Tobruk 1941

by Chester Wilmot

  A sapper in Tobruk needed steady fingers and a quick brain. It was his wits against the enemy’s and his life depended on his being able to find and disarm in pitch darkness any one of a dozen German, Italian, British or home-made mines and booby-traps. Not content with this, the engineers brought the enemy’s deadly contraptions back and laid them in front of the Australian positions. Usually they improved them, fitting devices that made them ‘un-delousable’.

  The Australian sappers’ informal methods were in striking contrast to the more systematic approach of the Germans who not only put down minefields in a strictly regular pattern, but made the very laying of them an elaborate parade-ground performance. A captured German manual prescribed the most formal drill. Here is an excerpt:

  Laying of Un-camouflaged or Open Section Minefields

  First Type: Mine-laying from column of threes: one Teller mine to one metre.

  The section commander gives the command: ‘Lay mines without camouflage, from column of threes – Double.’ The left-hand man in each file marches ten paces. The right-hand man marches twenty paces. The centre man in each file remains stationary. All make a right turn. The section commander gives the command: ‘Lay first mine.’

  Execution: Each man lays the mine in his right hand on the ground between his feet . . .

  The section commander then gives the command: ‘Lay second mine.’

  Execution: Each man takes ten paces forward and five paces to the left and lays the mine as before. Each man buries his second mine first, i.e. the mine he laid last and then his first mine.

  No doubt the Germans modified this formal drill when laying minefields in the Salient, but they still put them down in a set pattern, which could be easily followed by the Diggers who merely moved along the line of the field and knew that at regular intervals they would find a mine. The Germans on the other hand had a hard job following Australian minefields. The Diggers were not fussy about accurate spacing or straight lines. If they came to a piece of rocky ground they went round where it was soft. If their pattern was a little cock-eyed, all the better for fooling the enemy. Their drill consisted of little more than – ‘This’ll do. Put ’er in there, mate. She’s right.’

  By the time German sappers had finished, their front in the Salient was covered by one huge minefield, but it would have been foolish for the garrison to presume that, because the Germans had mined themselves in, Tobruk was safe from further attack in this sector. Morshead still felt that the German wedge in the garrison’s western flank was a serious weakness which he must remove before the enemy became strong enough to attack again. As the Germans could not be driven back by thrusting westward, he decided to try once more to pinch off their wedge by simultaneous attacks against the flanks from north and south along the line of the old perimeter. The 2/12th and 2/9th had attempted this on May 3rd before the Germans were firmly established; a fortnight later, the 2/23rd had found that the enemy had consolidated rapidly on the northern flank. Since then the Germans had been working hard for three months to make their positions impregnable. In view of this, it seemed unlikely that another attack by the garrison would have more chance of success.

  Morshead, however, had broader questions to consider. The garrison’s role was to do more than hold on. To keep a large number of Axis troops, and especially Germans, tied up outside Tobruk it had to be aggressive. Moreover, now that Rommel had completed his fortifications in the Salient he might well feel strong enough to man them with Italians. The Germans had to be kept there by threatening their hold on the Salient.

  Morshead was confronted with a difficult decision. Reinforcements were slow in coming and reserves were so low that A.S.C. personnel had already been drafted into infantry battalions. Consequently he could not afford to employ sufficient troops to make success reasonably certain. If he struck and recovered Hill 209, the garrison’s general position would be much stronger, and the regained sector could be held by one battalion instead of the two it was now taking to man the Salient positions. But he had to be sure that the nett strength of the garrison would not be reduced; that the cost of recovering the ground would not be greater than the value of the ground recovered.

  Launching this attack was no easy matter, primarily because of the difficulty of obtaining accurate information about the German strength and dispositions. No air photographs were available and patrols found it hard to get close enough to examine and chart the enemy defences; harder still to get a prisoner, for the Germans sat tight behind their wire and minefields. But the Australians did know that they could not use tanks in this heavily mined area and that any infantry attack would have to be made at night.

