– 133 –

CHAPTER 6
Sollum and Gazala

Major Dyer's detachment received a vociferous welcome at Amiriya. Notes were compared concerning the trip, the weather, and the attentions of the enemy aircraft. There was unanimous admiration for the Royal Navy.

Two days were spent in the issue of essential kit, in drawing pay and in writing letters home, after which the battalion entrained for Helwan, where trucks met and took it to its tented area at nearby Garawi. Already in camp there were a number of men who had found their way back to Egypt direct from Greece or who had been discharged from hospital and convalescent camps. Captain Werohia was in command of them.

The battalion was issued with summer kit and, after a muster parade on which Colonel Dittmer warned the Maoris that they must live up to the good name won in Greece and Crete, departed on seven days' ‘Survivors’ Leave'. The CO spoke no platitude when he said the Maoris had won a good name in Greece and Crete. Their mana had been raised very considerably indeed among all ranks of the New Zealand Division, for any lingering doubts as to their ability to stand the stress of modern war had been finally stifled. They had ‘Done well in all their doings’, and henceforth the Maori soldier was spoken of as a fighter who carried a thirsty bayonet and who was never so happy as when he was arrayed in a comprehensive assortment of enemy equipment—in addition, of course, to his own.

Cairo, where the New Zealand Forces Club had recently opened, was the main leave centre and there were many happy reunions with friends and relatives in the newly arrived 5th Reinforcements encamped at Maadi, the base camp for the Division. On Sunday, 15 June, and before the reorganisation of the battalion commenced in earnest, Padre Harawira conducted a special church parade in memory of the fallen and to offer thanks for a safe deliverance. The men sang the funeral hymn ‘Piko nei te Matenga’¹, followed, in accordance with Maori custom, with a hangi lunch. Then the Army took over again. Eleven officers and 240 men were marched in, mainly

– 134 –

from the 5th Reinforcements, but there was also a continuous movement to and from schools of instruction and a continuous shuffling of men to and from specialist platoons. The difficulty–and it persisted throughout the war—was to find enough men with even rudimentary knowledge of many of the trades necessary to the running of a modern infantry unit. Before the war the only mechanical devices with which the Maori was really at home were the hand-pieces of shearing machines and the steering wheels of motor vehicles.

The first ceremonial parade of the reorganised battalion was witnessed by the King and Queen of Greece, who were accompanied by Prince Peter, General Freyberg, several of his staff and a sprinkling of ladies. The day concluded with an entertainment for the visitors provided by two haka parties, one from C Company led by Second-Lieutenant Pine Taiapa² and the other from B Company under Corporal Nan Amohau. After the shaking-down period, training, in view of the likelihood of desert operations, consisted of compass marches by day and night, these leading up to night-approach marches and dawn attacks against an ‘enemy’ provided by the unit. As the efficiency of junior officers and senior NCOs in the use of the compass increased they plotted the courses for the exercises. Of course bayonet work, the battalion's specialty, figured largely in the syllabus. The familiar straw-filled dummies never failed to produce a spring into the step of troops who, on the other hand, could think up the most amazing excuses for missing a night march.

July followed much the same pattern, with the battalion settling down as the various schools completed their courses and the men returned to the unit. It was not all work and no play—there were picnics and sports, while the highlight of the month was a divisional swimming carnival held at Helwan on the 8th. The Maoris won more than their share of the events: the 100 yards invitation freestyle was won by Lieutenant Pene and the 50 yards open by Private Manahi,³ while the ten-men relay race for the Freyberg Cup was also won by the battalion. Minor places were filled in the 50 yards invitation, 100 yards medley, and the 50 yards backstroke. As in England, the majority of the battalion's competitors came from the Rotorua district.

– 135 –

Towards the end of the month the unit moved to Kabrit on the Bitter Lake portion of the Suez Canal and with the rest of 5 Brigade underwent three weeks' combined operations training—landing from assault landing craft, learning the use of special equipment such as scaling ladders and poles, nets for crossing wire defences, and wire-cutters. The course culminated in an exercise in which the battalion embarked on a naval transport, sailed for some hours, manned assault landing craft and made a dawn beach landing.

On 15 August, the day before the unit departed, boat races were held between the Navy and 5 Brigade. Two crews were entered by each unit and three by the Navy and the event was decided by the fastest time over a set course. The Maori ‘A’ team was first and the ‘B’ team second. A Maori concert at the naval barracks ended a very enjoyable day. In the morning the troops packed up and marched to Geneifa, where they stayed for a couple of days before moving by MT to Tahag, some 20 miles west of Ismailia. There they remained until the end of August, training steadily, while 20 per cent went on daily leave to Cairo or Port Said. On 1 September an advance party left for a new location in the Western Desert where a fortress area was to be constructed as part of the defences of the Nile valley. The battalion followed two days later by train to El Alamein, 60 miles west of Alexandria, then by MT another 20 miles south-west of that inconspicuous railway halt that was later to become a name as familiar as Waterloo. Fortress A, better known to New Zealanders as the Kaponga Box, was a ten-square-mile semi-circle of low, steep-sided ridges in an area where the navigable desert, that is where mechanical transport could move freely, was, between north and south, only 40 miles wide; the coast was one flank and the Qattara Depression the other. The depression began at the bottom of a 700-foot cliff and was the partially dried-out bed of a vanished sea, impassable for heavy vehicles and unsafe even for loaded camels.

