We had many visitors at Siwa during that spring. Some, such as the Army Commander and the Air Officer Commanding, we were honoured to receive. Some, such as the Engineer in Chief, we were glad to “lush up” in the hope of favours to come, in his case a bigger and better landing ground, which we got, though it was finished just in time for the enemy to make use of it during the retreat to ’Alamein. Others we suffered less gladly and among these were the Official War Correspondent and his Boy Friend.
We had received a message about them the day before. They would come by air and were clearly in the “every facility” class. We were asked to provide a car and to give them lunch. There was a hint at the taking of photographs of great strategic importance.
At the appointed time the adjutant was on the landing ground with car and driver. We had suffered in the previous months from the indiscretions of Press and Wireless and the adjutant murmured a quiet, formal protest against taking pictures of our arms and vehicles. This roused the Boy Friend, a young and exquisite but by no means junior officer who was bear-leading the O.W.C. The O.W.C., he explained, was allowed to photograph anything. They went off in the car and it was at once apparent that there was no question of strategic photographs; all the O.W.C. wanted was a pleasant day in the country and some good pictures of Siwa at the taxpayers’ expense.
We were at that time feeling a bit sore on the subject of aircraft. The two Wacos were both unserviceable in Cairo. The R.A.F. had bent the propeller of one in landing after a test flight at Heliopolis, and their ground staff had taken the other to pieces and then said they were sorry but they could not put it together again for three months. A rough calculation showed that it must have cost about £50 in petrol alone for the Lysander which brought the O.W.C. and his B.F. to visit us. We were not amused.
The pair reappeared late for lunch and sweating, for the day was hot and the car, strangely enough, had broken down some distance away. After welcoming them, somebody asked with interest if their visit was helping along the war effort. For a moment conversation faltered.
Pressmen were always anxious for copy about L.R.D.G. “The Highwaymen of the Sahara” or “Desert Raiders play their Part” looked well in a headline. Our view was that the less said about our activities the better, and with the help of the Censorship at Middle East we usually won our point. But there were some unfortunate lapses. For example, the XI Bn. of the Trieste Motorised Division, writing on May 25, 1942, to its Company Commanders—“The B.B.C stated that a new motorised section had been formed and given special tasks to perform. The distinguishing badge to be worn by members consisted of a scorpion.” On such occasions we envied the studied reticence of Russian communiqués.
It was during those months when we were at Siwa that the Italians in Cyrenaica reaped the fruits of their early brutalities.
In 1911 Italy on some trivial pretext went to war with the Turkish Empire, then in its dotage, and seized Libya. In 1914 the Arabs revolted and the invaders lost all but a few coast towns. During the 1920’s the Italians were reconquering Tripolitania and the Fezzan, and this completed they turned to Cyrenaica where the Arabs under Omar el Mukhtar, Saleh el Ateiwish, the Seif en Nasr family and half a dozen other leaders resisted them year after year.
The nomads were the backbone of the Arab resistance, and Graziani, “the Butcher,” realised that to crush the Arab rebellion he must crush them. By rounding up the bedouin he would prevent them from harbouring Omar el Mukhtar’s followers and supplying them with arms, food and recruits.
The nomad Arab hates a crowd. Crowds of people mean to him crowds of animals and crowds of animals mean not enough grazing to go round. And the Arab, an individualist and a lover of freedom which is not found in cities, likes some elbow room and space to breathe. So he pitches the few tents of his clan apart, unseen in a fold in the ground, and when you pass through Cyrenaica by road you hardly see an Arab and wonder where the two hundred thousand of them can be.
Between Agedabia and Benghazi Graziani made concentration camps and into them he crowded 80,000 of the nomads in neat rows of close-pitched tents. Outside the animals sought in vain for grazing; inside the Arabs sickened and died. How many died may never be known, but the figures ran to thousands of men and more than three-quarters of a million animals.
In the end the “Butcher’s” plan worked. Resistance in the Gebel was over by 1929 and in 1931 Kufra fell. But Graziani reaped where he had sown, for he left a legacy of hatred among the Arabs which proved to be a very potent force in our aid.