  Early in July, Brigadier A. H. L. Godfrey’s3 24th Brigade relieved the 20th in the Salient, and before the end of the month Morshead ordered him to attack the German positions. It was decided to use the 2/43rd Battalion to attack from the south against Posts R7, R6, and R5, while the 2/28th struck at Posts S6 and S7 on the northern flank. In preparation for this, patrols intensified their search for enemy weak spots.

  Several patrols from the 2/43rd penetrated deep into German territory and mapped positions, but how strongly these were held could be ascertained only from a prisoner. After several vain attempts, a patrol of seventeen, commanded by Lieutenant D. C. Siekmann, was sent out on the night of July 27th–28th to secure a prisoner at all costs. The patrol, guided by Sergeant C. H. Cawthorne, worked its way through the German minefields and forward defences without mishap. They had gone 1000 yards beyond these, when Cawthorne saw an enemy party approaching. The Australians went to ground and waited. When the Germans were ten yards away, Cawthorne dashed forward calling on them to surrender. They opened fire – wounding Cawthorne twice – but when the Australians replied, the enemy broke and ran with Cawthorne in hot pursuit. He killed one and grabbed another – an N.C.O. Two more Germans were killed. Aroused by this skirmish, the Germans in the forward positions at once sent out patrols to cut off the Australians’ retreat. They might have succeeded but for Siekmann’s coolness. Spotting the Germans first, he ordered his men to ground and they lay silent for fifteen minutes until the enemy gave up the search. Finally he led his patrol safely back, bringing in two wounded Diggers and the German prisoner.

  In addition to this preparatory patrolling, the 2/43rd’s attack was rehearsed on a specially built model of R7, but until the post was actually attacked no one realized the strength of its defences. This was soon evident when four platoons4 of the 2/43rd, led by Captain L. McCarter, attacked it at 3.30 a.m. on August 3rd. They went in under cover of the most severe artillery barrage the Tobruk garrison had ever laid down. More than fifty guns concentrated on enemy batteries behind Hill 209, and on the positions that the 2/43rd and 2/28th were to attack. In addition, Vickers guns of the Northumberland Fusiliers raked the tops of the enemy posts. This kept the Germans in R7 quiet while Australian sappers and infantry, led by Lieutenant R. P. Tapp, moved in to blow the wire. As soon as the garrison’s barrage began, the enemy replied with heavy shell-fire right along the Salient front, but it was only when the Bangalore torpedoes exploded in the wire surrounding R7 that German machine-guns and mortars opened up in full force.

  As the Bangalores went off, the infantry dashed forward. One platoon, led by Sergeant R. B. Quinn, attacked from the south, but as his leading section reached the wire, the men were silhouetted by enemy flares and machine-gun and mortar fire wiped them out. Quinn’s two other sections got through the wire but ran at once into a minefield fifty yards deep and evidently extending right up to the anti-tank ditch around the post. Only eight men reached the ditch, but from its shelter they carried on a grenade duel with the Germans in machine-gun pits only a few yards away, until all except Quinn and two others had been killed or badly wounded.

  Another platoon – under Lieutenant Siekmann – attacked simultaneously from the east, but did not get far through the wire. A mortar bomb landed in the middle of one section; another suffered crippling casualties on a booby-t
rap field outside the wire. Eventually Siekmann and three other survivors were pinned down short of the post when the Germans laid a heavy barrage right on to R7, regardless of the safety of their own men. Simultaneously machine-guns from positions behind that post turned their fire on to it. The four Australians tried to go on, but when one man was killed and another wounded, Siekmann and the third Digger crawled back dragging the wounded man with them.

