War's Nomads: A Mobile Radar Unit in Pursuit of Rommel during the Western Desert Campaign, 1942-3

by Grice, Frederick

  There was another silence, then, ‘Fred’, said Gwen, ‘Fred, even if we do part I shall always be proud to have known you.’

  Then I could not speak for a while. It was the word of love that she was speaking, the spring to release all that dammed affection, dammed so high I could scarce speak. It was the word of love that made all the misunderstandings of the day clear. Turning to Gwen, weeping with relief and the anguish of outpouring love, I embraced her and would not let her go.

  Gwen was up before me the next morning. When she came to wake me to have breakfast with her, she was looking beautiful and fair. And she was wearing her wedding ring.

  More notes on Cairo

  Drunken soldiers arguing at midday with natives and curious crowds surrounding some foolish blustering New Zealander threatening an Egyptian

  A man walking along with a basket of dazed diminutive ducks and chickens on his head

  Sullen dragomen,12 customerless at street corners

  Bearded Sikhs on leave from the Blue13

  Opulent Egyptians in red fezzes, white well-pressed jackets, neatly-creased slacks, handsome, neat and prosperous

  Lovely flower shops, tier on tier of beautiful carnations, marigolds, lilies, roses, fragrant at night time

  Big wheeled carts, with strong bodies, drawn by mules, and drays pulled by slow brown oxen

  River boats hung with white awnings, shading little cabins and balustraded verandahs

  A drunken soldier punching at the heads of the horses that draw the Victorian hansom cabs that come out at evening

  A man washing down his donkey from a trough in the middle of a square

  In the suburbs, squalid flat-roofed slums, with walls of petrol tins filled with mud stacked together: rooms with walls of flattened tins, piled with old iron and visited by hens, goats and sheep

  A native with a travelling restaurant, a little glass encased box with plates of food: he draws one and serves it to his customer, sitting on his haunches beside him

  Another with a score of pieces of melon, standing over them, swishing away the flies

  A barber shaving his customer on the sidewalk

  A woman lying full length on the pavement, asleep with her head in an open window

  Saturday 22 August 1942

  After sickness

  Have been wretched the last few days, unable to eat, apathetic and suffering from a heavy dose of catarrh – unable to feel any joy or to write. Now I’m reawakening to the wonder of things, the burdensome heat, the lunatic flies, the lemonade men who came down the lines of the tents in the afternoon, crying like babies who want something they are denied. ‘Limon-ade! O limonade-oh! Icy cold! Icy-cold limonade-oh! Lim-oon! Nicy limm-on!’

  These angry lunatic flies! They are inescapable. They crawl everywhere – run viciously, jump into the air – buzz with spite and vexation – then settle again to probe, itch and suck. They crawl everywhere, even down the stem of this moving pen, right to the tip of the nib. I have never known them so multitudinous or vicious.

  I must be recovering – to have resumed my journal. Yesterday at the Zoo, then to hear Schubert’s Symphony in C Major.

  Wednesday 26 August 1942

  Glorious, glorious day – received two cards from Gwen! Wonderful. The house is sold.14 They are both well. It means everything to me!

  Notes

  1 Koopmans-de Wet was a furniture store in Cape Town.

  2 Before the post-World War II apartheid era, Area 6 in Cape Town was famous as a racially mixed neighbourhood.

  3 Tobruk was about to fall to Rommel, the German commander, on 20 June, 1942. Ritchie was dismissed, and Rommel was rewarded with the rank of Field Marshal (Dimbleby, Destiny in the Desert, 2012).

  4 Gwen and Gillian were evacuated to Makendon in the Cheviot Hills on the English border with Scotland. They lived with a shepherd and his wife, and thus avoided the bombing focused on Newcastle. When it became clear that the war was going to last longer than predicted, they moved back home.

  5 In Brandon, Co. Durham. Fred was teaching at the A. J. Dawson Grammar School, Wingate, in the summer of 1940

  6 A narrow pointed piece of land at the side of a field of irregular shape.

  7 A name given to grass of a reedy habitat.

  8 One of Virginia Nicholson’s women, Helen Vlasto, a nurse VAD, travelled on the same ship, and had better experiences than Fred (Nicholson, Millions Like Us, 2011, 205).