A few of the Italians realised the position. Here is the opinion, written in August, 1941, of one candid official who was instantly removed from his post and sent home :
“We were surrounded by a sullenly hostile population. Rare were the families who did not lament the death of a parent executed by us or killed in fighting against us. We were living in the midst of a people who considered that they had been harmed when they were dispossessed of their lands and of other resources for the benefit of our “Demographic colonisation”; people who had been forced to give up, even before the war, their traditional trade and exchange of goods with Egypt; people who resented the innumerable restrictions, orders and regulations which raised unsur-mountable difficulties and imposed unnecessary hardships upon them.
“Traditional ethnic groups have been broken up or destroyed. The chiefs who could have governed them for us are no more. The native officials we were using had little or no qualifications. They were normally employed because of their family connections and sometimes for worse reasons.”
The British Government made a promise to the Arabs of Cyrenaica. In January, 1942, the Foreign Secretary said in the House of Commons : “His Majesty’s Government is determined that, at the end of the war, the Senussi in Cyrenaica will in no circumstances again fall under Italian domination.”
Whether we shall keep our promise, in the spirit as well as the letter, remains to be seen; at the moment we seem to be in a fair way to do so. But it was the Arabs’ hatred of the Italians far more than their love of the unknown British that put them so wholeheartedly on our side.
Their services to us were not spectacular. They did not rise in arms against our enemies—in the first months of the war they had no arms to rise with—and in any case we never wanted them to do this. In Egypt with the help and encouragement of Sayed Idris es Senussi, four battalions of what was known as the Libyan Arab Force were raised from amongst those Arabs who had fled from Italian oppression. But it was the Arabs inside Cyrenaica, the Obeidat of Wadi Derna, the ’Abid towards Barce and the Bra’asa south of Cirene, who served us so well and who, above all, never lost hope. And they had good reason to lose it. In February, 1941, we took Benghazi; by April we were back at the Egyptian frontier. In December we took it agiain; by June we were back at ’Alamein. There was not much to give the Arabs confidence that Britain would be victorious.
And each time the Italians reoccupied the country they put the screw on. (Not the Germans; they were too clever for that, letting the Italians do their dirty work. The prestige of the Germans was high among the Arabs who regarded them as “men” by comparison with the Italian “dogs.”) They brought Tripolitanians into Cyrenaica to police the country; they exiled the Arab leaders to Tripoli or Sicily; they sent General Piatti, one of the best-hated men in Libya, to Barce as a Special Commissioner to hold the country down; many Arabs they shot or hanged for aiding the British.2
There were, of course, some cases on the other side and a few British were betrayed. But for every one given up a hundred were helped. Baled-out airmen; Commandos landing from submarines; escaped prisoners; G(R) men in the Wadi Derna; Robert Baird’s agents and ourselves most of all. Cave’s story I have already told. Carr, the navigator of Yi patrol, missing after Simms’ attack on the coast road near Sidi Saleh in December, 1941, lived for some weeks with Arabs till our advancing forces picked him up. Duncalfe and McNobola, two Guardsmen who became separated from the rest of their patrol during the Barce
raid in the following September, stayed for three months in the Gebel, fed and sheltered by the Arabs, till they were able to rejoin the Eighth Army as it swept through Cyrenaica in November. At the road watch near the Marble Arch some of those who saw the patrols must have realised who they were and what they were doing, but the secret was always kept. All the summer of 1941, often in the same autumn, most of all in the spring of 1942 the patrols were coming and going in Libya, but there were very few instances of their having been betrayed.
What sort of a life was it, living for weeks on end in the Gebel, with good friends, but wondering always whether to-day was the day when you would run into an enemy patrol and if not shot as a spy be carried off to an Italian prison camp?
In April and May of 1942 Knight was up in the Bra’asa country, doing a road watch and collecting information about enemy movements. Here is some of his diary :
“April 26.—At about 21.00 hours Hunter of L.R.D.G. dropped us at the mouth of the Wadi Retem. Found a suitable side wadi and dumped our stuff. L.R.D.G. went off and we settled in for the night.