The Maoris were engaged mainly in the formation of a ten-mile stretch of road connecting the Box with a similar defensive work at Alamein, but they also put in some time on construction and wiring. The 5th Field Company engineers who supervised the work were asked what length of road should be constructed per day, and after consulting their Field Service Pocket Books suggested that a working party of about ninety men should do up to one hundred yards. The battalion, always unorthodox in its approach to a new situation, completed 400 yards the first

– 136 –

day with on company on the job. This apparent miracle was performed by putting experienced men, regardless of rank, in charge of the various gangs while the others, including the officers, worked under the direction of the experts.

The monotony of the role of a road construction unit isolated in the desert was broken by occasional swimming parades at the beach near Alamein and a concert by the re-formed Kiwi Concert Party. A letter from Sir Apirana Ngata, the ‘Father’ of the Maori Battalion, expressing the pride of the Maori people in the manner in which the battalion had acquitted itself in Greece and Crete, and assuring it that reinforcements were rapidly coming forward, helped to keep the morale of the troops at a high level. When 5 Brigade was advised that all work on Kaponga would cease at the end of September, 28 Battalion's share of the road was practically completed.

Fifth Brigade, with 28 Battalion under command, had been detached to General Headquarters, British Troops in Egypt, while working on the Kaponga Box, but was now to return to the New Zealand Division concentrated in the Baggush Box on the coast some 80 miles to the west. The move, across the desert and with no sign of road or track, was done in two easy stages commencing on 5 October. The basis of the march formation used had been worked out by the ‘Desert Rats’ (7 Armoured Division) before the war started. ‘Desert formation’, as it was styled, was eventually accepted, with minor variations, as an effective formation for moving troops across the desert.

In the case of 5 Brigade, which with the attached Maori unit consisted of four battalions, there were two battalions forward and two in rear. Each battalion moved on a two-company front and therefore occupied a rectangle with six vehicles across the front and five or six deep. During daylight each vehicle was about 200 yards from any other and at night the trucks closed to visibility distance. The Bren carriers of each unit formed a screen across the front and down the flanks, with the anti-aircraft artillery behind the carriers. All other arms—artillery, signals, engineers, and medical units—were positioned in the gap between the front and rear battalions, while the Light Aid Detachment was in the rear to effect vehicle repairs.

With the brigade making rather heavy weather of its first move in desert formation to Maaten Baggush, this is a convenient time to bring the military situation into perspective.

– 137 –

After the fall of France the initiative in North Africa rested with Italy, for there was more need for Italian troops to watch the French in Tunisia and the British forces in Egypt were small, scattered, and ill-equipped. A week after the Maoris had moved to Doddington as part of the English Channel garrison—on 12 September 1940—General Graziani led the Italian army from Libya into Egypt. New names came into the newspapers—Sidi Barrani, Bardia, Tobruk, Benghazi.

General Wavell's answer to the Italian threat was the clearance of the Libyan province of Cyrenaica, the capture of 135,000 prisoners, and the hasty retirement of the balance of Il Duce's army into the further westward province of Tripolitania.

Other factors then intervened. On 12 February 1941, the day the Maoris sailed from Capetown, the advanced elements of a German air corps arrived in North Africa and were soon followed by German ground forces under the command of a General Rommel. British Mediterranean strategy was that fighting the enemy in North Africa was not as important as countering the German assimilation of the Balkan states with its consequent implications—an enemy advance through Turkey, Syria, and Palestine to the Suez Canal or via the Caucasus and Iraq to the same destination.

Hence the British expedition to Greece and the return to Egypt by way of Crete. In the meantime General Rommel had recaptured practically all of Cyrenaica even more spectacularly than the Italians had been chased out of it, but the fortress port of Tobruk, one of the few good harbours along that coast and an ex-Italian naval base some 80 miles west of the Egyptian border, was impeding his further advance towards the Nile valley. The Italian Supreme Command was in favour of pushing on to Cairo but Rommel felt that Tobruk must be taken first. To that end he established a line of powerful defences extending from the sea at Sollum to Sidi Omar, nearly 25 miles in the desert to the south-west. Thus covered, as he thought, from British interference, the German general was building up a sufficient striking force to assault Tobruk.

General Auchinleck, who had succeeded General Wavell, was also building up strength for a return to the attack. The plan was, shortly, to sweep around the enemy chain of frontier defences, seek out and destroy the enemy armour, relieve Tobruk, and then chase the Germans and Italians out of North Africa. While Rommel was preparing to reduce Tobruk, that hemmed-in garrison had an important part to play in the

– 138 –

Auchinleck plan—at the appropriate moment it was to break through the investing enemy and join in the general offensive.

It will thus be seen that the opposing generals had entirely different objects in view—one aimed to clean up a danger to his line of communication, the other to end the war in North Africa. In the event Auchinleck just beat Rommel to the draw.

The weapon that had been forged for the destruction of the Axis forces was the Eighth Army, composed of 30 Corps, which included most of the armour, and 13 Corps comprising 4 Indian Division, the New Zealand Division, and 1 Army Tank Brigade. The Indians were to contain the frontier fortress line from the south and east while the New Zealand Division, after a wide outflanking march, was to move northward when the armoured battle situation was favourable and complete the isolation of the frontier forts from the north-west and cut off the small supply port of Bardia. In the meantime nobody was to take any notice of or make any deductions from the trainloads of equipment passing daily through Baggush, but to carry on with training exercises in mobility.

The battalion occupied an area astride the railway in the eastern defences of the Baggush Box and put in six weeks' intensive training in mobile operations. Navigation and attacks from vehicles by day and by night, assaults on wired positions under cover of smoke screens, practice in crossing minefields and clearing lanes to permit the passage of armoured and other vehicles gave a foretaste of things to come.

The tactic of advancing through a minefield to provide covering fire on the enemy side of it while engineer units destroyed the mines and provided safe gaps for traffic was made so realistic that the troops thought they were really moving amongst live mines. Actually, they were practising on a dummy field with the genuine article not far away, but such was the confidence gained that the CO nearly had a heart attack when he saw a number of late arrivals for a recreation period take a short cut through the real field. Anti-personnel mines had not become fashionable at the time, but that particular field had been sown with old Egyptian and Italian products with springs so weak that one was exploded by an empty kerosene tin blown across the area by a heavy wind.

All sub-units of the battalion were determined to put up a good show when active operations began and every possible preparation and contrivance was made to meet situations that might arise. The contribution of the pioneer platoon was a

– 139 –

wooden telescopic ladder, some ropes with iron hooks, and some home-made scaling ladders for use in climbing steep cliffs.

There had been many changes in the unit's officers since the campaign in Crete: Major Bertrand, Captain Werohia, and Captain Weir⁴ had been posted to the New Zealand roll and were at Base waiting passage; Captain Scott was with the Composite Training Depot at Maadi, and Captain Baker was with 25 Battalion. Captain Sorensen⁵ became adjutant vice Captain Te Punga, evacuated sick, and Captain Harvey,⁶ left behind sick in England, had rejoined and commanded A Company. Major Dyer was second-in-command to Colonel Dittmer.

The battalion list of officers at 11 November 1941 was as follows:

Battalion Headquarters

• CO: Lt-Col G. Dittmer

• Adj: Capt C. Sorensen

• QM: Capt C. M. Bennett

• IO: Lt A. Awatere

• RMO: Capt M. Kronfeld

• Padre: Rev K. Harawira

Headquarters Company

• OC: Lt D. Urlich

• 2 Lt P. C. West

• 2 Lt D. O. Stewart

• 2 Lt J. C. Reedy

• 2 Lt P. Taiapa

• 2 Lt E. C. Pohio

A Company

• OC: Capt H. D. Harvey

• Lt W. Porter

• 2 Lt W. D. P. Wordley

• 2 Lt H. M. Mitchell

B Company

• OC: Capt R. Royal

• Lt F. T. Bennett

• 2 Lt A. Mitchell

• 2 Lt A. T. Rota

C Company

• OC: Capt P. Tureia

• 2 Lt T. Wirepa

• 2 Lt H. P. Rangiuia

• 2 Lt W. Awarau

D Company

• OC: Capt E. Te W. Love

• Lt F. R. Logan

• 2 Lt J. R. Ormsby

• 2 Lt J. Matehaere

Attached

• 2 Lt H. Maloney

• Lt A. Te Puni (LO HQ 5 Bde)

LOB

• Maj H. G. Dyer (2 i/c)

• Lt J. T. Gilroy (D Coy)

• Lt H. Toka (A Coy)

• 2 Lt R. Pene (B Coy)

• Lt H. Te K. Green (C Coy)

• Lt J. Tuhiwai (C Coy)

– 140 –

On the morning of 8 November bayonets were collected for sharpening and in the afternoon the troops saw New Zealand beat South Africa in a representative Rugby match. A heavy shower following a lighter one earlier in the day drenched the spectators as they marched back to their lines—a reminder that the desert winter had arrived.

Battle dress was issued the next day, and on 11 November LOB details, 62 all ranks, who were to be left behind as rein forcements, watched the unit move out on a divisional exercise that was no exercise at all. The enterprise, which had the longterm object of driving the enemy out of North Africa, was to last eighteen months, for the most part in a land where no birds sang and no grass grew—‘Country with the top scraped off’—a land of bare stones and drifting sand, of escarpments and defiles, of low ridges and shallow depressions; a roadless land where trucks were driven on a compass bearing, where armoured vehicles fought whirling battles in the dust and smoke, and infantry were pawns on a thousand-square-mile chessboard; a generals' paradise of parry and thrust where formations had no front or rear or flank and where sudden reversals of fortune could lose a battle after it had been won.

It is expedient at this stage to take a short lesson in North African geography. Mention has already been made of escarpments, which might be likened in New Zealand to papa or sandstone bluffs of varying degrees of steepness from vertical to an incline negotiable by trucks. An escarpment was almost invariably serrated with wadis like the familiar New Zealand gullies. Frequent reference will be made to depressions (deirs in Arabic) and ridges, so if the non-desert reader will visualise a depression as the bottom of a shallow lake and a ridge as a fold in the desert about as high as a two-storied city building the picture will not be inaccurate.

The tactical value of depressions and escarpments was immense and complementary. Situated on an escarpment, you had observation and some protection from tanks; while a depression offered cover from view and shelter from fire, a weapon pit that might accommodate a battalion or even a division.

