History of New Zealand at war

Anyone who is interested in the history of the new Zealand Divisions in WW1 and WW2 cheak out the site www.nzetc.org it has the official histories available and they make for some great reading.

The WW2 history was put together by major general Howard Kippenberger who ended up commanding the New Zealand Division before losing his feet at Cassino.

The books are not suger coated and bias they are well written and offer a wealth of info for anyone interested.

The official History of the Battle for Crete is a great read as are the Battalion histories for the battle as well as the Petrol company who fought in Prision Valley defending galatas against 3rd para regiment.

Also the battalion histories of the cassino battle make for grim reading.

 

Thanks for the heads up, the contribution of the Kiwi's in the war is sadly very underappreicated

 

Yeah i find it pretty dissapointing i,m proud of our people my grandfather was with the division in 22nd Battalion through Greece and Crete and back to the desert till January 1943.

We were considered an elite division by the Germans they held us in high regard and thats pretty good going for a division that in 1939 early 1940 wa standing on the parade ground with broom handles because we didn,t have enough rifles.

 

Did you mentioned in another thread it was a 10 battalion division? Is there any details as to why? Where did the 2nd serve after the desert? I'm guessing Italy/

 

God Bless the Kiwis. Just returned from a visit to that beautiful country, and I had a ball! My wife to be is a maori, and we are expecting our first child in about five months.

New Zealand had the highest loss rate of any participating country in The war of 14-18. Their courage and tenacity are legendary, and the native Maori are some of the proudest people on Earth.

Manaakiia mai Aotearoa (God Defend New Zealand)!!!!

Ka kite a tona wa!

 

VB, congrats on the child, you must be very proud and excited. NZ should be very proud of their military heritage, didn't Rommel say something about a battalion of Maroi soldiers being his toughest opponents?

 

The division started the war as a standard infantry division set up

three brigades of infantry 4th,5th,6th brigades each of three infantry battalions plus we had the Maori Battalion as an additional battalion to make ten and the Maori operated for 95% of the war with 5th brigade.

We also had a Machine gun battalion that operated Vickers guns.

We had this set up through Greece,Crete and the desert war but in the desert war we suffered badly from no tank support the British doctrine in the desert saw the tanks as seperate from the infantry they fought seperate battles and several times we were over run by tanks and had to withdraw after our infantry had taken there objectives because of this it happened in operation crusader and in July 1942 at Ruweisat Ridge and El Mreir.

4th Brigade was decimated at Ruweisat 19th and 20th battalions losing hundreds and the 22nd battalion of fifth brigade was decimated also put three companies total 300 men onto Ruweisat and losing 275 and 23rd battalion had there headquartes over run.

The only good thing to come out of it was Keith Elliot from 22nd won a VC and Charles Upham won his second VC but was also captured and lost to us for the rest of the war.

The casulty toll was 1300 killed wounded or pow in 24hrs.

A week later at El Mreir 6th brigade 24th,25th,26 battalions took there objectives and the tank support we were expecting again didn,t arrive german tanks did instead and agin the battalions were over run losing another 900 killed,wounded or POW 2300 men in the space of a week both times our infantry did there jobs and both times they were let down by the armour so the decision was made to convert 4th brigade to an armoured brigade.

So from July 1942 we fough the rest of the desert war with 5th and 6th brigades plus the maori 7 battalions in all.

We fought through to the end of the desert campaign in Tunisia but didn,t fight in Sicily the troops rested then went to Italy were we had our new set up which proved no good in Italy.

The set up was two brigades of infantry the 5th and 6th

5th brigade 21st,23rd,28th maori battalion
6th brigade 24th,25th,26th battalions

4th armoured brigade made up of 18th,19th,20th armoured regiments plus they had 22nd battalion formerly of fifth brigade that had been converted to a motorised battalion with a reduced number of rifle men to operate with the tanks providing infantry support.

The set up proved no good in Italy we were a very powerful division and fully motorised no one walked but the problem was in Italy the Roads were narrow there was stuff all room for thousands of vehicles and you couldn,t go off road because in winter the ground was to soft and vehicles would bog down there was also the threat of mines so our motorisation was as much a hinderance as a help in Italy and the real problem lay in that in Italy the kingpin was the infantryman and the Engineer unlike in the desert where the tank was king.

We only had two bridgades of Infantry made up of 6 battalions in total so you can,t afford as many casulties as a three brigade division and you also have the problem that you can,t launch two brigade attacks with one held in reserve giving you the chance to rest your troops rotating them in and out of battle if you want to launch two brigade attacks you have to keep attack with the same troops over and over again and there is a limit to how many times you can do that.

The set up was fixed and ready to go for operation Buckland in Early 1945 crossing the Senio river.

Because the germans couldn, threaten us from the air and there tank power had been reduced we were able to make up a third brigade of infantry from other troops the 22nd battalion motorised was converted back to an infantry battalion and the Divisional cavalry with there stag hound armoured cars plus 27th machine gun battalion and also some anti aircraft and anti tank units were converted to infantry.

So the end result was a division of three infantry brigades each with 3 battalions plus an armoured brigade of 150 tanks which made for a lot of power.

 

Rommel made this comment after the Minqar Qaim breakout Quote"unfortunately the new Zealanders under freyberg had escaped.This division which we had already become acquainted back in 1941-42 was amoung the elite of the british army,and i should have been very much happier if it had been safely tucked away in our prision camps instead of still facing us.

 

In WW1 we suffered something like 55,000 casulites from a country of 1.1 million it was a heavy price for a country of our size.

 

Not North Africa, but since we are covering New Zealand Army books, I feel this is a good place to slip in a VERY new book coming out this November 2010.
"ORSOGNA: New Zealand's First Italian Battle" by Jeff Plowman of New Zealand.
Published by Willsonscott Publishing of Christchurch. (168 pages)

 

Having the pleasure to of lived and worked in the land of the long white cloud I know that the folks there are some of the very best in the whole world. The landscape ain't too shabby either.

KTK

 

Thanks for the heads up there was tough fighting at Orsogna i,m going to buy the book.

 

Great to hear you enjoyed your time in our country Ken.

 

my grandfather was an RSM in the 23rd fighting in egypt.
he was WIA sometime round november 1942.
im really interested to find out more about his stories but he passed away several years ago and rarely spoke of his time in the war to the family.
ive read alot off the archives site mentioned above but couldnt find alot.
i did however find a photo (sergeants mess) and a small phrase quoting my grandads nickname when he was wounded and replaced.
im waiting for the NZDF to send me his service records in the mail and am also going to get some old letters from my father to research.
if anyone has any helpful links thatd be super

also where do i look for journals (translated) written by krauts of when they were fighting against us?