TUESDAY, 26 DECEMBER 2000
T O P S T O R Y
Old foes lay 1945 episode to rest
26 DECEMBER 2000
By MIKE CREAN
Two old foes have made up, in the spirit of Christmas.
Bygones should be bygones, says Lindsay McCully, the last surviving member of a New Zealand tank crew that attacked and disabled a German tank late in World War 2.
His German counterpart, Friedrich Huhle, agrees.
When they were enemies, they were little more than boys. Now is the time to be friends, Mr Huhle says.
Bitter disagreement has lingered for 55 years over the deaths of his German comrades as they clambered from their stricken tank. But this month, in letters to each other, the old foes have sought reconciliation and extended Christmas greetings.
The events of April 12, 1945, are clearly etched in Mr McCully's mind. He had just arrived in Italy from his Duntroon, North Otago, home. This was his first active engagement of the war. He was "a very frightened and scared little boy" when his tank, driven by Bogie James, of Sefton, North Canterbury, encountered a German Tiger tank in the Santerno River area.
The New Zealanders knocked the Tiger out with armour-piercing shells. German reports say that as the German crew baled out, Kiwi soldiers raked them with submachinegun fire, killing two. However, the New Zealand version tells of one German being shot while attacking a Kiwi and of another dying from shell-splinter wounds.
That evening, Mr McCully held a light while morphine injections were given to the German wounded.
Mr Huhle was one of the wounded. He had bullet wounds in the abdomen and chest.
Christchurch war historian Jeffrey Plowman traced the old foes during research for his oral history of New Zealand tanks in Italy. He encouraged them to correspond.
Mr McCully, now of Pukekohe, told his former enemy: "Who knows, perhaps some day we will meet again, on the other side."
