WO II J. C. Farnham, MM, m.i.d.; Awanui, Northland; born New Plymouth, 21 Apr 1909; farmer; three times wounded. (Source: Cody, J.F. NZ Engineers, Middle East. p.106.)

'Colonel Kippenberger, describing the catastrophe from the rear of the column, wrote:

‘… we received a particularly determined attack from the plane and we were forced to halt and take cover. I noticed that there seemed to be more fire than one would expect from a single plane attacking and then saw that one truck was ablaze about 500 yards ahead of me, and ahead of it again and about the road junction was a medium tank which I recognised as German, and I also saw another tank shooting in a southerly direction from a point about 500 yards north of the cross roads and quite close to where I stood on the road…. two or three planes were now attacking the road and the sappers both with bombs and machine guns and making it very difficult to get a clear view of what was happening.’ Sapper Jack Farnham was among those who were cut off. ‘I was in Corporal Brian Lockett's truck well back in the convoy,’ he says, ‘and when we came under fire Corporal Lockett gave the order to try and get out on foot. Most of us were in a valley at the time and owing to many engineers not having had much infantry training quite a number went up over the hill side which made them a target for the MG's.’

Farnham went in another direction, and tried to capture a tank by climbing on to it and looking for a hole to fire his pistol through. There were no apertures open so he dived into the scrub and later joined Colonel Kippenberger, who with half a dozen others was making for gunfire noises which he thought came from 20 Battalion rearguard in action. In all approximately forty sappers failed to escape from the German ambush, the first severe engineer loss in the war.' (Source: Cody, J.F. NZ Engineers, Middle East. p. 106.) AWMM