastal road, along which enemy traffic was passing. Two or three weeks later, S patrol made a similar reconnaissance farther to the east, between Gialo and Agedabia. These tasks were completed without discovery by the enemy.

R patrol relieved the detached G and Y patrols at Siwa in August 1941 and was joined by T patrol in October. Major Steele was appointed to command the independent New Zealand squadron and an Englishman (Captain J. R. Easonsmith29) assumed command of R patrol. Steele was awarded the OBE in recognition of his services while in command of A Squadron at Siwa and later at Gialo. He planned operations which included successful attacks on enemy communications and airfields, reconnaissance as far as Tripolitania, and the carrying of demolition parties, search parties, and Arab and British secret agents to various points behind the enemy lines.

To take part in the British offensive in Cyrenaica in November 1941, the LRDG was placed under the command of the newly-formed Eighth Army and the whole group was moved from Kufra to Siwa. The patrols were to watch the desert tracks to the south of Gebel Akhdar and to report on the movements of enemy reinforcements and withdrawals. In addition, T 2 patrol was to take four British officers and two Arabs to a rendezvous in the Gebel and was to collect them three weeks later. R 1 patrol was to pick up Captain A. D. Stirling30 and a party of British paratroops after they had raided enemy airfields to the west of Tobruk.

It had been planned that Stirling's paratroops should destroy aircraft on the landing grounds near Gazala and Tmimi. Everything went wrong. Because of bad weather, the RAF dropped the parachutists wide of the target, and some of them were lost or drowned in a wadi running bank-high with water after sudden, torrential rain. R 1 patrol collected Stirling and twenty men at the prearranged rendezvous and took them back to the British lines. The next time the parachutists raided enemy airfields they were carried there and back by the LRDG.

T 2 patrol, commanded by Captain A. D. N. Hunter,31 took the four officers and two Arabs to Wadi Heleighima, in the southern hills of Gebel Akhdar, to the west of Mechili. One of the officers (Captain J. Haselden) made his way northwards to the coast, where he signalled to a British submarine which landed a party of commandos under Lieutenant-Colonel G. C. T. Keyes.32 Haselden led this party to Beda Littoria, an Italian colonial village where Rommel was known to have his headquarters. The commandos planned to kill the German General on the eve of the Eighth Army's advance. Keyes and two men, Campbell and Terry, entered the house at midnight, but unfortunately Rommel was not at home. In the fight that ensued, Keyes and four Germans were killed and Campbell was wounded and captured; only Terry escaped. Keyes won a posthumous award of the VC.

After taking the four British officers and two Arabs to Wadi Heleighima, T 2 patrol was divided into three parties to watch the roads leading to Mechili. Lance-Corporal R. T. Porter33 was captured by an Italian reconnaissance patrol while on picket duty with the party watching the Mechili-Derna road. Captain Hunter, taking two trucks to the area where Porter disappeared, was attacked at close range in a wadi by about twenty Italians in two vehicles, armed with a Breda gun. One truck returned to warn the rest of the patrol, but Hunter, Corporal Kendall, and Trooper L. A. McIver34 were presumed to have been captured or killed. The patrol reported by wireless to headquarters and was ordered to withdraw to Siwa. Second-Lieutenant Croucher, with three trucks, was sent to Wadi Heleighima to complete the task. At the rendezvous he found the four British officers and two Arabs, and also Hunter, who had evaded capture. The three New Zealanders, Porter, Kendall, and McIver, were prisoners.

On 24 November, when the battle in the Tobruk-Bardia area had reached a critical stage, the role of the LRDG was suddenly changed. Eighth Army issued orders for the patrols to ‘act with utmost vigour offensively against any enemy targets or communications within your reach’. For this purpose, Y 1 and Y 2 patrols were allotted roads in the Mechili-Derna-Gazala area, S 2 and R 2 the Benghazi-Barce-Maraua road, and G 1 and G 2 the main road near Agedabia. The combined Rhodesian and New Zealand patrols (S 2 and R 2) ambushed nine vehicles and killed and wounded a number of the enemy, Y 2 captured a small fort and about twenty Italians, and Y 1 damaged fifteen vehicles in a transport park. Mechanical breakdowns prevented G 1 and G 2 from joining forces, so G 1 made two independent attacks on road traffic and shot up a few vehicles.

