Early on D+1 came the first news, from Tobruk. David Lloyd Owen has written for me what follows, the whole story of his adventure.
“That evening I went to G.H.Q. and in the ‘Ops’ Room John Haselden was waiting for me. Spread out on a table before him was a large-scale map of Tobruk. As my glance fell on it he grinned and chuckled as he would often do when he was lit up with the thought of some trickery. He was delighted with the whole project which he was bursting to explain to me. He had been the originator and indeed the inspiration of the whole plan, whose chances of success lay in complete surprise and a very great measure of luck.
“John’s mind was always open to hitting the enemy hard where he would least expect it and the plan of the raid on Tobruk was a bold exposition of this idea. He had convinced the ‘Ops’ people that he was capable of taking a striking force overland to Tobruk by way of Kufra to capture a small cove near the harbour and thus allow reinforcements from destroyers and special landing craft to exploit this initial bridgehead. He would then lead the whole force in organised and wholesale wrecking of the harbour installations, and finally evacuate by sea both his own force and the British prisoners of war whom he planned to release from the cages in Tobruk.
“The troops available for his own force were mostly Commandos, with detachments of Sappers, Signallers and some coast defence gunners. The latter were chosen as they were to storm the guns which they had manned throughout the siege of the previous year. My patrol was to guide the force to Tobruk and play other small parts in the gamble. The total of officers and men under his command was a little less than a hundred and with them he hoped to ensure a safe landing for the Navy.
“On August 24th we left the Faiyum with six patrol cars and seven 3-tonners for the rest of the party. Before us lay a journey of nearly a thousand miles, and this only to Kufra, the base where we would make our final plans. The journey was uneventful but trying to many of those to whom long days of travelling in the August heat were a new ordeal. Some suffered from the sun and in the evenings there were many who were unable to carry out the routine tasks which made the next day’s work so much easier. They were not equipped or organised for moving across stretches of burning desert and my impatience with them was often unsympathetic and unjustified.
“However, on August 31st, we reached Kufra and had a few days of final preparation before we were to leave on September 6th. My men were still quite ignorant of their final objective and rumours and speculations were crazy and rife. We spent those hot and pleasant days cleaning our guns and every round of ammunition. I knew the urgency of our task and something of my enthusiasm went to the men, though I had told them no more than that we were on to a first-rate job at last. They were amused when I suggested that each gun should take one more box of ammunition than usual and when I issued extra compasses and maps for use in case we lost our cars and had to walk home.
“On September 4th John arrived by air from Cairo and I told him that it would be better in the interests of security to tell the men the object of the raid rather than to let the many rumours continue. He agreed and the next day we got the whole party together under the palm trees for him to explain his plan.
“I shall never forget that keen, bright look on every face as John unfolded a large map of Tobruk in front of them and they began to murmur to each other in speculation as he, in his genial, vague way, explained the risks he demanded and convinced them of the sincerity of his confidence. Till that time few of us had had the chance of knowing John well, but from that moment every one had the utmost confidence in his leadership and the party loved him to a man. John was not a born soldier but he was an honest, simple man with a courage which was only equalled by his charm.
“The next day we left Kufra. The party which had come from Cairo was by now considerably better acquainted with the desert and their outlook was one of supreme confidence in their ability to arrive unseen at Tobruk and successfully to hold, the cove until the arrival of the Navy.
“As I knew the country well, John left to me the choice of the route and the command of the party till we reached Tobruk. I chose a route which would bring us up through the bottleneck between Jalo and the Sand Sea during darkness. This was the only place where there was any real danger of our being seen by enemy ground or air reconnaissance. We had learned that from Jalo the Italians would normally send out a patrolling aircraft at dawn and again at dusk and so we decided to give them no chance. We drove all night with few interruptions and were safely through by first light. I knew of good cover at Hatiet Etla, about ninety miles south of Tobruk, and we turned north-east from the corner of the Sand Sea to arrive there on September ioth. John had insisted that we leave plenty of time to cover possible breakdowns and so we had three days to wait till the raid on the evening of the 13th.
“Again we spent our time cleaning guns and equipment and going through every detail of the plan day after day. Those few days were well spent and every man left the hiding place with a thorough knowledge of what he was to do.
“At last on the morning of the 13th we moved north to another area of cover about forty miles south of Tobruk where we were to wait again before moving off in the late afternoon. By this time the original plan had been altered in detail but the principle of the scheme was the same. John’s force, now in only three 3-tonners, was to drive boldly down the main road and to take a chance on their being held up for identification which was not likely so far from the front. The plan worked, for they passed into Tobruk with only a careless wave of the hand to a few bystanders.
“When they were inside the R.A.F. were to send over a force of seventy bombers to drop heavy bombs from 9.30 till about 2.30 in the morning. The havoc and confusion caused by this raid was designed to keep the enemy below ground and to drown any suspicion of a separate operation. Having taken the coast defence guns which covered the cove, John was to man these and silence any other guns which tried to interfere. Then at a given signal the landing craft were to come in with reinforcements to enable him to complete the capture of the town by dawn. He would then have the whole of the next day in which to destroy the harbour installations.