Fifth Brigade moved west from Baggush towards the frontier and reached the divisional concentration area south-west of Mersa Matruh without incident on 11 November. It waited there for three days while the other formations of the Division assembled.

– 141 –

The journey was continued on the 15th when the whole Division, nearly 3000 vehicles in all, began the approach march to Libya. When the trucks were on the top of the slight rises that spread across the desert like undulations on a frozen sea, the Maoris could look over the square miles of vehicles that were just like the covered wagons of the Cowboy-and-Indian pictures they had grown up with. They would not have been surprised if a horde of whooping, yelling redskins had appeared on the horizon.

By nightfall the battalion was in the Bir el Thalata area 45 miles due west, and each unit's trucks closed in from day formation into close laager with only a yard or two between vehicles. Before first light disclosed a bomber's dream target the drivers would have their vehicles spread at 200 yards' interval again.

An easy day followed while commanders attended conferences. The border was to be reached in two night marches, if sitting in a jolting, bucking, heaving, slithering, overcrowded 3-ton lorry could be called a march; there were to be no lights or fires during darkness, minimum movement by day, and slit trenches were to be dug on arrival and filled in before departure.

The battalion's first real desert-formation night march was not an unparalleled success for, although the axis of advance was marked by green shaded lights at 3000-yard intervals, there was no moon and some vehicles lost contact and others got bogged in soft sand. To make matters worse there was a change of direction that the unit on the right failed to notice and it carried straight on. The result was a tangle with the rear of the Maori column, but it is a tribute to the Tommy drivers of 306 General Transport Company, RASC, that all the vehicles were with the battalion at the end of the move. The frontier was now only 30 miles away and the low rumble of gunfire suggested that the Indians were already in action.

Now that we are really on the way to seek battle on something like even terms with the enemy and with the very definite intention of taking utu for Greece and Crete, a few words about the shape of an infantry battalion at this period might be interesting. The four assaulting companies, the bayonet and tommy-gun men, each contained 5 officers and 119 other ranks at full strength; Headquarters Company, 8 officers and 241 other ranks, did the administration and manned the support arms—mortars, anti-aircraft LMGs,⁷ carriers, pioneers, signals, and transport. A battalion was by way of being a miniature army

– 142 –

and often became more so by the attachment of a platoon of machine guns from the Machine Gun Battalion, a troop of anti-tank guns, another troop of field guns, and occasionally a section of Bofors. Tanks and engineers were also attached from time to time according to their availability and the size of the job in hand. There was sufficient transport to move the unit weapons, reserve ammunition and supplies, but the men were lifted and put down at their destinations by lorries of Reserve Mechanical Transport Companies, sometimes Tommy but mostly Kiwi. The lorries were ‘three-tonners’ and contained (‘contained’ is the right word) up to twenty infantrymen plus gear. Sardines nicely packed in tins are lonely and dispersed by comparison.

The next night things went better and, after hours of being jolted and thrown about as the drivers did their best to dodge being stuck in soft sand or twisted suddenly to avoid a rock, the troops dug in close to the frontier wire. The wire ran far south from Sidi Omar into the inland sand sea—four lines of five-foot metal stakes closely intertwined with barbed wire. The barrier had been built by the Italians with the intention of keeping the subject Senussi Arabs from escaping into Egypt, but it was no insurmountable military obstacle.

The third night march took the Maoris through the gap in the wire that had been cut by the engineers and 15 miles into Libya. It is probable that morale was never so high as at that period. In Greece and Crete the Maoris had awaited the coming of the enemy in friendly country but now they trod hostile soil. The sand didn't look any different from the Egyptian variety but it was enemy sand, and the troops made unnecessary trips from truck to truck just for the opportunity of walking over it. From then (the 19th) until the afternoon of the 21st the battalion moved jerkily northwards as the Division deployed for the phase to follow the armoured clashes that had started three days earlier.

The Division's turn to enter the fight had come; 6 Brigade Group, as previously arranged, left to co-operate with 30 Corps to the west, 4 Brigade was to cut the Bardia-Tobruk road, and 5 Brigade to occupy the Sollum-Musaid-Capuzzo area as a wedge between the enemy positions at Halfaya Pass and Bardia, and also as a base for operations to reduce the frontier forts.

Sollum was a small seaside village at the bottom of the escarpment which, in turn, was the boundary of the higher ground upon which the Division was standing. There was an Italian

– 143 –

army barracks at the top of the winding road up the escarpment from Sollum. Capuzzo was a fort surrounded by field works; loopholed and battlemented stone walls surrounded a watch tower and guarded a customs house close by. It looked like the battered remains of something out of a P. C. Wren novel of the Foreign Legion. Musaid, about half-way between Sollum barracks and Capuzzo, was a jumble of demolished stone buildings on a slight mound and was almost surrounded by field works. The importance of Musaid lay in the fact that it gave observation over a wide area, was a good defensive position, and was also the junction of a track from Halfaya and another from further south. B Company was to know that triangle very well before long.

In accordance with 5 Brigade's orders 21 Battalion left to investigate Bir Ghirba in the rear of the Omar forts; 22 Battalion departed for Sidi Azeiz, 13 miles south-west of Bardia and the junction of the roads from Bardia and Sollum westwards; 23 Battalion surprised the fort at Capuzzo and carried on to Musaid, which was found unoccupied. It also put out of action the water supply line and telephone exchange serving the area, leaving the garrisons dependent on local wells and with very inadequate communications. The 28th Battalion remained in reserve at Bir Bu Tabel, three miles south of Sidi Azeiz; reports from the main battle area indicated that things were going well there.