  Regardless of the enemy fire, Sergeant Tom Charlton led the reserve platoon in to help Quinn, but less than a dozen of his men reached the anti-tank ditch. From there, however, with Quinn’s few survivors, they fought for nearly an hour to gain the post itself. At last, when he and all his officers and most of his N.C.Os had been wounded, McCarter ordered the survivors to withdraw. Out of the 129 infantry who went in, only 23 came out unscathed. Most of the wounded were brought back before dawn, but there were still more than 30 unaccounted for. Whether they were killed, wounded or captured no one knew, but one of the 2/43rd’s stretcher-bearers, Sergeant Walter Tuit, was determined to find out. About 8 a.m. he was given permission to take a truck, flying a Red Cross flag, into no-man’s land in the hope of recovering some of the casualties. As Tuit told me later:

  We didn’t know what sort of reception we’d get, as almost any truck which came near the perimeter in daylight used to get shelled. But I stood on the bonnet, holding up a big Red Cross flag and hoping for the best. They didn’t fire a shot. When we were 400 yards south of R7 we stopped the truck and I went forward with a stretcher-bearer named Keith Pope, and our padre, Father Gard, followed along behind us. I still had a flag, and when we were about 250 yards from the post, a German stood up with another flag like mine.

  He shouted what sounded like ‘Halten Minen’. We could tell we were on the edge of a minefield because we could see the bodies of thirteen of our chaps lying there. A couple of Jerries came out with an electrical mine-detector and guided a lieutenant and a doctor out to us. I told the officer we wanted to pick up our dead and wounded. He replied in English. ‘Very well, but only one truck and only two men at a time. You must not come closer than this. We will send your wounded out.’

  They brought four wounded and let the truck come up to take them away. Then they carried out the bodies of fifteen dead and helped us with those in the minefield. I told the doctor we were four short and he replied that three of our wounded had been taken away in ambulances early that morning; another, badly wounded, had chosen to stay because his brother had been taken prisoner. When the last of our dead had been brought to us, the lieutenant told me were not to move until they were all back in the post and had taken in their flag. He went back; his men went below. He lowered his flag and I lowered mine. I saluted him, and he saluted back, but he gave me the salute of the Reichswehr, not of the Nazis. Our armistice was over.

  During the day there was some characteristic German showmanship, evidently designed to impress the Diggers with the good conditions under which the Germans were living. Tuit reported that those who came near him were all cleanly and neatly dressed, freshly shaved and with their hair brilliantined. One German ostentatiously had a bath in the open, using plenty of water. Another brought Tuit several drinks – cold tea, sweet Derna water and finally a fresh lemon squash.

  It was no fault of the attacking troops that they failed. The enemy defences proved to be very much stronger than expected, but in spite of this, and of the heavy casualties and early loss of most of their leaders, the troops fought their way courageously through to the posts. So few reached there that they had no chance of success.

  The German account of the attack contained in the records of the 2nd Battalion of the 115th Motorized Infantry Regiment, which was holding this part of the Salient, claims that the Germans lost only four killed and six wounded in R7, but Tuit reported that six enemy ambulances – of a type which carried half a dozen men – came up to R7 during the day. This means that either the German battalion records are wrong or else the ambulances were used to bring up military stores and/or reinforcements.

  Meantime on the northern flank the attack by Captain R. A. E. Conway’s company of the 2/28th had drawn the enemy’s full defensive fire in front of and around S6 and S7, and this took heavy toll of the infantry advancing to storm the posts. The commander of the platoon that went for S6 (Lieutenant J. M. Head) was wounded and half his men became casualties as they approached. They had to advance over a rise, and were thus easy targets in the moonlight. Barely a dozen got to the wire and, even though they fought for more than an hour, they could not bring to bear upon the post and the sangars near it sufficient fire to keep the German machine-guns quiet. The survivors had no chance of reaching S6 and before dawn they withdrew.

  In the meantime two platoons had gone for S7. Wearing rubber-soled desert boots, they had worked their way through the enemy’s lines west of S7 without disturbing his outposts, and had come at it from behind. The barrage under which they advanced was heavy and accurate – so much so that five direct hits were scored on S7 itself. (This and the fact that the troops slipped past the outposts undetected is stated in the records of the 2nd Battalion, 104th Motorized Infantry Regiment, which held this part of the line.) However, the infantry suffered heavily from enemy artillery and mortars as they moved in to attack and, as soon as the wire surrounding the post was blown, they came under fierce machine-gun fire from sangars behind and on either flank of S7. The result was that only Lieutenant H. T. Coppock and two men out of the leading platoon reached the post in the first rush. Some Germans got away before four were killed and six captured.