“April 27.—Ahmed Bu Seif went off early to contact Suleiman Bin Salem. Ahmed is of the X tribe and knows the country. Rest of day sorting out kit and preparing to move north.
“April 28.—Ahmed returned bringing Suleiman with him. Had a council of war and got the latest news. Suleiman advised us to move out of the wadi we were in to one farther north. The one he wanted us to go to was where Pedlar had had his wireless set and was much more off the beaten track. He also told us that the Italian Carabinieri officer at Slonta had called in all the sheikhs and told them that it was no use their denying the presence of British in the district as he had definite information that they yvere there. The Italian said that big rewards would be given to any one who gave him information. Suleiman also said that it would be very difficult to hide up in the Cueifat area at the moment as Piatti had ordered that all the tribes were to move up there from the Baltet ez Zalagh. Wirelessed this back (to Cairo). Hired a camel and some donkeys from nearby Arabs and moved our stuff up to the Wadi Maiyit.
“April 29.—Suleiman did not turn up till after dark. Before he came Penman hired some camels from elsewhere and moved off. When Suleiman arrived with the camels he said he had had to go to the officer at Slonta where he had been cross-examined and told that reports had been received that he was helping the British. However, he had persuaded him that the reports were false and had managed to slip away.
“April 30.—About 17.00 hours we packed up and the seven Commandos and I moved up to the South Road, leaving Longman and the two wireless sets behind. I decided that as the Slonta-Maraua area was said to be full of Arabs the wireless set and especially the charging motor would attract too much attention. Arrived at the Wadi Cueifat without mishap.
“May 1.—Suleiman led us to what he said was the best place in the district, about a mile east of where we had camped the previous trip. He left us there to go and find out the latest news.
“May 2.—Suleiman turned up late, full of alarming reports that he was suspected of harbouring the British but that with great difficulty he had persuaded some other sheikhs to vouch for him and so had got off going to Barce to see General Piatti himself.
“May 3.—At dawn Z and I went up to the South Road to start the road watch. Our plan was that two men should go up at dawn and be relieved at sunset as movement at any other time was too risky.
“May 4.—At 17.00 Ahmed, one of Suleiman’s men, and I started for the North Road, carrying three days’ rations. We found it very heavy going and it took us seven hours walking.
“May 5.—Ahmed led us to a good spot between Qasr Bu Megdem and Wadi Shahrise, about a couple of miles west of the Wadi Cuf. We made our camp on a hillside overlooking three strips of the main road from where we could see an Italian roadhouse. On the way up, when we were within a mile or so of our destination, we came round a bend in the path and ran straight into a pack of native dogs which promptly set up a most terrific din, barking and yelping, and a man came out of some tents nearby and asked us who we were and what we were doing. I slipped on ahead a bit and Ahmed explained that we were just looking for some sheep and we passed on. Later in the day, while I was on the road watch, Ahmed went to get some water and again met this Arab whom he recognised as an old friend. The man asked him if by any chance I was an English officer. Ahmed admitted that I was and took the man completely into his confidence. He sent word that he would expect me to supper that night; I went along and he proved most useful and friendly. When we first arrived at the road there was no sign of any traffic so we had a rest. About dawn the first cars started to pass and at 11.00 hours thirty-three Italian armoured cars came up and parked round the roadhouse. Some moved off the road into the small wadis at the side and all camouflaged themselves very carefully with branches of trees. I assumed from this that they were expecting an air attack as the drivers stood about in groups and kept gazing up into the sky. The chaps manning the A.F.V.s were dressed in blue dungarees and wore black berets with a bunch of cock’s plumes on the right side so it looked as if they belonged to some Bersaglieri unit.
“May 6.—Continued the watch on the North Road but nothing of any interest passed. Just the usual procession of trucks, lorries and staff cars.
“May 7.—Kept the watch all that day but decided to move back to the South Road that evening and send up the Commandos to take my place.”