The position on the afternoon of 22 November was that 4 Brigade had cut the Bardia-Tobruk road, but that Bardia was in communication with Halfaya by land along the top of the escarpment and also by sea to Sollum, thence by road along the foot of the same escarpment.

The occupation of Upper Sollum, which as already described consisted of a few scattered houses and the frontier barracks, would cut the land communications and practically isolate the Halfaya-Sidi Omar area which was the job allotted to 5 Brigade. To this end Colonel Dittmer was ordered to approach by night and attack at dawn.

The CO and his ‘O Group’ made a reconnaissance to Musaid and looked at the objective about three miles away. Two prominent features were a tower on an airstrip a mile short of the barracks and a water-tower immediately to its south. The 23rd Battalion was of the opinion that Sollum was very lightly held if, indeed, it was occupied at all. Photographs taken by the Air Force did not support this view for these disclosed many clearly

– 144 –

defined gunpits and machine-gun emplacements. They were sited along the edge of the escarpment and covered the road from Lower Sollum. These positions might, of course, not be occupied, for the stone buildings of the barracks and the surrounding locality had been hammered periodically from sea, air, and land since the opening of hostilities in June 1940.

The barracks were seen to be situated on a small plateau near the top of the escarpment, and it was decided to attack from the left flank and occupy the higher ground overlooking the objective. Support arms for the operation were B Squadron 8 Royal Tanks, 27 Battery 5 Field Regiment plus a troop of 32 Anti-Tank Battery, a platoon of 27 (MG) Battalion, and a detachment of engineers from 7 Field Company. A detachment of 5 Field Ambulance was also assigned to the battalion.

Colonel Dittmer held a conference of company commanders and attached units that evening and laid the plan of attack. C Company, right, and D Company, left, each supported by a platoon from A and B Companies respectively, were to occupy the barracks and exploit to the cliffs overlooking the beach. B Company, less one platoon, was to extend the line in rear of D Company and clean up machine-gun posts and gun emplacements shown on aerial photographs, with the cliffs as the final objective. A Company, less one platoon, was held in reserve, and after the attack was to take up defensive positions southeast of the barracks. The attached artillery was to be prepared to produce covering fire at first light while the MMG and mortar platoons were to move forward at the same time. The tanks were to be at the barracks as soon after first light as possible; B Echelon was to establish itself at Capuzzo. The Maoris left Bir Bu Tabel an hour before midnight, debussed at Musaid, and marched about a mile to the start line.

It was very different from the last approach march towards the Maleme airfield on Crete: there were no landmarks, no road to follow, no grape-vines to get entangled in, no other battalion to wait for, and no powerful and determined enemy at the destination—only some low scrub and sandy patches alternating with rocky ground. Platoon commanders' eyes were glued to compasses when the battalion moved off at 3.30 a.m. on the required bearing to bring it above the barracks before dawn.

C Company was near the objective when two rifle shots wakened somebody, and within a matter of minutes coloured

– 145 –

tracer bullets were cutting haphazard lines through the darkness. Soon afterwards the crash of mortar bombs added to the clamour and the attack developed into a series of skirmishes.

The opposition was short-lived and all objectives were taken without much trouble. B Company found that sundry gun emplacements shown on the aerial photographs were unoccupied but ran into a machine-gun post on the edge of the escarpment which caused some casualties. Sergeant Martin McRae, Corporal Tommy Duncan, and three others rushed the post and killed two of the gun crew, whereupon the others, faced with the prospect of being impaled or surrendering, chose a third course and jumped over the cliff to safety or a broken neck.

B Company was consolidating when troops were seen advancing upon its rear, but before any harm was done they were identified as the two platoons of the reserve A Company with oddments of Headquarters Company. Captain Harvey had been wounded en route so Captain Royal disposed the men in rear of his own company.

D and C Companies extended the line along the escarpment, effectively isolating the barracks from Lower Sollum, and the tanks completed the operation by moving into the barrack square. Spasmodic mortar fire was coming up from Sollum and one tank was temporarily immobilised either by a lucky shot or a mine, but the tanks' presence was sufficient to discourage any prolonged resistance.

Colonel Dittmer was wounded about this time, and until Captain Love handed over D Company to Lieutenant Logan and went to Battalion Headquarters to take command, the Maori Battalion had another pakeha commanding officer. The war diary of 8 Royal Tanks explains the situation:

0600 hrs. ‘B’ Sqn entered solum with Maori Bn. Some resistance but managed to occupy barracks. Commanding Officer of Maori Bn. injured and Major sutton⁸ temporarily took command. 200 prisoners—many German. One tank knocked out in solum Barracks.

A reinforced company of Germans held Lower Sollum, and though in all probability they had only the haziest notion of what was going on above them they covered the escarpment with fire. Captain Tureia, fulfilling the instructions to exploit forward, directed his company to follow when he signalled and

– 146 –

went down the escarpment to make a reconnaissance. He was killed before he had gone far, but the fire was too severe to bring him in until some time later.