“While John was carrying out his part of the plan I had a completely separate job to do and one which promised a lively night for my patrol of twenty men and five cars. I was to enter the perimeter two hours after him, fighting my way in if need be. Then leaving Sgt. Hutchins with two trucks to cover our retreat we were to go on and wreck the radio direction finding station. Having done this we would return to the perimeter and hold it for the rest of the night against all comers. At dawn we would re-enter the perimeter and try to destroy the aircraft on both the landing grounds. After we had done this we would come out again at the eastern gate and hold it for the rest of the day till we received a signal to go in again, this time to try to release the British prisoners from the cages and send them down to the shore where the Navy could take off about four thousand. When all this was over we were to escape from Tobruk and go back to Kufra.
“All this reads now as a very big task for a very small force, but we were relying entirely on our own confessed ability to surprise the enemy at every turn. John would hardly countenance any suggestion that the Navy might fail to land or that he would not seize his objectives. His very nature did not leave room for the possibility of defeat and we all went in with the same savage desire to forestall any attempt at organised resistance.
“So on the evening of the 13th the force moved once again towards Tobruk. We were all rather quiet and at the occasional halts conversation was a little forced. With clouds of dust rising high in the air from the ploughed-up desert which had been the scene of so much bitter fighting we stalked up between masses of derelict vehicles to the neighbourhood of El Duda. At last on the far horizon we saw small dots and clouds of dust and I knew that John must leave us there and go on brazenly to the main Axis road. I stopped my truck and backed it below the horizon where I stood with John. We waited a few moments and the ev
ening was growing cold. Then he turned and wished us all the best of luck. As his force drove past they waved a good-bye and we felt that these men had a cold courage which filled us with admiration, and then all of a sudden we began to feel kindly towards those who had bored us a bit on the way up. For a few minutes we stood and watched them go, feeling bare and huge on this naked, scrubby waste of dusty earth.
“I had decided to move a little way forward and then to have a good meal which might be our last for twenty-four hours. So we mounted the trucks and as I got into my seat I saw an enemy patrol moving parallel to John’s small force. We could still see his cars winding across the desert with huge clouds of dust billowing out behind them. The setting sun was low in the west and we had that advantage when I gave the order to drive fast in open formation towards the enemy. They must have seen us coming, for I watched them stop and could see men walking about the cars. We still had some way to go and I was standing behind my gun, half turning to see that the others were following, and the radiator in front seemed very large and vulnerable as I wondered when we would hear that first crack of bullets. But as we drew near they seemed little interested in us till we closed in on them with a wild, savage cry from my gunner. I have never before seen such abject terror on men’s faces as they stood there, a desolate party of surrendering enemy. It must have been a maddening shock for them to have been caught so far behind their own defence line at ’Alamein. Some fell to the ground in tears and screamed about their homes and families.
“I had no time to bother with these Italians and after setting my navigator to interrogate them I tried with the wireless operator to contact John as we had arranged. The cook excelled himself that night and we sat round the fire and talked happily of our first success. But I was worried, for I could get no sound from John, and I remember tripping over the stays of the aerial in the dark as I kept walking anxiously between the fire and the harassed wireless operator. But we could not wait much longer and after a final warming tot of rum we were ready to move on and into Tobruk. There was no moon that night and we drove in line ahead with the headlights on. I reckoned we had only about fifteen miles to go and should be at the perimeter soon after 10.00. But the going was bad and the escarpment at Sidi Resegh delayed us while we removed boulders and almost built a road down the slope. At the bottom we halted and heard the first sorties of the bombers roaring overhead and then the rumble of bombs over the next horizon. We could see, too, a few lights dotted about on the plain ahead and steering by the stars we aimed to drive between them. In front my lights were bright and the going was a little better when quite suddenly I saw ahead what seemed to be a concrete pillbox. We heard men shout and my first instinct was to drive straight by before they had time to fire. I shouted to the driver to ‘step on it’ and we went on safely past. But I had heard our other trucks open up with their guns and I knew they were all too close to be healthy. I drove on for half a mile and then got out and shone a torch round to try to attract the others. Timorously I shouted to them and seemed to split the silence as my cracking voice echoed through the cold night. Soon, not far away, though it seemed across an ocean, I heard an answering cry from Sgt. Hutchins, and after more shouting and flashing of torches they joined us. But the truck behind me was missing and worst of all it was the wireless truck. While we were considering what to do the crew loomed up out of the darkness. All they could say was that the car had been hit and they had been unable to start it.
“We had either to recover the car or destroy it for on it was a lot of valuable equipment and the codes and ciphers. I took ten men with Tommy guns and rifles and moved towards where we though it must be. I fired a Verey pistol which seemed to light up the heavens themselves and silhouette me as a Colossus towering over the flattened bodies of the men. We moved on and again I lit up the sky and ahead we saw a shape. A sort of futile laughter broke out when we saw it was a derelict, horse-drawn water cart. After firing a few more Verey lights among the uninterested enemy we at last saw the truck and a few yards to the right of it the pillbox. There was no time to waste and I decided to attack the post and destroy the car with an incendiary candle. Hutchins took on the post and after some sporadic firing he shouted that it was silenced. Then I heard the truck start. It drove on a short way and then stopped to change the back tyres which had been punctured. Safely away again, we saw lights flickering behind us and heard the noise of engines, but had no time to investigate.
