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Private J. D. Caves: The Long Journey Home

Denis' Remarks about Desert Warefare

Denis' Remarks about Desert Warefare

Related by Michael Caves, Christmas 2003.

It was at the time of the Battle of Sidi Rezegh and another situation where our tanks didn't come up and German panzers came instead. Our troops took the hill and fought back the Germans. Denis and his mate had condensed milk and found some German schnapps. They mixed them together and stayed in their trench. It was a really hot day, they got drunk and fell asleep. They woke up just before dusk and looked up to see the Germans coming over the hill. They were still drunk and fled down the hill, falling all over the place, tracer bullets going over them, but the Germans didn't hit them. Denis and his mate had guns with them but couldn't aim straight to defend themselves and escaped the bullets by falling over. They hid down a fox hole. The Germans thought they were dead and left. They reached their own lines safely that night. The battalion regrouped and retook the hill the next night. But backup didn't arrive and the Germans tanks came up and took many New Zealanders POW.

Thompson (Tommy) sub machine gun similar to the type Denis would have used.

Thompson (Tommy) sub machine gun similar to the type Denis would have used.

After the battle of Sidi Rezegh only three of the original 90 men were left of B Company, so Denis had to make lots of new chums. New fellows and officers came along. Denis wouldn't take rank - he was able to get out of it. He didn't want to become a target.

In World War II a New Zealand infantry section consisted of 10 men. A corporal led the section, one man carried a Tommy gun, one a Bren gun and the other men carried Lee Enfield 303 rifles. Dennis was an accurate shooter, but didn't want to get picked to be a sniper and intentionally scored poorly in training. They were having shots one day and he was caught out, so the officers knew he had been avoiding being noticed as a sharpshooter. Denis said if your rifle worked you never open it up to let the sand in. Some jokers were always cleaning their rifles as they were trained to do, but that let the sand in and their guns jammed. Denis never had a failure with his. Later on Denis had the Tommy gun for his section of 10 men. He felt like a whole army on his own. "Sat them back on their backsides!" he said. Both the Bren and Tommy were machine guns. Dennis had a go with a Bren, but didn't like it. It was too accurate and hit the same spot several times when what you wanted with a machine gun was to spray bullets around an area. This is why you see Bren gunners in movies having to move their gun from side to side. The Tommy gun was less accurate so you could get the desired impact more easily.