The number of prisoners mentioned in the 8 Royal Tanks squadron's diary was increased by another fifty marched in by Captain Sorensen and Private Jack Hemi. The Adjutant was inspecting the forward positions when a Maori was sniped nearby. Corporal Governor Matthews (MM for gallantry in Greece and Crete) was trying to place the sniper when he, too, was killed, but Jack Hemi had located him. Hemi was carrying a thermos anti-tank grenade and threw it down the escarpment; whether or not the sniper was obliterated is not certain, but about fifty enemy troops emerged from a cave and surrendered.

With the exception of a few Germans the prisoners were not a very warlike lot. They were line-of-communication troops from 4 Italian Labour Unit, or, to give them their full title, members of 4 Battaglione raggruppamento lavvoratori della Libia, and faced the prospect of life behind the wire of a prisoner-of-war cage with admirable aplomb. Revolvers, cameras, and binoculars speedily changed hands; the Maoris, who never let the chance of extra kai pass, loaded themselves with tins of various kinds of rations; several motor cycles with side-cars were appropriated by the despatch riders and the stretcher-bearers also equipped themselves with these amenities for the quicker removal of casualties to the RAP that Captain Kronfeld⁹ had set up near the aerodrome tower.

Casualties in the actual assault had been inconsiderable, but with the daylight OPs at Halfaya could see the troops digging in on the flinty desert and four long-range guns were turned on the area. At the end of the day the battalion losses were 18 killed and 33 wounded, which included two company commanders and the CO.

The position as Brigade Headquarters viewed it was serious, for with Captain Love acting CO, Captain Royal was the only company commander with any long experience in that capacity. Brigade Headquarters would have been even more perturbed had it known that Captain Love was fighting off an attack of arthritis and would not accept the MO's advice that he should be evacuated. At that stage the battalion command was:

– 147 –

• Acting CO: Captain Love

• Adjutant and acting QM: Captain Sorensen

• OC HQ Company: Lieutenant Urlich

• Acting OC A Company: Lieutenant Porter

• OC B Company: Captain Royal

• Acting OC C Company: Captain C. M. Bennett

• Acting OC D Company: Lieutenant Logan

Concern at the state of the command was confined to Brigade Headquarters, however, for the acting leaders were confident that they could handle any situation that might arise, and as for the rank and file the kai was adequate. Among the booty taken at Sollum was an army pay-truck and very soon the desert was strewn with Italian lire notes of all denominations. At first they were used for short sessions of poker, mostly in Headquarters Company, and players rose untroubled after winning or losing some hundred thousands of lire. When they tired of the novelty of being useless paper millionaires the currency was used as cigarette lighters and for toilet-paper. But the state of mind of the survivors of the campaign, who later discovered that Italian lire were exchangeable in Cairo, is better left to the imagination.

Brigadier Hargest placed Lieutenant-Colonel Leckie (23 Battalion) in command of the garrison of Capuzzo-Musaid-Sollum with orders to co-ordinate the defences of the area, not to allow the enemy to concentrate for an attack, and to watch the Halfaya flank in case the enemy attempted a breakthrough to Bardia. In pursuance of these instructions Colonel Leckie came over to Sollum and Captain Love showed him over the battalion dispositions. The long-range guns at Halfaya were still searching the area, and it was agreed to disperse the majority of 28 Battalion's transport at Capuzzo in 23 Battalion area where the danger of getting shot up was not so great.

Further west, the main battle, fought over many square miles of empty desert, was not only going against us but was in fair way to being lost. General Freyberg was instructed to leave only the minimum number of troops to contain Bardia and to move the rest with all speed to the decisive area at Sidi Rezegh. The 21st Battalion was accordingly withdrawn from Bir Ghirba, where it had been involved in a bigger operation than was intended, left 5 Brigade, and moved west into the Sidi Rezegh battle; 20 Battalion was relieved at Bir Zemla by 22 Battalion and also moved westward; 23 Battalion, based on Capuzzo, continued to watch the Bardia perimeter from the south while the

– 148 –

Maoris continued to act as a wedge between Bardia and Halfaya; 5 Brigade (less 21 Battalion), now under command of 4 Indian Division, moved its headquarters to Sidi Azeiz until the Indians could take over and thus permit the New Zealand Division to operate at full strength in the battle to relieve Tobruk.

Brigadier Hargest's instructions to his brigade were to be vigilant and aggressive for the next few days without becoming involved in heavy fighting.

– 149 –

Fulfilling the directive, a patrol of two NCOs, McRae and Duncan, from B Company went down the road to Sollum and disturbed enemy posts with grenades. The following night a two-platoon patrol led by Lieutenant F. T. Bennett visited the same locality. The enemy was on the alert and called down fire from Halfaya with a red Very light. McRae, who was again in the party, remembered that the garrison had used red flares for artillery support and green to stop it, and he smartly put up a green flare. The enemy started the artillery again with a red and McRae countered with a green. The third time the guns opened to the call of the red flare they declined to stop for McRae's green so the patrol withdrew.

A page from Lieutenant Wordley's¹⁰ diary describes the activities in A Company area in particular and the Sollum position in general:

Monday 24th Nov. 1941.