S 2 (under Second-Lieutenant J. R. Olivey35) and R 2 (under Second-Lieutenant L. H. Browne) drove on to the road in the evening of 29 November, cut the telephone wires, and turned eastwards towards Maraua. They laid the first ambush at a point where the road dropped through a 20-foot cutting. A vehicle approached from the east and, as it drew level, was engaged by machine-gun fire. Olivey noticed that it was marked with a red cross. Before he could stop his men from firing, however, enemy troops armed with rifles and sub-machine guns clambered over the tailboard. After about a minute of sustained shooting on both sides, several of the enemy were killed and wounded and the remainder dispersed. The patrols moved towards a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction and engaged it with machine-gun fire. The lorry stopped and a liquid, presumed to be wine, gushed from its load.

Continuing along the road, the New Zealanders and Rhodesians attacked four lorries and trailers. They put each vehicle out of action, probably killed the crew, and riddled the load with machine-gun bullets. Taking up positions at a 30-foot cutting, where they over-looked the road in both directions, they attacked two more lorries and trailers and an oil tanker. They wrecked the vehicles and killed all of the enemy except one badly wounded man. The patrols then cut the telephone wires and retired to the south, having completed the operation without casualty. Second-Lieutenant Olivey was awarded the MC, and a New Zealander (Lance-Corporal C. Waetford36) and a Rhodesian the MM.

The new zealanders who fell into the hands of the Japanese were mercifully few. From the armed forces were the survivors of warships sunk in battle in East Indies waters, airmen attached to a Royal Air Force unit in Java, the crews of planes, Air Force or Fleet Air Arm, shot down over Burma or over Japan itself. Among the Army prisoners of war were some New Zealanders serving in the Australian forces who were captured when Singapore fell, as well as others, in civil life public servants or engineers in Malaya, who were enrolled in the Malayan Defence Force. A miscellaneous group of professions supplied the New Zealand internees in Japanese hands: missionaries and teachers in China or Japan, officials in Malaya or Sarawak, engineers and technicians employed in Thailand or on the China coast.

The places of imprisonment or internment were as varied as the localities and the circumstances in which these people became captives. The conditions of internment were on the whole better than those endured by service prisoners of war. For the latter a broad policy of brutality appears to have been imposed from above. For civilian and service personnel alike the will of local commanders seems to have been the dominating factor, and some surprisingly humane conditions (surprising when set beside the general conduct of the Japanese) were offered to small groups in favoured localities. It is, however, possible to generalise and say that all, prisoners of war or internees, were badly fed by Japanese standards, atrociously by European.

The rights and obligations of prisoners of war in relation to the detaining power are defined in the Geneva Convention. A writer who examined this Convention critically has pointed out that it is a weakness, from the point of view of European troops, that the detaining power is obliged to give its prisoners only the same standard of diet as its own Base troops enjoy. As a Japanese can live on less food, on a smaller total of calories though not, of course, on a less well-balanced ‘spread’ of vitamins, than a European, the latter on a diet that satisfies the former must suffer from malnutrition. It is true that the Japanese in any case paid only lip service to the Geneva Convention; they declared their adherence to it after their entry into the war and violated its letter and its spirit in every detail in almost every prison camp. But even if their attempts to conform to the Convention had been sincere, prisoners and internees in their hands must have suffered severely. Some part of the blame for the slow starvation of their prisoners must be attributed to the differences in racial standards, though nearly everywhere it was due far more directly to a cynical disregard of every humane consideration and an active desire first to humiliate and then to destroy their victims. Prisoners of war paid with their blood and their lives for the national sense of inferiority of the divinely-descended children of Nippon.