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General Freyberg to the Minister of Defence

As you will realise, the schedule of shipping asked for in my telegram of 10 June¹ was based on the assumption that we would be relieved from our operational role by 20 June. We could in fact have been relieved by 20 June, but it is now 6 July and we are still in Trieste. Shipping arrangements have now been confirmed for the 6th and 7th Reinforcements, who are scheduled to leave Egypt about the middle to end of July as originally estimated. D-day, as in my telegram of 10 June,² for the move of the remainder of force, is not yet known. Consequently the original forecast of shipping dates will have to be revised. Further, shipping and equipment problems are clearly interdependent, and it seems likely that War Office intends to treat equipment and the move of 2nd NZEF as one problem. The War Office are awaiting official confirmation of the New Zealand Government's decision for the provision of the force against Japan³ before setting the necessary arrangements in train. We presume that they will take into account our problems of movement to the port of embarkation in Italy, and the time factor involved in any handing-in of equipment here, by giving us adequate notice of shipping arrangements.