Tobruk 1941

by Chester Wilmot

  Half an hour later came the real German attack. Sixteen tanks approached line abreast, in two waves, with thirty or forty lorries laden with troops behind them. As they advanced towards the main pass, four armoured cars swung to the right, guided by an Arab who flashed a petrol tin in the late afternoon sun at the mouth of a wadi that was neither mined nor covered by our infantry. These armoured cars succeeded in climbing the escarpment, but the old Italian antitank ditch stopped them from getting behind the troops in the pass.

  Meantime, Handley’s company was heavily engaged with the main enemy force. The minefield, having already been blown up, was no barrier to the tanks’ advance, and the fire from the four British howitzers was not enough to stop them. As the tanks reached the bottom of the pass, the Australians in sangars on the escarpment-face came under heavy fire from machine guns and 37 mm and 75 mm cannon. The shells smashed through the stone walls of the sangars, but the Diggers fought back with Brens and their solitary anti-tank rifle, even though their fire was ineffective.

  Several tanks drove up the road but at one point engineers had prepared it for blowing. As the leading tank reached there Handley fired the charge; the road went up taking the tank with it, but the explosion was so violent that it blew down the neighbouring sangars, and the forward platoon had to withdraw to the top of the pass. Undeterred by the fate of the leading tank, the next two worked round the blown road and continued through the pass, firing at the infantry as they went but not stopping to clean them up. The Australians held on, waiting for the German infantry and hoping that the guns would deal with the tanks.

  At the foot of the escarpment the German infantry jumped from their lorries amid steady fire from artillery, small arms and mortars. The crew of one mortar kept this up so constantly that the weapon almost shook to pieces. Eventually it could only be fired with one man gripping the barrel and another lying flat across the base-plate to steady it. But the crew kept it in action and eventually the Germans were dissuaded from pressing their direct attack up the pass. Their infantry sheered off and worked round the flanks of Handley’s company.

  His men clung to their positions as long as they could, and fought a yard-by-yard withdrawal. One platoon was nearly enveloped, but its commander (Sergeant Roy Simmonds) held on and sent a runner back to ask Handley if he might ‘withdraw a little as the position is precarious’. Unfortunately the platoon stayed so long that only five men out of thirty got back.

  Finally Handley’s company was forced to retire behind the antitank ditch at the top of the pass. There it held on and the reserve company was sent to stop the enemy’s outflanking movement on the right, while ‘B’ Company was withdrawn to cover the left flank. Meantime the two tanks that had come up the pass were checked by the anti-tank ditch. They cruised up and down behind it, blazing away and searching for a crossing.

  Just as they seemed likely to get through, four 18-pounders of the 51st Field Regiment came down the road from Barce. They swung off into action positions, but two of them were knocked out by the tanks before they fired a shot. The others destroyed one tank, but they too were silenced by the second. The second tank was disabled by Boyes rifle fire and a lone Digger (Private S. Eland) dashed forward with a Bren and forced the crew to surrender.

  With their tanks silenced, the German infantry were held in check chiefly by the howitzers, and, as darkness fell, the main body of Germans paused to consolidate west of the anti-tank ditch. It was fortunate that they did so, for the howitzers by then had run out of ammunition. Under cover of darkness the 2/13th continued to withdraw, only to find that Germans were behind them and had machine-guns covering the road. From there, however, the enemy was driven back at bayonet point, and the road was cleared.

  It was nearly 11 p.m. before the transport arrived, but the Germans did not press on in the dark and the laden trucks headed north for Barce without interference. These trucks carried eighty-two men less than the trucks that had brought the battalion there. It was unfortunate that the action had to end in withdrawal, but the 2/13th and the British gunners had done all that was asked of them. They had given the rest of the force time to get away.

  All through that night on the way to Barce and beyond, ‘fifty miles of road was choked with fleeing vehicles and men,’ wrote one member of the 2/17th Battalion later. ‘When speed was all that mattered, the best that could be achieved was ten miles an hour. It was dark and, in spite of the crush, very lonely on the road. In the early hours of the morning Barce was ablaze. . . . The Senussi were looting the town. . . . The night was urgent and full of fear. We scrambled into new positions and looked down on Barce as we had looked down on Bengazi. Fear left us . . . this time we would fight.’