“It was getting late and I began to wonder if I should be through the perimeter in time to take the R.D.F. station by midnight. So we drove on hastily, giving little heed to hummocks and slit trenches. In front I could see great flashes lighting up the sky as the R.A.F. dropped their 4000-lb. bombs. At last we reached the Axis road which was rough with a rippled surface and turned right to join the main road. We drove past tented camps and dispersed vehicles and guessed that they were there to avoid the pounding that Tobruk used to get each night from the R.A.F. The Axis road seemed endless but at last we joined the main road where I expected to find a check post. Turning the lights out, we drove on, hindered only by the sudden appearance of steam rollers and barrels across the road.
“I stopped to have a word with the navigator and could see a few yards ahead of me some defences and a ditch. There was no sound and I hoped that this was the perimeter, deserted. So I walked along it, plaintively shouting ‘Rosalia’ which I knew to be the enemy’s password. But it was not the main perimeter. All this delayed me and I looked at my watch to find it was after 1.0 and realised that I had no chance of getting inside by the time arranged. So we decided to attack the R.D.F. station at dawn on our way to the landing grounds and meanwhile to stay at the entrance to the perimeter for the rest of the night. Our immediate concern was to get into touch with John and all through the night the operators were calling him but without success.
“By now the noise of battle was increasing, and we could see searchlights playing across the sky and hear the roar of the coast guns and bombs mingled with the sound of distant transport. The noise grew louder still and we could see gunfire coming from the sea while the searchlights came down and swept the water. The gunfire was incessant and we tried to distinguish the calibre of bomb and gun as we stood listening.
“Perhaps fear is only great when the danger is personal. I walked round the men that night and found the majority asleep over their guns and the others talking of the magnificence of the varied tracer shells and flares. They were not worried by the fact that we had the enemy all around us, who, though they were still quiet, might at any moment awaken across our only line of retreat.”
“But they could not sleep long for we had to stir ourselves and deal with some vehicles coming noisily along the road. I grabbed a few men with Tommy guns and ran up the embankment on to the tarmac. I got there first and stood illuminated in the headlights of the car but a few bursts from the others brought it to a standstill. I was very relieved, for my gun had jammed. The crew were Germans and we made them help us turn their car over and roll it down the embankment. One of them, an officer, could speak a little English and he explained that the chaos in Tobruk was too much for him and he had come out to escape it.
“I looked at my watch and realised that it would soon be dawn. The situation now seemed to be very different. I could still see the searchlights and the gunfire from the sea. This could not be right, as by this time the Navy should have landed and opposition have been overcome. I still had no news of John and no idea what had happened. I was faced with the alternatives of remaining and carrying on with my plan without knowing if the landing had been successful, or of withdrawing to a suitable spot where we could put up the aerial to communicate with Group H.Q. and find out what they knew. I decided that if we went at all we must go while it was still not quite light, and reluctantly but with a disappointed relief we retraced our steps of the previous night. We moved fast in the increasing daylight and watched the enemy sentries pacing idly in the cold grey dawn and others lighting
fires for their early cup of tea.
“We were cold and tired when we stopped on Sidi Resegh airfield and tried again to communicate with John and with our own H.Q. Our breakfast was hurried as we watched the horizon for pursuers and the aircraft passing to the north. 1 was disconsolate and unhappy at the thought of leaving John and played with the idea of returning to avenge our failure. But the sun was rising higher and we had to move again farther away to lie up in safety. So we drove fast for twenty miles, only stopping once when we saw a German aircraft flying at about fifty feet across our path. The dust was thick and those behind did not see me halt and we watched the plane fly between our truck and the next behind. It did not suspect us and we wasted no time to let it reconsider its assumption.
“Once in good cover we had to contact John if we possibly could. With both operators hard at it I soon received word from H.Q. that there had been no news of John all night and that the Navy had failed to land and suffered considerable loss. Then I was almost glad as I knew my decision had been right and that we had not left John when we could still have done more. All that day we called in vain and the operators found it hard to suffer my impatience. We lay there tired till dusk and then knew that the raid had failed and that we had lost that grim game of chance which we had entered so confidently.”
Exactly what happened in Tobruk that night is not known, but it appears that Haselden’s force entered successfully, captured the coast defence guns round the cove east of the main harbour but lost them again in the subsequent fighting with a garrison which was stronger than had been supposed. In this fighting Haselden is believed to have been killed. The sea-borne part of the raiding force, which had come from Alexandria in M.T.B.s, succeeded no better. Only two of the M.T.B.s managed to land their troops; four of these craft were lost and also two of the destroyers which were to make a landing on the west side of the main harbour.
Long Range Desert Group Page 20