Nothing eventful during night. 0600 stood down from night areas to our day areas in stone houses for cover from sight & fire. Walls can withstand the shells. Quite a few of the houses have raid-shelters built in too. Vickers gunners keeping Jerry quiet down below. Jerry made a determined attempt to wipe one post out—he had arty. mortar & m.g.s. and also a field gun firing point blank at suspected position. Found a ‘Spandau’ m.g. out on hill—working O.K. We have lot of Hun ammo. a.p.'s & explosive too. So will probably give him a taste of some of his own medicine. We have a 2'' M. & A/T. rifle too. Jerry sends his shells in spasms but no one takes much notice. Am getting the boys to have as much rest as possible. We have a very large front to cover also a road…. Report of 40 enemy tanks in S. of Halfaya Pass with motorised infantry. We're waiting! Air Force is supposed to do some straffing but no sign of them—still they are doubtlessly being kept very busy…. All boys have souvenirs but I can't see how they are going to be carried….

During the day D Company noticed movement in the lower part of the barrack buildings and on investigation captured three Italians and four Germans whose firearms included one of our Bren guns. A rumour had circulated that dumdum bullets had been used the night before, and this crew was given the discredit of using them. They were all in grave danger of being shot on the spot, and one German who possibly read

– 150 –

something unpleasant on the faces of his captors tried to run away. He was immediately shot and the mercurial Maoris sent the rest back to Battalion Headquarters.

A couple of nights later the dual nature of Maori personality was demonstrated by their treatment of two more prisoners. No. 18 Platoon, sleeping in caves below the escarpment, was wakened by the rattle of a tommy gun and there was a rush to stand to. The sentry pointed out something in the dim moonlight that was swimming towards the beach and later two figures emerged from the water, stark naked and shivering. They were Germans and where they came from no one knew, but being helpless they were put to bed with their captors. In the morning they were clothed, offered cigarettes and breakfast, and made thoroughly at home before being sent back to Battalion Headquarters.

The next day (the 25th) was of much the same pattern in the Maori area, but 23 Battalion had a busy time preparing for thirty tanks reported to be moving in its direction from the south. They were, however, turned back by the Indians with the loss of seven, according to a later report.

How it came about that enemy tanks were in the rear of 5 Brigade, which itself was in the rear of the enemy frontier defences, requires explanation. General Rommel, after his near victory on the 23rd, when his adversary was defeated but not destroyed, conceived the idea of leaving some of his infantry beseiging Tobruk while he took 21 Panzer and 15 Panzer Divisions and Ariete Armoured Division to re-establish the situation on the frontier. When he got there he further planned to annihilate the New Zealand Division and 4 Indian Division. He certainly disrupted the supply system by cutting across the lines of communication, but neither of his intended victims was where he thought it was. He came off second best when he did locate part of 4 Indian Division and at the same time turned north to wipe out the New Zealand Division, which he thought was north-west of the frontier forts but which was actually forcing its way along the Sidi Rezegh ridge towards Tobruk.

Headquarters 5 Brigade knew as little about the enemy dispositions and intentions as Rommel knew of the location of the New Zealand Division, but Colonel Leckie prepared for a possible attack by requesting Captain Love to send a company to Musaid to strengthen the centre of his position and ensure liaison between the two units.

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– –

– 151 –

B Company was given the job and a section of carriers for reconnaissance purposes. A check on arms and ammunition disclosed that the company fire power had increased by approximately 200 per cent, for in addition to its normal weapons the company had raided the enemy arms depot at the barracks to some purpose. The return showed six spandaus, three anti-tank rifles, one 2-inch mortar, six tommy guns, and fifty stick grenades from this source. The Arawas, still in high spirits after the easy capture of the barracks, were prepared to tackle any number of the enemy. Captain Royal was not so optimistic until he was assured of the support of all field, anti-tank, and light anti-aircraft guns in the vicinity.

Fort Musaid was found to be just a heap of stones. It had been a fort once but had been completely demolished with the exception of portions of some walls. The main road from Sollum to Capuzzo ran through the area and four other rough tracks also converged and met there.

The company was disposed for all-round defence, with all roads left unobstructed, and spent the night digging narrow, two-men weapon pits. The spoil was carried some distance away and used to form parapets around non-existent trenches.

The dispositions at first light on 26 November were: 28 Battalion, less B Company, at Sollum barracks, three miles east of Musaid; 23 Battalion, less B Company, at Capuzzo, three miles west of Musaid; B Company 23 Battalion had two platoons at the Customhouse, a mile and a half west of Musaid, and the third platoon at Musaid; and B Company 28 Battalion was sitting on the junction of all roads meeting at Musaid. The attached artillery was disposed between Musaid and Capuzzo and the MMG platoon was north of Capuzzo.

The battalion put the finishing touches to its defences, both real and dummy, during the day, while the area was kept under shellfire ranging from desultory to heavy. About four o'clock in the afternoon the section of carriers which had been on a reconnaissance to the south came streaking back at high speed. Their report was: ‘They're coming in bloody thousands.’

They certainly were. Ravenstein Group (Part of 21 Panzer Division), through what Africa Korps' diary states were ‘wrong orders or a misunderstanding’, was coming up from Halfaya with the intention of attacking towards Capuzzo and breaking through to Bardia.

Simultaneously with its arrival an extremely heavy artillery concentration was laid on Sollum, later switching to Musaid. It

– 152 –

was, in effect, a barrage, the first the Maoris had experienced, but the deep, narrow weapon pits were adequate cover and there were no casualties.