  Coppock had been ordered to fire a Very light success signal as soon as he reached the post, but when he looked for the flare cartridges, which had been carried in a bag strapped to his back, he found it had been shot away. He could give no signal, and Lieutenant S. C. McHenry’s platoon and Conway’s Company H.Q., which were waiting to come in, hung back. Worse still, two signalmen, who reached the post a few minutes later, having laid a line from the nearest Australian post, S9, found that shell-fire had cut the wire. Coppock immediately sent a man back to contact Conway but he did not get through, and when no help arrived Coppock, although badly wounded, set out himself to obtain assistance.

  He had barely left when Conway with McHenry and the remnant of the latter’s platoon reached the post and found it held by the two signalmen and several of Coppock’s men, who had been wounded but had managed to crawl to the post. Conway at once fired a success signal, but by this time it was nearly light, and when reinforcements tried to reach the post heavy fire stopped them.

  At dawn about sixty Germans attacked but were beaten off, and all that day Conway held on with McHenry, nine fit men, ten wounded and the six German prisoners. The enemy, apparently mindful of his experience on May 17th, did not attack again in daylight, though he did shell and mortar the post, and prevented reinforcements reaching it. It was clear that the Germans were only waiting for nightfall before counter-attacking. Hoping to get help in time, Conway sent the two signalmen (W. G. Delfs and L. L. White) as soon as it was dark to lay a phone line back to S9 and take a message to his C.O., Lieutenant-Colonel J. E. Lloyd. As the signalmen left the post in the moonlight enemy machine-guns opened fire on them, but by wriggling 300 yards on their stomachs and crawling most of the remaining distance, they got through.

  At 9.15 p.m. – even before the signallers reached S9 – Very light signals from S7 indicated that Conway’s small garrison was being attacked. Lloyd tried to send help, but heavy enemy fire between S9 and S7 made this impossible. Before dawn on the 4th, a patrol from the 2/32nd Battalion got nearly to S7, but found the Germans were already strongly re-established there. The attempt to regain S7 and S6 had already cost the 2/28th 82 casualties out of 135 men who went into the attack. It was decided that further losses would be futile. Even if S7 could be recaptured, it could not be held unless the escarpment that ran through the two posts was taken as well. Morshead could not spare sufficient troops to undertake that
task. (The German records state that their casualties in this attack on S7 and S6 were 18 killed and 32 wounded. These are surprisingly low, but as the figures were given in an official document and not a propaganda statement they are probably correct.)

  This was the last attempt the garrison made to re-take the Salient or even to reduce the German hold. The enemy was so strongly established that no direct assault on it would have a chance of success, unless such could be supported by far heavier artillery fire than Tobruk could put down. The German account of the action suggests that the August attack might have succeeded if the Tobruk artillery had concentrated on the heavy machine-guns in the German reserve line, instead of on the Axis artillery behind Hill 209. But what the Australian infantry really needed was sufficient artillery support to neutralize the fire from both field and machine-guns simultaneously. Tobruk did not have enough guns to do that.

  After this failure the garrison concentrated on making its defences as impregnable as the enemy’s. This was a dangerous job. The Germans had built their main line at a time when our nearest posts were 1000 yards or more away; but now the Australians had to work within 500 yards of an enemy whose machine-gunners sprang to action on the slightest provocation. Nevertheless, during its last spell in the Salient in August and September, Tovell’s 26th Brigade did magnificent work laying new minefields and re-wiring the whole sector.

  This task was carried out with particular energy by the 2/24th Battalion. Deeply concerned because they had been holding Hill 209 when the Germans broke through, Spowers and his men were determined that by the time they had finished work on the line no German would ever get through again. The 2/24th had a spell in each sector of the Salient during this period, and it completed the rewiring and mining of most of its positions. It was hard and hazardous work as is shown by these comments of Captain A. W. Oakley, who was second-in-command of a company: