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

by Grice, Frederick

  PLATE 17 ‘Breakfast in the “green belt” near De Martino’

  The Tocra pass had been blown, and occasionally JU88s8 came over to bomb and strafe the waiting traffic: but nothing troubled us and we were soon at Barce. There the natives came running out with eggs, tomatoes, vegetables, chickens and even primus stoves to sell. But we were in a hurry and the eye had to jump from the eggs to pathetic little ‘civilian’ notices here and there on garden gates, and the foot-high slogans, the Dux, Rex, Credere, Obbedere, Combattere daubed everywhere. These catchphrases were growing familiar now, but Barce’s special lack of reticence was enough to re-excite disgust. ‘Eggis – Eggis – Chai – Eggis’, cried the wogs with an egg in one hand and a protesting rooster in the other; but we could not stop.

  An opportunity to look more closely at a Cyrenaican zone centre came when we stopped for tiffin near Baracca (Plate 18), a little administrative centre between Barce and Benghasi (Fig. 7). These centres were built to act as focal points for the scattered agricultural settlements – totalitarianism’s equivalent of the medieval market town. Some of them were admirably designed. At places like Battisti and Olivetti (Fig. 7) all the communal buildings, clubs, shops, school, church, cinema, and the administrative buildings were built together into one imposing and pleasing unit, excellently shaped geometric blocks, clean, white-faced, and with the monotony of straight lines carefully broken by arches and curves. How strongly they were built, I can’t say: but they were certainly not entirely jerry-built, and their architecture was graceful. It looked, at quick sight anyhow, as if the Italian colonial administrators had tackled the problem of twentieth century village architecture with enlightenment and freedom from convention.

  PLATE 18 Stopping for tiffin near Baracca: Alec (with mug), Cpl Pryce and Sid

  We looked through one of the administrative buildings at Baracca, a big arcaded building with a clean façade and high airy rooms (Plate 19). The furniture was still there. Apart from one large ornate gilt mirror (with a bullet hole through the middle) it was modern and, if not of the best wood, artistically designed. The floors were laid with good-looking polished stone and the bathroom and lavatories of white tile. The rooms had not been stingily furnished and any colonial administrator might have been proud of them.

  PLATE 19 Baracca: abandoned public building with marble floors. Members of Unit 606 in foreground

  The Italians had had to abandon this equipment. We in turn had to leave it. There was enough furniture to set up more than one ambitious couple: but there it was – useless to conquered and conqueror.

  In the afternoon we descended by another fine pass into Tocra (Fig. 7), and after it, the road wandered through well-wooded country to the Mediterranean, visible again. As it unrolled, however, nearer to Benghasi, the land grew level and sandy again. We were re-entering the desert, after a few days’ respite. Looking back I saw the Moorish castle which stands at the head of Tocra pass, coloured like clean wood and gleaming in the sun. Quickly it receded, last image of the beautiful and legendary Cyrenaica which we were leaving behind. From Benghasi Corner (Fig. 7) we saw, away over the bay, the mosques and towers and square biscuit-coloured buildings which we had come now to associate with Italian colonial towns, their colour and shape smudged across with the smoke of two tankers burning in the harbour (one was hit by an American bomber on 6 November, and was still burning on 20 November). We stopped for a few minutes, bought tomatoes from the Arab children on the corner, looked at the burnt and broken Bren-carriers in the hedges, and then drove past the ruins of the Agricultural College and south into the desert again. For Benghasi, supposed site of the Garden of the Hesperides, a quick hail, and a quick farewell.

  As we sped south, my hopes of seeing the gems of Cyrenaica, Cyrene and Apollonia, grew less and less (Fig. 7). Behind me were the Greek Pentapolis, the basilicas of Cyrene, and the caves and tombs of the early Christians who lived there. But the Axis forces were retreating at record speed. They had withdrawn from Fuka to Mersa Brega, near El Agheila (Fig. 8), about seven hundred miles in eighteen days. Already well behind them, we had no time for sightseeing. Regretting having missed Cyrene, but grateful for what we had seen, we hurried on.