When the shelling stopped there was a convoy advancing on a front of 500 yards and about 1000 yards distant, with a solitary directing vehicle almost inside the position. Orders were given in Maori to keep down and allow the vehicle free passage. It came on unsuspiciously until one of the reserve sections shot it up and the secret was out. Infantry were debussed at three points in the column and advanced to clean up whatever was hiding in the ruins of Musaid. B Company, still under strict orders to remain hidden, held its fire until permission was given.

No progress could be made against the Maori collection of automatics though several determined efforts to close in were attempted. Towards dusk the column split in two, lapped around each side of Musaid, clashing in so doing with the remainder of B Company 23 Battalion, and carried on towards Bardia. Captain Royal wrote:

A message was passed back that what sounded like tanks were approaching—and they were. Five staff cars heading the tanks came blissfully into our position and one was heading straight for Coy Hq. Cpl McRae personally disposed of it and started the second show. The tanks were right in our position with guns ablaze. The dummy trenches were flattened out but the boys were quite safe in their narrow slit trenches and were having a lot of fun with A/T rifles and grenades and anything they could throw. A gun was brought up on a six wheeled track vehicle and made a lot of noise when fired. The boys shot off the steering wheel and immobilized the vehicle. A light tank was set alight by a sticky bomb and evacuated—the occupants were shot up. A captured South African armoured car was shot up by an A/T rifle and recaptured.

At this stage reinforcements arrived from B Coy 23 Bn—1 pl with Capt Romans¹¹—and they joined in too. The fight stopped as quickly as it started—after about an hour though—when the enemy got organised and passed in the wake of the first convoy. The final act was to cut off one of the field pieces, a 75 mm gun, manœuvred in by the captured light tank manned by a Maori crew and driven by Pte H. Manahi.

– 153 –

The six wheel track vehicle with the steering wheel shot off was freely used on salvage and patrol and was steered with a pair of pliers. The gun had been recovered by the Huns. Of course we would have fared differently if the tanks had got up in daylight for then they would have stood off and blasted our section posts one by one.

The enemy got his wounded away but the B Companies of 23 and 28 Battalions had accounted for 76 dead and had taken 9 prisoners. The cost to the Maoris was 3 killed, 4 wounded, and 2 missing. Over at Battalion Headquarters B Company had been written off as killed, wounded, or captured.

Now let us take a look at the action at Musaid from 21 Panzer Division's point of view:

26 Nov 41

In the afternoon the division was ordered to push through to Bardia. It moved to the attack in its transport at 1700 hrs, just as dusk was falling, covered by a preliminary artillery bombardment including the artillery on the Halfaya front. The enemy, who had taken up positions in the little hamlet of Musaid halfway between Capuzzo and Sollum, was defeated after a short engagement, and the way was thus cleared. The main body of the division followed on. In the Musaid area, however, the division's marching columns were attacked by infantry of 4 Ind Div, with hand grenades and A Tk guns. The division suffered some casualties….

The 15th Panzer Division had already reached Bardia by a more westerly route and was filling up with oil, petrol, and ammunition before getting back to the main battle area, where the New Zealand Division's operations outside Tobruk had assumed menacing proportions. Capuzzo-Sollum was the only serious intrusion into the enemy defences in that area, so while, presumably, 21 Panzer Division refuelled, 115 Infantry Regiment (two infantry battalions) from 15 Panzer Division was sent to capture Capuzzo, still held by 23 Battalion.

This attack against A Company of 23 Battalion, made about the same time as the one against Musaid, was pushed on determinedly and was as stoutly opposed—the battle report of 115 Infantry Regiment speaks of bitter fighting with bayonets and hand grenades. The German commander, however, felt that he was on the point of success when he received a wireless message: ‘Break off contact immediately and return to your start point.’

Truly the old-time Maori god of war, Tu of the Red Eyes, was watching over his warriors and their pakeha neighbours

– 154 –

that night, for had even a substantial portion of the strength available been sent against them they could not have escaped destruction.

During the rest of the night 28 Battalion stood-to while Ravenstein Group streamed past, B Company searched for souvenirs over its own private battlefield, 23 Battalion reorganised after its stiff fight, 22 Battalion on an escarpment near Bardia escaped attention, and Rommel prepared to get back to the Tobruk front as fast as possible.

The next day (the 27th) Rommel began the return from Bardia to Tobruk, fell upon 5 Brigade Headquarters at Sidi Azeiz, and, after a one-sided action, captured it. Still hankering after the destruction of 23 Battalion, he sent, inexplicably enough, a force only about half the size of the previous one to reduce Capuzzo.

The commander of 33 Panzer Engineer Battalion was ordered, after he had become heavily engaged, to withdraw if Capuzzo could not be captured by 3 p.m. It says something for the German engineers that, although they did not succeed, they were close enough to success to disobey orders and carry on the action until nightfall. During this hard-fought engagement the Maori B Echelon, attached engineers, and some 23 Battalion men were captured.

They were not easily taken. Lieutenant Pohio¹² had gathered his drivers and taken up a position facing south. Their armament consisted of one Bren, one Boys rifle, and about twenty rounds per man when they were attacked by three light tanks and a troop-carrier. Two anti-tank guns nearby each accounted for a tank before they were themselves knocked out, but the other came on. With their ammunit