  9 RAF Station Kabrit was a major RAF facility, located 20 miles north of Suez and 78 miles east of Cairo.

  10 To protect the landing ground from German or Italian air attack.

  11 A truncated-cone skullcap of a dull crimson colour.

  12 Guides or interpreters.

  13 The desert.

  14 Gwen, who was totally dependent on Fred’s income, had to sell her house and rent somewhere to live to raise the money to compensate for the difference in pay between a Durham grammar school master and an RAF Aircraftsman.

  Part 2

  Erk in the Desert

  CHAPTER 4

  El Alamein and the Western Desert

  Introduction to sand

  On 20 June 1942, Tobruk, which had been in British hands since it was taken by General Wavell in the first Libyan campaign, fell unexpectedly to the Germans (Fig. 5). The unlooked for and unwelcome fall of this port compelled the Eighth Army to retreat even further to the east than the original positions from which General Wavell had launched his offensive, and on 1 July they took up their stand on the now famous Alamein line, only sixty miles west of Alexandria (Fig. 6). On the same day, the Germans, anxious to reach the delta without delay, attacked in strength but by 4 July they were decisively checked by an army that had recovered its resilience, and by the end of the month there was stalemate on the Alamein front. The Axis forces, however, still eager to make a decisive advance on Alexandria, resumed their offensive on the night of 30 August and succeeded in pushing forward until the fortified position of El Alamein was enclosed in a ‘box’, with an escape way open only to the east. But again the thrusts were held, the Alamein positions were relieved, and the attack which Rommel had meant to be the last and crowning operation in the desert, had failed.

  During those historic last four days of Rommel’s attempt to reach the Nile, I was in the desert, but I took part in no heroic action. I did not even know that the Eighth Army, at the nadir of its fortunes, was being called upon to meet this new attack. Somewhere near Burg el Arab (Fig. 6), about twenty-five miles behind the bomb-line, and ignorant of the greatness of the issue that was being fought out in front of me, I was wandering, lost like a child in a wood.

  At the time when Rommel’s offensive was at its peak, I was posted from Cairo to Alexandria by rail (Fig. 2), and was met there by a lorry driver, who took me on the evening of the same day to an RAF station at Sidi Barrakat (Fig. 6), about twenty miles west of Alex. There I was given a substantial meal and a comfortable bed, and after a sound sleep, I reported to the orderly room corporal the next morning in fair spirits. ‘Well,’ I asked him, ‘are we pushing on today?’

  ‘What do you mean – we?’ he replied.

  ‘Aren’t you taking me on to my unit – 606?’

  ‘What!’ he exclaimed, ‘Us take you? You wouldn’t nob it!’

  I didn’t nob it. I am afraid I was still too green to know what nobbing it meant.

  ‘But…’ I asked anxiously, ‘how do I get there, if you aren’t taking me?’

  ‘You’ll have to use your loaf,1 chum.’

  ‘But I don’t even know where this 606 place is!’

  ‘So what? Neither do we. You’ll have to get on the main road again, catch any gharry that is going your way, and get to the DID2 at Burg el Arab. You should find someone there who knows your place. Anyhow, you’ll have to shufti3 round for yourself. Sorry, chum, but that’s the best we can do for you.’

  I could scarcely believe that a greenhorn, who had been in Egypt for little more than a fortnight, and knew nothin
g of it outside the main streets of Cairo, should be expected to find his own way about the desert, and that he should be expected not only to make his way from unit to unit, but also to find, without the help of any information bureau, where those units were. But that was the undeniable truth of the matter, and in a few moments I found myself sitting by the side of the coast road, in the last depths of despair. I was without friends, without even acquaintances. I was burdened with two heavy kitbags, a steel helmet, respirator, webbing, mess tin, water bottle and topee. I was hungry and thirsty and surrounded by flies. And I was bound for a unit of which I knew nothing but the name.

  As I found out later, that unit was less than thirty miles west of Sidi Barrakat, but it took me three days (and might easily have taken as many weeks) to cover those thirty miles. It took me half a day to find the DID from which 606 was supposed to draw its rations. It took me a few minutes to find out that the DID knew less of the unit’s whereabouts than I did. At the end of the first day I had to sleep in a transit camp at Burg el Arab, further than ever, since the DID could give me no information, from reaching 606.

  Black Book: 1 September 19424

  I’ve left Almaza. I’ve left all my friends. I’ve left Cairo, Alexandria all behind me. And here I am all on my own almost stranded, in a transit camp nearer our front line than Alexandria.

  I came by rail to Alexandria – a good, interesting ride. I think I saw all the Egypt that – for the geography-book writers – is Egypt. The flat delta land, ditched and channelled everywhere, the little runnels, the deep high-banked canals, the broad reaches of the Nile itself, brown as tea, richly milked tea. And every square inch of land was cultivated – first with maize and palms – later with big fields of cotton, wheat, fruit orchards – and nearer Alex – banana trees. So into Alex.

  And from then on – a nightmare growing more and more unreal – a warm troubled night in an AMES station – a ride in an ambulance – an almost hopeless search for a ration dump where I was to be picked up – finally coming to a stop in another blessed transit camp, to begin my journeying again tomorrow.

  This is a sorry country – an arid countryside covered with finest of fine sand – continually stirred and blown up by the lorries that thunder past. There is a powdering of sand over everything, even over the barrel of my pen as I write. God help me! I’ve come to a strange and horrible countryside. If you were to see me now, my dear, you would weep tears of grief. God be merciful, deliver me soon from the desert!

  Written in this wretched tent, with six other lost souls, lost and forgotten men here, on the first day of September.

  The second day, feeling after further enquiries, as surely stalemated as the armies in front of me, I slept again in the transit camp. On the third day, weary with sitting and waiting for information which never came, I was reduced to contemplating returning to Cairo as best I could, beaten and disgraced, when a lucky meeting with an officer enlightened me. Thanks to him, I was at last put on my way. By that time, as I know now, the last German attack was petering out, and the Alamein box where 606 was sited, was relieved. While the fate of Alexandria and the Nile was being fought out, I had been sitting like a tramp on the roadside, concerned, not with the destiny of nations, but with my next meal, my next drink, my next cigarette and my next bed.

  It was late in the afternoon of 4 September, when, after a long ride along the coast road, past innumerable alarming signs – those wayside pulpits of the desert – (‘Do you know what to do if you are ambushed?’) and over two famous tracks, the Bombay and the Sidney Roads, that I at last reached my station.

  The nature of the countryside west of Alex had by no means charmed me. The first view of my station filled me with foreboding, and had I not been dulled by a long sea journey and sordid weeks in transit camps, and more au fait with the seriousness of the Alamein position, I should have been even more alarmed. Before me, as I jumped off the last friendly gharry,5 rose a low ridge of bare rocky land (Fig. 6),6 drifted over in places with soft glittering sand, and littered with sharpsided grey and white stones. From this backbone of rock the ground fell away into shallow wadis,7 their sides sparsely covered with twisted camel thorn; and prominent on its flattish top and very lonely against the waste of sand, stood a big drab Crossley waggon, with a flight of thick steps leading from the tail-board and dirty fly netting hanging loosely from the roof. Nearby was an array of disused petrol tins built into a three-sided open-air cookhouse, and beyond it, on a drift of soft sand, were four bivouac tents, irregularly dispersed. As I walked over to the lorry, a cloud of flies rose from a dirty porridge stick that lay on the ground. Another swarm buzzed assiduously over a stain in the sand where dirty water had been thrown. The loneliness, poverty and squalor made my heart sink.

  A steel-helmeted sergeant came down the steps to meet me.

  ‘I’m a new operator for you, Sarge,’ I said.

  ‘Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of you,’ he replied, ‘but make yourself at home.’

  ‘Where should I put my kit?’ I asked.

  ‘Just where it is, mate, on the deck. That’s about the only place for it at the moment. Got a bivvy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘My God – but don’t worry. We’ll fix something up. Come and have some dinner.’

  I was hungry and ate with relish. When I was done it was nearly dark. I stretched out my blankets in a roomy dugout that I discovered just a little way from the gharry, and lay down to sleep, thankful to have ended my journey at last and to be done with the exhausting business of dragging two kitbags across the sand in the heat of the day. And about twelve miles away, Rommel’s armies were nursing their new wounds and waiting for the next move.

  Settling in

  The next morning I met the men on the unit and learnt about the work and the life I was to share. 606 was a very small station, one of the smallest in the Western Desert. Its establishment consisted of one sergeant, one corporal, and eight ‘erks’ (Plate 3).8 We possessed only one waggon, the three-ton Crossley, which served as our operational room, stores, dining room and transport (Plate 4). When we were called upon to move to a new site, all our equipment went on board beside us. The sergeant rode in the cab with the driver and the rest of us found seats on top of our miscellaneous luggage. It would have added greatly to our comfort if we had possessed two lorries; but one was adequate, for our belongings were disconcertingly few – an assortment of cooking utensils, five bivvies, kitbags, two petrol engines9 and our bed rolls.

  PLATE 3 ‘Winners of the Desert Line-shooting Trophy. A group of noble erks, 606, September 1942’

  The station had been formed for little more than a month, and very little provision was made for the welfare and convenience of the men. We worked and ate by day in the gharry, smoked the grey unlighted twilight away there and slept in the tiny bivvies. I ought to have been relieved that by the time I reached the unit the German offensive had failed, and that we were left more or less unmolested; but no one knows less about the course of a campaign than those who are in it. I did not know that a great defensive victory had just been won.10 My mind was occupied with more trivial but more immediate problems. And my first few days there were wretched and unhappy, for the more I saw of the living conditions the more dissatisfied I grew. When I was working I had no time to repine, but the leisure hours were tedious. The presence of minefields and the great heat made walking difficult, and the only retreats were the gharry and the bivvies. As for the gharry, it was difficult to sit undisturbed there, for the flies were a constant distraction, swarming on the roof, crawling over hands and face and even walking down the nib of the pen as the fingers held it. The bivvies were fly-proof, but were low, uncomfortable and hot, and scorpions lodged under the walls. We passed the day reading desultorily and waiting for the evening and respite from the flies. But when evening came we possessed only one light and the imperfect blackout left us with no possible occupation except casual conversation.

  Black Book: Tuesday 8 or Wed
nesday 9 September 1942

  I have been at 606 for a few days now – how many I do not know – and hardly care to write about my life here. But here are some notes – picked up by Bert at the DID – rode on his waggon up to his station, had tiffin there – saw a Spitty shot down – came up to 606 – spent first night in a good dugout – the next night on guard in the gharry – the next two nights in the special dugout the sergeant and I dug with our own hands – saw two Hurricanes shot down within a mile of me – experienced two or three raids of a kind – with my heart in my mouth at the first – not so unquiet during the others – have worked like a stoker ever since I came – making our home, digging, filling sandbags, building the walls, roofing, designing – all for protection against these damned strafing MEs and Stukas – made an excellent latrine. What a line to shoot when I get away from here!

  Routine. All meals in the gharry – one half is operations room,11 one half common room – food good – rations supplemented with bought provisions foraged from any canteens within 50 miles of here – nearly every meal disturbed with some panic.

  Five hours watch per day: 6 to 11; 11 to 3.30; 3.30 to 8 or 8.30. Three-hour guard every third night. Rest of time filled in with general duty operations.

  Scorpions, little sand snakes, most venomous and spindly, a kind of centipede, lizards in abundance – pretty palpitating little things that move over the sand with surprising speed – and flies! God, the flies.

  PLATE 4 Unit 606 – the gharry with radar mast on top. Note petrol engine to rotate aerial beside truck

  This was an empty and unprofitable state of affairs and after a few days I began to cast around for a home of my own where I could read and write in comfort. The dugout where I had slept the first night was a model dwelling, but since it was likely to be requisitioned at any moment for the use of any officers who might come to the neighbourhood I could not rely upon it as a permanent home. I decided therefore to make my own house. Being new to the Blue I imagined that even active service would leave me time for study. A veteran would probably not have gone to so much trouble, but being a novice I prepared to live as near as I could to home conditions and reaped benefit from my ignorance.