  El Agheila

  Two days out of Benghasi, along a straight road driven through arid desert and lined with warning signs ‘Keep 100 yards interval’ – ‘You have been warned’ – ‘Don’t be a bloody fool’ – ‘You will not laugh when Jerry strafes’ – we came to Antelat (Fig. 8), another memorable but undistinguished-looking landing ground – a little smoothed out area in a waste of sand. There we stayed long enough to have another luxurious bath, and to see at closer hand some of the natives. Poor wretches, the sport and pity of three great nations, they came to our encampment to beg for biscuits and food. A few were still gay in their dress and cared-for in their appearance, with a few traces of native finery about them, but most were gaunt and ghostly figures, thin and dirty, wrapped for warmth in soiled grey blankets. When they stood up and drew their cloaks around them, close to the neck and over the shoulder, they looked as lean as the stage witches in Macbeth.

  A few of us went out one day to see their encampment. It was no village but a forlorn collection of drab tents, and as we approached the menfolk came out hastily to bar the way, complaining that for the first time in the war, white soldiers had been molesting their women. It was a puny act of defence, but a show of some kind of honour. Their concern was respected and we withdrew.

  A few days later, we assembled with an escort of armoured cars to go forward to the El Agheila positions (Fig. 8), where the Eighth Army was reinforcing to attack Rommel a second time. El Agheila was an ominous name for all Desert Rats. There, both General Wavell and General Auchinleck had been successfully counter-attacked, and the Mersa Brega defences had never been penetrated. We felt that a decisive engagement was to be looked for, and the sight of Agedabia (no pleasant Italian colonial city, but an ugly native town with ugly folk in it, and made even more ugly by bombing and shelling) set the atmosphere for our advance (Fig. 8).

  Black Book: Friday 4 December

  Off again to the bad lands. There are moments when I feel afraid – I am not afraid to admit it – when I hear we are bound for the bad lands – off right up to the front line – beyond Agedabia…. At times like this, at night, calm, quiet I seem to have conquered fear. I’ll experience it again when the bombs begin to fall.

  Memo – no fags at all now.

  All last night I was sleepless and restless – full of foreboding – yet mindful of Gwen too…. At the end of this day, bedded down, just off the road before El Agheila, dangerously close to enemy lines.

  We encamped in a favourable position, in the bottom of a shallow basin, the sides of which shut out all distant views, but gave us a sense of cosiness and security. Not far away from us were fields of sorghum, ploughed and sprouting, and the soil everywhere was fertile and soft. Soil of this texture and depth was always a godsend to us. We could dig ourselves in without over-strenuous labour, and to be dug in did not only mean extra protection, but also additional living space. With the help of a handy Afrikakorps shovel (found in an abandoned slit trench) I dug myself a capacious pit and stretched my bivvy over it. Then there was almost room to stand. Certainly there was room to install a camp bed and to have a sand-shelf for books and boxes.

  Black Book: Saturday 5 December

  Moved nearer the sea and settled down to a second Alamein existence in a strange little place – a saucer-like depression of half greened-over soil. Feeling that I am to stay here a while, I dig my pit.

  Sunday wakened early in morning by heavy bombing – JU88s over the road. Two of Bofors crew killed and two injured. During the morning under shell fire. An Italian long-range gun began to shell some of our friends9 up on the hill and forced them to move – rather unnerving to hear these walloping big bombs bursting every now and then just over the crest of the hill. A miserable frightened sort of day – but shell fire ceased eventually and
I spent a fine warm night.

  Monday 7 December

  In spite of hard work J. Pryce10 is gone now – I am working one on, two off11 – had a fairly satisfactory day and in partic had a fine walk during the afternoon…. Then a big JU88 came over – all on its own – quite unmolested and we watched it out, out all on its own.

  The desert there was like a garden. There was little grass, and the countryside was only lightly filmed over with verdure: but it was abundant with wild flowers, little yellow flowers with unusual petals, stocks, tall tiger lilies that grew to three feet, vivid marigolds and best of all, desert poppies, deep-damask-centred with petals as fine and diaphanous as a wild rose. When we first arrived they were only in bud, but after a week they all began to open and to beautify the scene with their colours and fragrances. As we had by this time no clock or watch that could be relied on (the dust was in them) I conceived the idea of building a sundial. A stick threw the shadow, and cartridges pushed into the soft sand made the figures. It helped the flowers to give us the feeling of having a garden on our doorstep: but it was of little other use. Our greatest pleasure there was the sea. We knew from the first that it was nearby, and one day I set out to find it. It was a strange walk, over the sandy moorland, across a little plain green with shrubs and weeds, and watched over by a burnt-out Kittyhawk, through a thorny coppice in a gully, where I surprised a flock of sparrows and quail and saw a hare, on to a strange stretch between moorland and water, a ridgy area overdrifted with sand so white that it hurt the eyes, drifted and packed down tight around the roots of bushes till the dying stalks stuck out like thin hair on a bald scalp, and piled in big whalebacked dunes with moulded crests and steep slopes. Near the sea, this moon-white landscape hardened and darkened to redder rock, eroded and laminated in jags and juts, then fell away to the narrow foreshore. This was no pleasure beach. Almost up to the water’s edge the sand was overlaid with layers of seaweed, spat up by the little waves, and packed down like hay in a rick.

  I was disappointed at first with this spongy fringe of weed, but to my delight, I found beyond it a perfectly sea-worthy sailing boat, without oars, but sound and roomy; and beside it a lifebelt, also in good condition. I stayed just long enough to fix the site in my memory, then hurried back with the good news.

  Then began for us a series of happy days. We were well aware of our privations – the poor food, the shortage of water, the absence of news from home – and the greater hardships and daily dangers of the infantry, tank crews, gunners and patrols in front of us, but we were ready to take our fun when it was offered. It was the fortune of our work that at that time there was little to be done, and where there were no weekends or holidays, we took pleasures as they came.

  Day after day we walked the four miles over the moors to the beach. Every day the Mediterranean smiled and was beautiful. Beyond the lapping edge of the little waves, it lay warm and still and pure. Our routine was to drag the boat over the weed, put out about fifty yards from the shore, strip and go overboard. No schoolboy ever enjoyed his forbidden dip in the river more than we our daily plunge. To hot bodies the water was cool, to dirty bodies, cleansing. As we walked back with loads of driftwood for the fire on our backs, we felt as fine and hungry as ten men (Plate 20).

  We had a second little adventure at El Agheila (Fig. 8). When we were not swimming we explored the unmined countryside. Most of our wanderings were in search of water (we were short at that time and what little we had was almost brackish) and it was this quest that led us one day to two native wells lying in the depressions between the coast and the road. The wells were unfortunately dry, but promised to be interesting. Both had footholds cut in the sides and descent did not appear to be difficult. We decided to go down. We chose first the shallower well. The descent was not quite as simple as it looked for halfway down the walls had collapsed, leaving an awkward gap to manoeuvre past; but by using a length of old telephone wire and leaving one man at the mouth of the hole, we managed to descend in safety. As soon as we reached the floor of the well, we found that it was more than a simple shaft. Two openings, one in the northern and one in the southern wall, led into caves by narrow low passages. With torches and a hurricane lamp, we investigated, going with caution, because we could not be sure of the floor and were afraid of falling into deeper shafts; but there was no need for great caution. We found that the first short tunnel led into a commodious domed cave, roughly plastered and supported by a stout central stone pillar. The floor was crawling with beetles, there were black scorpions in the corners, and every now and then a bat flew out of the darkness. Neither the bats nor the beetles were pleasant company, but our attention was soon drawn from them. By the light of our lamp, we perceived that the walls of the cave were decorated with an astonishing assortment of pictures. In one place there was a string of unattended camels each chipped out of the plaster; so that it showed up very white against the dull wall. Then came a series of remarkable charcoal sketches. Some were of geometric patterns, the commonest a design of two interlocked triangles, enclosing a sun symbol.

  PLATE 20 El Agheila: Corporal Pryce, on the left, and Fred foraging

  There were line drawings of gazelles, of naked men carrying spears, and one fairly ambitious series of naked men on horseback hunting small deer. Scenting more discoveries, we investigated the second cave, while the air kept good. It was the counterpart of the first – another domed cave showing no signs of recent occupation, and half-filled with sand; and its walls carried similar drawings. There were more camels, more hunting scenes, a problem picture (probably of a woman carrying water with the help of a yoke and surrounded by a halo) and an interesting but confused sketch of a big three-masted sailing boat. The drawings were very unequal in quality. Some were mere scribbles, copies by inferior workmen: but some were characterized by simplicity and vigour. More than that they were provocative. The human sketches were not of Arabs, but of a people who did not dress in full robes, tall, slim naked men resembling black Africans in their carriage and using native spears.

  What had these caves been used for? Were they cisterns, dwelling places, or merely refuges in time of raid? Who were the artists – and when did they live? Why did they depict Negroid and not Senussi types? In an attempt to find answers for these questions we descended the second well.

  This also turned out to be something more than a well. To the right a tunnel led into a domed cave, but apart from a few rudely chipped figures, it contained nothing new. To the left, another low passage gave access as before to a second cavern, but this time, it in turn, led to a third. Anxious to see everything, we ventured through the second tunnel to find ourselves not in the presence of more carvings, but of bats. There were thousands of them swirling past the unusual light, fluttering in fright up against the roof of the cavern and hanging quivering to the rough wale edges like dirty gloves or pieces of soiled rag. We retired with little ceremony.

  This aspect of the day’s exploring came to a strange conclusion. Cookie, who had never seen a bat before, and whose only ideas of bats came from Dracula, was half scared, half fascinated by them: and in spite of protests, he fired a few rounds of live ammunition down the shaft. He thought he might stun some of them and be able to examine them at leisure. But the following day when we went down again, not a single bat, dead or alive, was to be seen.

  So ended the story of the bats; but the mystery of the cave drawings we have still to solve.

  Marble Arch – Soltan

  On 13 December, Rommel, in danger of being out-flanked and encircled, withdrew from the El Agheila and Mersa Brega positions, and British troops, for the first time in the campaign, invaded Sirtica. The psychological effect of having broken these defences for the first time was enormous. On 19 December we pulled out of our little valley and prepared with confidence to cross the second great desert.

  The famous Italian highway ran from Mersa Brega through enervating country; the only relief to the dreary salt lakes, marshes and low bony ridges was occasio
nal glimpses of the ever-blue sea. One day’s boring journeying brought us over a weary land to that remarkable monument that had been known to the Eighth Army from the beginning of the campaign by the homely name of Marble Arch (Fig. 8).

  Its proper name is Arae Philaenorum, the monument of the Philaeni, and the site on which it stands was marked by other monuments long before General Balbo12 erected this arrogant arch. It was the burial place of the Philaeni brothers, whose story is a curious one. The legend of their death is this: long ago, the Carthaginians, who ruled from Tunis to Sirte, and the Greeks, who had colonized Cyrenaica down to Agedabia, quarrelled about the ownership of mid-Libya, and the war which broke out was as bitter, and seemed as inconclusive as our desert campaign must have appeared to General Auchinleck’s men. Eventually, after a great deal of bloodshed, both parties decided to settle the contest in a curious way.

  Two Greek athletes were to set out from Cyrene, the Greek capital, and make for the no-man’s-land which ran in those days just where Balbo’s arch now stands:13 and at the same moment two Carthaginians were to leave Tunis. It was to be a walking match and the first pair to arrive were to claim the land for their countrymen. The Philaeni brothers, who walked for the Carthaginians, were the first to arrive, but the Greeks refused to abide by the decision, on the grounds that the Carthaginian brothers had cheated by running. To prove their good faith, the Philaeni brothers volunteered to allow themselves to be buried alive, and the Greeks, to test whether their bluff was being called, called them to abide by their word. They did, and they were buried alive. The Greeks were so impressed by this that they withdrew their objection and the grateful Carthaginians raised an arch to commemorate the honour of their athletes.