Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next While most of the NZ Expeditionary Force sailed for the Western Front, the NZMR remained in Egypt as part of an Anzac Mounted Division. The Anzac Division was part of the British effort to defend Egypt and drive the Ottoman Empire out of Sinai, Palestine, and Syria. Highly mobile, and adaptable to ... Read more
Previous |Contents | Next Sunday 6 September. A spectacular dog fight this morning. Eight planes down today, four of ours and four German. I walked over to inspect some wreckage. The plane had been in a dive and failed to come out of it. There was hardly a piece left bigger ... Read more
Previous |Contents | Next The following is written partly in the first person by Cliff, and the rest in the third by me ~ Ian § On the 24th he was back in Egypt with 26 Battalion at Amraya (possibly Amreya, a locality outside Alexandria), a British transit camp outside Alexandria. ... Read more
Previous |Contents | Next Cliff’s next letter was dated 25 May, ten days later, and he was writing from Syria. They’d traveled by bus to Haifa, then by train to Damascus. As context it’s interesting to note that Cliff was in Damascus over 80 years ago, but little more than 20 ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next By mid-May Cliff was in Palestine. They’d travelled there by train in goods vans and cattle trucks, a stop-and-start journey and a good deal of it at night while they tried to sleep. The following is from Cliff’s letters home to Dorothy. ~ Ian § ... Read more
Previous | Contents There was sand in every direction, as far as the eye could see. He’d swap it any day for the sands of Whangaruru, and the sea, cool and refreshing. It was surprisingly windy, and he didn’t think he’d ever complain about rain again. They’d dug slit trenches ... Read more
Contents Because of his role, Signalman Baugh (as he remained throughout the war) probably had a slightly better idea of what was going on than most of the Other Ranks — but Sidi Resegh, part of Operation Crusader in Libya, and where this story begins, was not just lethal but ... Read more