Such is a picture of their work in the Gebel in those months in 1942. And Knight’s party was only one of many. Melot and Seagrim spent six weeks in the Wadi Gattara which cuts through the escarpment twenty miles east of Benghazi. They lay up in caves all day and at night, like animals of the jungle, came out for exercise and air, to put up their wireless masts and signal the day’s news to Cairo. To their hiding place Arab agents came and went. Some into Benghazi to watch the port; others to the airfields at Berka and Benina; others to count the traffic on the Gebel roads.
One night in May, 1942, in an Italian mess in Benghazi the officers were talking freely; perhaps their N.A.A.F.I. had had a ship in and there was something to drink for a change. They were discussing the coming attack at Gazala and Bir Hakim which was due to start on May 27. They were careless, of course, little suspecting that their Arab mess waiter had a brother and that the brother was in Melot’s pay. No more than they would suspect that the foreman of the Arab stevedores in the port was a friend of Melot’s too.
Penman worked in the east, in the Obeidat country round Derna and the Martuba By-Pass. He must hold the record, I think, for time spent in the Gebel, for Lloyd Owen took him up in May and it was not till August that Hunter brought him and his party back to Kufra, for after we had been forced to leave Siwa and the passes out of the Qattara Depression were closed there was no other way.
Before he came back one of his Arabs turned traitor and informed the Italian civil official in Derna who set out to search. But the risk to Penman was small for the Italian’s guides were in his pay and each day he had advance information of where they would take him on the morrow, and so he had no more trouble than the inconvenience of moving out of the Italian’s way.
After a few days of this the Italian returned to Derna, informing his chief, General Piatti at Barce, that the reports were false and that there were no British in his district. Piatti, angry and unconvinced, ordered him out again so his subordinate, tired by this time of trailing aimlessly round the hills, moved out a short distance from Derna, waited a few days and then returned to send in a second negative report.
On May 15th Gurdon with G2 patrol left Siwa to take David Stirling and a party of his men to Benghazi for the second time since our withdrawal from Jalo.
How well the patrols had got to know that run. Out of the Siwa depression, through the minefield at the foot of the scarp, up past the gloomy notice board which announced “You are now entering a malarial area,” across the R.F.C. landing ground of the last war, along the Solium track for eighty miles, throu
gh the Wire at Weshkha, and then the long run across the desert to the southern slopes of the Gebel, keeping south of the rough country round Medawwar Hassan, going gingerly across the Tariq el ’Abd to avoid the thermos bombs, skirting round to the east of Msus and then up towards the Wadi Gattara and the escarpment which overlooks the Benghazi plain.
A paragraph in Gurdon’s Operation Instruction shows how completely we had the “freedom of the desert” at that time.
“INFORMATION.
(b) Own troops.
“The following patrols will be operating in the area between SIWA and REGIMA:
“1. S2 with 4 Chevs. and 1 Ford, returning from HAGFET GALGAF.
“2. R1 with 5 Chevs, at Lat. 31° 45′ 30″.
Long. 21° 52′ 00″.
“3. Indian 1 with 5 Chevs. each in the area bounded by Lat. 31° 30′ on the north and Long.
Indian 2 with 5 Chevs. each in the area bounded by Lat. 31° 30′ on the north and Long.
20° 30′ on the west.
“4. Commandos with 5 3-tonners, making a dump in MEDAWWAR HASSAN.
“5. T1 with 4 Chevs. leaving Siwa 16/5 to relieve R1 on 19/5.”
S2 was bringing some Commandos back from the Gebel; R1 was at the Marble Arch road watch and T1 leaving to take over from them; the Commandos’ Heavy Section was making a dump of petrol for future operations and the two Indian patrols,3 newly arrived from Syria, were out on a training run to “see the country.”
Having reached the escarpment Gurdon’s party split up. In his official report the story sounds simple enough :
“21.5.42. At 17.30 hrs. Major Stirling in the staff car accompanied by two Chevrolet trucks moved off.”
Long Range Desert Group Page 16