  That was their hope, but everything depended on what happened on the desert flank. No one at ‘Cyrcom’ next day, April 5th, was sure what was happening. It was out of touch with the 3rd Armoured Brigade, but there was a large column heading eastwards for Mechili – ours or theirs? That afternoon the R.A.F. reported it was British and on the morning of April 6th Neame met Morshead and told him that a line was to be held on the escarpment overlooking Barce.

  An hour after Neame left, O’Connor rang from ‘Cyrcom’ to say that the Germans had shelled Mechili that morning and were there in force. Morshead at once suggested that the 9th Division should withdraw to Gazala, thirty miles west of Tobruk. As Neame had not returned to ‘Cyrcom’, however, O’Connor was reluctant to reverse Neame’s orders, and thought it wiser in any case not to move until dark, because of the probability of Axis air attack. Morshead persuaded him that this risk had to be taken. There was not a moment to lose for the 9th Division was in grave danger of envelopment. The Germans at Mechili were only forty-eight miles south of Derna; most of the 20th and 26th Australian Brigades were more than a hundred miles west of Derna. Rommel had a first-class chance of cutting off the whole force by a bold thrust north to Derna or to the coast road at Tmimi – sixty miles due east. The fate of the 9th Division now hung chiefly on what happened at Mechili.

  The rump of Gambier-Parry’s 2nd Armoured Division had been ordered to Mechili to guard that flank; the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, the 3rd Australian Anti-Tank Regiment (less two batteries) and the 3rd R.H.A. (Anti-Tank) Regiment had been sent from Tobruk to rendezvous with Gambier-Parry there. The Indians and the anti-tank regiments had reached Mechili on April 4th expecting the British tanks to meet them, but the column that appeared from the west on the morning of the 6th was not British but German.

  The enemy shelled Mechili that morning. In the afternoon he placed troops astride the main tracks leading north and east and in the evening sent a German officer to demand surrender. The demand was refused but, as the German was not blindfolded before he was brought to the Indian Brigade H.Q., he probably learned all he wanted to know about the strength of the force.

  That night Gambier-Parry slipped in through the loose enemy cordon, bringing his H.Q., two tanks and some of his unarmoured units. Apparently no one knew where the rest of his division was, but it was found later that the 3rd Armoured Brigade, which was to have withdrawn across the desert to Mechili, had been forced by lack of petrol to cut north to the main road. The fuel shortage was due to two disasters. Near Msus a convoy of trucks laden with petrol had been shot up by German planes and the main dump at Msus itself had been destroyed in error. The officer in charge of it had orders not to let the petrol fall into enemy hands and, mistaking some British tanks for German, had blown up thousands of gallons.

  This was not known at Mechili and all through April 7th the troops waited for the rest of the 2nd Armoured Division, and the enemy drew his cordon tighter. In the late afternoon the perimeter formed by the Anglo-Indian forces around the old Italian fort was heavily shelled, but there was no attack. At 1.30 next morning, however, Lieutenant-Colonel E. E. Munro, C.O. of the 3rd Anti-Tanks, was told that the force was to fight its way out at dawn in a series of columns. His regiment and the 18th Indian Cavalry would form one of these.

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p; Cloaked by the half-light of dawn and the dust swirled up by the vehicles, this column struck out south-east with weapons firing from lurching trucks. The enemy fired back into the dust-cloud they raised. No one knew where they were going; each vehicle followed the dust-trail ahead until it had run through the belt of enemy fire. The bulk of this column broke out, and so did another, including most of the 3rd R.H.A., but Gambier-Parry and his H.Q. together with Munro and 108 men of the 3rd Anti-Tank Regiment did not. Most of them were taken prisoner after a sharp engagement, in which one Australian gun, commanded by Sergeant R. L. F. Kelly, put out of action six German tanks before it and its crew were knocked out by a direct hit.

