New Zealand Expeditionary Force - 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force

2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force

See also: Military history of New Zealand during World War II

At the outbreak of war in 1939, it was decided that New Zealand should provide an Expeditionary Force of one division, under then Major General Bernard Freyberg. This force became known as the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2NZEF) and the division as 2nd New Zealand Division.

The first echelon of 2NZEF Headquarters and a Brigade Group landed in Egypt in February 1940. The second echelon, also a Brigade Group, was diverted to Britain on Italy's entry into the war and did not reach Egypt until March 1941. The third echelon arrived in Egypt in September 1940 and concentration of the division was completed just before it was deployed to northern Greece in March 1941.

This force remained as part of the British Eighth Army to the end of World War II in 1945 during which it fought in the Battle of Greece (March–April 1941), the Battle of Crete (May), Operation Crusader (November–December), Minqar Qaim (June 1942), the Battle of El Alamein (July–November), Libya and Tunisia (December–May 1943), the Sangro (October–December), the Battle of Monte Cassino (February–March 1944), the Central Italy (May–December), and the Adriatic Coast (April–May 1945).

Read more about this topic:  New Zealand Expeditionary Force

Famous quotes containing the words zealand and/or force:

    “Teasing is universal. Anthropologists have found the same fundamental patterns of teasing among New Zealand aborigine children and inner-city kids on the playgrounds of Philadelphia.”
    —Lawrence Kutner (20th century)

    “Mathematics alone make us feel the limits of our intelligence. For we can always suppose in the case of an experiment that it is inexplicable because we don’t happen to have all the data. In mathematics we have all the data ... and yet we don’t understand. We always come back to the contemplation of our human wretchedness. What force is in relation to our will, the impenetrable opacity of mathematics is in relation to our intelligence.”
    —Simone Weil (1909–1943)