Farewell Campo 12 [antikvár]

ghapter iTanks before BreakfastTHE darkness of the early morning was shattered by the crash of an eighteen-pounder gun. The whole camp sprang into action. The klaxon horn sounded, men slid into their battle positions; shot after shot was fired by the gun. Then, as we waited for the assault of the enemy which we thought must surely be upon us, an un-mistakably Cockney voice came across: "Stop shooting, you silly bastards, we're British." And so they were. A column of German transport driving British trucks full of British prisoners had stumbled on us in the darkness and the role of captor and captive had been rapidly reversed. At the sound of the first gun the prisoners in the trucks disarmed their German guards whom they were now bringing in.So opened the little drama of Sidi Aziz, which was to develop in intensity ali that day, to end a little more than twenty-four hours later in General Rommel's attack with his Afrika Corps. By sheer weight of metili he was to reduce our camp into a blazing ruin and overwhelm us with his tanks.It was just a year and nine months since a New Zealand Expeditionary Force had landed in Egypt for the second time in twenty-six years. When we were within three days' voyage of Ceylon the second of the three echelons that left New Zealand in 1940 was diverted to England. I was in command. For six months we saw and experienced the batde of Britain; then we rejoined the Division in Egypt, where I took over my own Infantry Brigade, the Fifth, which included the Maori Battalion. Since then we had weathered the ill-fated campaigns in Greece and