  Soon the Nazi swastika was flying over the ruins of Fort Mechili, but this strange mix-up did achieve something. The two days the Germans paused there were those on which the 9th Division got back to Gazala. It was in great peril, however, for there was not enough transport to move all the troops at once, and the desert flank was dangerously open. As soon as it was known that the Germans were at Mechili the 2/13th was ordered to withdraw to Martuba, fifteen miles south-east of Derna, and to cover the track leading in from Mechili. The 2/48th was sent to Tmimi to block the track from Mechili that joined the coast road there.

  About dark on April 6th the 2/13th reached Martuba, travelling in huge Italian Diesel trucks packed so tight that some men even travelled on the roofs. It reached there just in time to check the advance elements of a German reconnaissance column that came up the road from Mechili. There was no time or opportunity to dig-in in the hard rock, so the Australians took up positions among the ruins of old stone houses that flanked the road leading through the Martuba oasis. When the Germans found the oasis was held, they became cautious and did not attempt to cut through to the main road.

  The troops withdrawing past Derna had the choice of two routes. One led through the town itself and the other by-passed it by making a short cut straight across the desert. To avoid congestion on the coast road that descended and climbed two very steep cliffs, some units were ordered to take the desert track, which was also considerably shorter. For this last reason O’Connor and Neame decided to take this route, as they hurried eastwards. Somewhere along that track on the night of the 6th they were evidently warned that Germans were astride it near Martuba, so they turned down a side track leading to Derna. Bumping along in the darkness the driver of the general’s big blue sedan saw the two trucks ahead of him stop short. He stopped too. Someone brandished a tommy gun; someone else spoke in German. The generals were in the bag. They did not know it then, but they had been captured by a German officer and three men.1

  Part of the 9th Divisional H.Q. nearly went the same way. One of its convoys – including the office trucks of the Intelligence, Operations and Cipher sections, complete with files, codes, and records – was challenged by a German who shoved a tommy gun into the face of the leading driver. The German rapped out an order but the unruffled Digger said, ‘I don’t get yer lingo, mate, go round the other side and talk to the boss.’ The German did. He ordered the officer from the front seat and the other passengers from the back of the truck. They all got out, except one – Lieutenant L. K. Shave. He lay doggo until the German moved to the next truck. Then Shave followed him, shot him, rallied the party, and drove off into the night. It had been a daring piece of bluff on the German’s part, for the man with the tommy gun had held up the convoy alone.

  During the night forty-one members of the 2/8th Field Ambulance were also ambushed and captured on this desert track. Soon after dawn the Germans got their largest haul, when eighteen of their tanks surprised Lieutenant-Colonel R. F. Marlan and the H.Q. of his 2/15th Battalion, as well as part of the 8th Light A.A. Battery, which had stopped for breakfast. Four A. A. guns tried to fight the Germans off, but when two of them were knocked out and the enemy worked round both flanks the position became hopeless. The whole party was captured – the 2/15th having eight officers and about 175 men taken prisoner, and the 8th Light A.A. Battery losing an officer and 40 other ranks.

  The losses might easily have been much more severe. As it was, the remaining units were clear of Derna soon after dawn on April 7th, and the 2/13th pulled out from Martuba at noon. As they left, however, they saw German tanks closing in on the oasis from the desert side. By this time another enemy column was threatening the coast road near Tmimi – sixty miles west of Tobruk – but a covering force, under Brigadier R. W. Tovell2 (Commander 26th Brigade) held it off while units farther west passed through. That night the 9th Division’s rearguard reached Gazala. Next morning, under cover of a heavy duststorm, the troops pulled back to Acroma, only five miles from the Tobruk perimeter.

  Just before they turned off the road they passed a landmark which told them that Tobruk was not far away. It was one of the little white roadhouses the Italians had built every twenty miles or so along the coast road. This one the Diggers all remembered, for it was distinguished by a huge sign. At first sight that morning the sign must have seemed a mirage, for it showed a foaming glass and a bottle of Australian beer, and carried the inscription: ‘KEEP GOING – fill up in town. A good drink but bloody hard to get.’ It drew from many tired and thirsty troops who drove past a chorus of ‘You’re telling us!’

