INTERVIEWED AT RANFURLY VETERANS’ HOME
MARCH 26 2010
 
I wanted to see the world” says Jack Middleton. So on 9 September 1939, just five days after war was declared, he signed up to the army. Following four months of marching practice in Papakura, Jack was shipped off to Maadi, Egypt. Later, he would find himself in the battles of El Alamein, on the coast of North Africa. At El Alamein the allied forces, including the New Zealand Divisions, were surrounded by the German tanks of Field Marshall Rommel.
The New Zealand Divisions suffered heavy casualties in these battles, with several thousand more men taken prisoner. However, they managed to halt Germany’s advance into Egypt. Jack recalls being given a bottle of rum during his time on the Alamein Line. “I’d share it out with the boys to help steady our nerves for the night attacks.” One morning, following a raid on Rommel’s tanks, Jack came across a New Zealand soldier unconscious in a ditch. He threw him over his over his shoulder and carried him a kilometre to safety. “I never saw him again after that,” says Jack. “I’ve always wondered what happened to him.”
Following the battle Jack was Mentioned in Dispatches, recognising his gallantry. Typically modest, Jack simply says he had a job to do. “So that’s what we did.”
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