War book revives NZ atrocities debate

General Freyberg

Controversy surrounding New Zealand soldiers' involvement in World War II atrocities has been reignited with the launch of a book by an English military historian.

In his new book, Armageddon: the Battle for Germany 1944-45, former editor of London's Daily Telegraph, Sir Max Hastings, says New Zealand soldiers "massacred" German medical staff and wounded men in North Africa in June 1942.

New Zealand is noted in the book's introduction in which Sir Max writes about war crimes, and shares the view of German historians that allied forces should more honestly confront their own lapses.

"For instance, more than a few Germans were hanged in 1945 for killing prisoners. Such behaviour was not uncommon among Allied personnel, yet it seldom, if ever, provoked disciplinary action.

"New Zealanders massacred medical staff and wounded men at a German aid station in North Africa in June 1942. No one was ever called to account, though the episode is well documented."

The claim first surfaced in a review of volume six of the weighty academic tomes that are Germany's semi-official history of World War II.

In 2001, Sir Max, in reviewing the book, remarked on the authors' "almost bloodless absence of national sentiment", except when they wrote about "an episode in North Africa in June 1942 in which New Zealanders overran a German position and medical station, bayoneting to death every one of its 80 occupants, including doctors and wounded".

The episode refers to the breakout in Africa when the New Zealand division's 4th and 5th brigades were flung into the defences at Minqar Qaim as the British 8th Army retreated from Libya into Egypt.

John McLeod wrote about it in his 1986 book, Myth and Reality - the New Zealand Soldier in World War II.

McLeod described it "as an example of the willingness of New Zealanders to kill", as they faced capture or death by the German Army.

New Zealand commander General Freyberg had been wounded, leaving Brigadier L. M. Inglis in charge. He decided to break through the enemy lines in an attack involving the 19th Battalion, the Maori Battalion and the 20th Battalion, in which double Victoria Cross recipient Charles Upham participated.

McLeod describes how the German defensive position became a blazing inferno, grenades being thrown into trucks with sleepy, dazed soldiers still inside and Germans being shot and bayoneted before they could climb from their trenches.

It turned out an advanced dressing station had been overrun. But as McLeod points out, dressing stations were in the trenches and were not marked with red crosses like Army hospitals.

He writes: "It was of little consequence whether the enemy were resisting, surrendering or fleeing. One member of 19 Battalion saw two Germans shot while attempting to surrender. Another saw wounded Germans picked up and tossed into burning trucks."

A New Zealand official historian records in The Battle for Egypt that two battalions, "using bayonets, rifles, tommy guns, Brens fired from the hip and the newly-issued bakelite grenade ... penetrated into the centre of the close-packed laager".

New Zealand casualties were relatively light but about 200 New Zealand wounded and stragglers were rounded up by the Germans on June 28 "and roughly treated".

"They were forced to spend the long, burning day without cover, food or water."

Auckland Returned Services Association vice-president Matt McMillan said he was disappointed the battle of Minqar Qaim controversy had been revisited.

"They [New Zealand divisions] were desperate to get out. In the heat of the battle things happen - if you are cornered, you have to do all you can to get out."