  The troops who reached Acroma that morning owed much to the Air Force. They could never had withdrawn so swiftly or so successfully if it had not been for the R.A.A.F.’s No. 3 Squadron, commanded by Squadron-Leader Peter Jeffrey, and (in the last few days) the R.A.F.’s No. 73 Squadron. Every day for more than a week the pilots of No. 3 kept their Hurricanes in the air from dawn till dark, coming down only for fuel and ammunition. They patrolled the roads; fought off German aircraft; strafed enemy troops, tanks and transport. By doing so they checked his moves and speeded up our own. The Luftwaffe appeared in force only twice during the withdrawal and each time it was severely defeated by No. 3 Squadron, which shot down twenty-one enemy planes in a week. After losing ten of these in one scrap the Germans kept clear of the Hurricanes.

  This fighting withdrawal was as much a strain on the ground crews as on the pilots. By day they serviced aircraft; by night they moved in lumbering wagons to new dromes so as to be ready at dawn to service the Hurricanes. In six days No. 3 Squadron had seven moves. One of these was delayed until enemy tanks were only a few miles away. The night the 2/13th pulled out from Er Regima, the squadron was at a landing ground only fifteen miles away. Well after dark Jeffrey received orders to move back immediately. He sent his ground crews out that night, but the pilots could not move till dawn. Even then they were lucky to get one of their planes away. It had blown out a tyre, but its pilot (Flying-Officer Peter Turnbull) packed the tyre with grass and a blanket and made it fit for the take-off. But for these pilots and those of No. 73 Squadron the Luftwaffe could have turned its full weight against the roads packed with transport, and escape might have become impossible.

  The duststorm on the 8th, which covered the Australians’ withdrawal to Acroma, delayed the German advance and gave the hard-pressed commanders time to take stock. That day outside Tobruk the 26th and 20th Brigades dug rough defensive positions. Two other Australian brigades (the 24th and 18th) were manning part of the old Tobruk perimeter. (The 18th Brigade – part of the 7th Division – had been rushed up from Alexandria by road and sea.) At El Adem, sixteen miles south, Brigadier W. E. H. Gott had the 7th Armoured Division’s Support Group.3 The only other troops between Rommel and the Nile were the 22nd Guards Brigade (motorized infantry) at Matruh and a Polish brigade at Alexandria. There was no news from Mechili, but it was clear that the 2nd Armoured Division was finished. All these forces combined did not have thirty tanks. Heading east across Cyrenaica Rommel had nearly 300.

  Without an adequate armoured force and supporting artillery – especially anti-tank guns – no stand could be made in the open desert. The British and Australian troops had either to withdraw inside Tobruk or pull right back to the frontier. There was in Cyrenaica, however, no commander w
ho could make that decision, Neame and O’Connor having been captured, but it was already clear that any withdrawal beyond Tobruk would be almost impossible because there was not sufficient transport to move even a third of the troops. In anticipation of a stand being made at Tobruk, the area commander, Colonel T. P. Cook, was strenuously organizing the defence of the Fortress, but no final decision as to the holding of it had been made when news was received that General Wavell and Major-General J. D. Lavarack (G.O.C. 7th Australian Division) were coming up from Cairo.

  In a fierce duststorm on the morning of April 8th a Lockheed Lodestar, carrying Wavell and Lavarack, landed on the Tobruk drome. The two previous days in Cairo had been a time of difficult and anxious decision. At a crucial conference on the 6th, General Wavell, General Sir John Dill, Mr Anthony Eden, Admiral Cunningham and Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore (Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, R.A.F., M.E.) had decided that if possible Tobruk should be held. Following this, Wavell determined that the balance of the 7th Australian Division should go to Matruh instead of to Greece and that Lavarack should succeed Neame as commander in Cyrenaica and go to Tobruk at once.

  In a battered house in Tobruk on the 8th, Wavell and Lavarack met Morshead, Lloyd and the senior surviving officer of ‘Cyrcom’ (Brigadier G. Harding). Harding outlined the position and asked whether they were to hold Tobruk. Wavell did not reply at once. He took out his eye-glass, polished it, and asked for a map. He studied this for a few minutes and then announced that Lavarack was to take command in Cyrenaica and that a stand was to be made at Tobruk. ‘There is nothing,’ he said to Lavarack, ‘between you and Cairo.’

  Then he took three sheets of notepaper and pencilled for Lavarack these brief, broad, and none-too-optimistic instructions: