E V Hayward personal diary 1942-minqar qaim..all guns blazing!!

War time diary of Edward Vere Hayward 1942

Minqar Qaim has become synonymous with the NZ Division's finest retreating assault, with no effective option but fight their way out. After withstanding 5 massive panzer assaults with a constant artillery duel in motion and taking much momentum from Rommels mobile armour our 5th Brigade had several successes repelling probing attacks from German and Italian follow-up attacks. But our major blow was now going to be from our own allied high command, the ordered withdrawal of our assigned mobile armoured tank protection 60 miles back to Alamein. For some communication was misunderstood or simply not given but the NZ Division did not recieve the same order and remained abandoned, unprotected by its assigned tank division,out of artillery ammunition and therefore highly vulnerable. We had no options..the rest is one of our proudest wartime episodes..

Rommel in his daily logs wrote of the NZ division..

"A wild melee ensued..the firing between my forces an New Zealanders grew to an extraordinary pitch of violence..One can scarcely concieve the confusion which reigned that night. It was pitch black and impossible to see one's hand. The New Zealanders bombed (grenade) their own troops with tracer flying in all directions, German units fired on one another...Unfortunately the New Zealanders under Freyberg had escaped. This division, with which i had already become acquainted in 1941-42 was among the elite of the British Army, and i should have been much happier if it had been safely tucked away in our prison camps instead of still facing us.

Reference:

Hayward Family Rotorua,Denis Clough archive

Submitter:
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