During this time we put a triple concertina fence round most of the 6000-yard Salient front, and dog-legged it, so that our machine-guns could fire down the legs of the wire. Then we laid blocks of mines on our side so that German delousing parties could not easily get at them. To make things harder, we covered the minefield with a maze of trip-wires and booby-traps.
The hardest part was dog-legging the wire, for we were holding the outside of a semicircle and we had to be careful that we didn’t direct fire from one of our posts on to another. The only way we could fix the line of the wire was to take compass bearings on tracers or flares fired straight up into the air from the posts and from the angles in the wire. As all this had to be done at night amid a tangle of old wire, mines and booby-traps, with the enemy only 150 to 500 yards away, it was no easy task. In our company alone we had four officers and about 25 men killed or wounded by mines and booby-traps, and a number of other casualties from enemy fire in four weeks. One night on a reconnaissance two officers were killed and my O.C., Bill Sheehan, was badly wounded when a ‘jumping-jack’ mine exploded. Sheehan was hurried back to hospital with such severe wounds in the lung that our M.O. gave him little chance. But that same night he drew a plan of all the ground he had covered and sent it out to me by ‘Don R’. His action saved us nights of reconnaissance and no doubt a number of lives as well. By some miracle Sheehan recovered. Without his plan we should never have finished the task we’d set ourselves – the wiring of our company’s front before we were relieved.
The Australians, however, did not rest content with strengthening their defences. They maintained the upper hand by severe fire from weapons most of which had been captured. The Germans fought strongly back, especially with their mortars, which were so accurate that they frequently landed bombs right into Australian machine-gun pits. Unfortunately these could not be effectively answered by British mortars, which had a comparatively short range. To be of any real value they had to be fired from the forward infantry posts, but as soon as one opened up it ‘drew the crabs’.
Tobruk, however, had a number of captured Italian mortars, with nearly three times the range of the British weapons. By using these dug-in behind the front line, the garrison managed to keep enemy mortars fairly quiet without drawing retaliation on our forward infantry. Before this was done, however, the morale of the troops suffered considerably because they had nothing with which to hit back at the weapon that caused most casualties. German mortars were particularly active at night, but at first artillery was not used to counter them since night firing gave away the gun positions. In the later months a few guns were moved into special pits each night, and from these fired on the flashes of enemy mortars with considerable success.
To keep the Germans on the defensive the 26th Brigade severely blitzed any positions that became troublesome. In these harassing shoots one small German strongpost would be plastered with machine-gun, mortar and artillery fire for fifteen to twenty minutes. The moral effect of these sudden and heavy concentrations on a small area was greater than that of the enemy’s widespread and incoordinated fire. By systematically dealing with each strongpoint in turn, the garrison forced the Germans to move position repeatedly and to keep relatively quiet.
By these tactics the Australian gained a moral advantage which had very important material results. Apart from covering their front by fixed-line fire, the Germans in later months seldom opened up except in retaliation. In country where movement was possible only at night and over ground swept by hostile machine-guns, the side that ‘called the tune’, as the Australians did, had a great advantage.
In spite of the record of Gallipoli, Australians have been popularly regarded as attacking troops who lack the patience necessary for prolonged defence. This view was confounded by the Diggers who held the Tobruk Salient. The weeks they spent there were made up of days of boring, cramped, sweltering idleness; nights of watching, working and firing. The Diggers hated the job but they stuck it out. The full measure of their success was not known until certain German documents fell into our hands. These included a report by Major Ballerstedt, C.O. 2nd Battalion, 115th Motorized Infantry Regiment, which held part of the Salient. It ran:
The Australians, who are the men our troops have had opposite them so far, are extraordinarily tough fighters. The German is more active in the attack, but the enemy stakes his life in the defence and fights to the last with extreme cunning. Our men, usually easy-going and unsuspecting, fall easily into his traps, especially as a result of their experiences in the closing stages of the European Campaign.
The Australian is unquestionably superior to the German soldier: i. In the use of individual weapons, especially as snipers. ii. In the use of ground camouflage. iii. In his gift of observation, and the drawing of correct conclusions from his observation. iv. In using every means of taking us by surprise.
Enemy snipers achieve astounding results. They shoot at anything they recognize. Several N.C.Os of the battalion have been shot through the head with the first bullet while making observations in the front line. Protruding sights in gun directors have been shot off, observation slits and loopholes have been fired on, and hit, as soon as they were seen to be in use (i.e. when the light background became dark). For this reason loopholes have been fired on, and hit, as soon as they were seen to be in use (i.e. when the light background became dark). For this reason loopholes must be kept plugged with a wooden plug to be taken out when used so that they always show dark.
The enemy shoots very accurately with his mortars. He generally uses these in conjunction with a sniper, or machine-gun. The greatest mistake in such cases is to leave cover and try to withdraw over open ground. It is necessary to dig several alternative positions connected by crawl trenches.
This tribute does much to explain why the Australians were able to keep the Germans on the defensive. It shows, too, why Rommel felt it necessary to build such strong fortifications in the Salient and to pack them with so many of his best troops. After the 20th Brigade shortened the line in June, the garrison held it with only two battalions. On the other hand, even though Rommel had the advantage of stronger ground and defences, he had to man the Salient with three motorized infantry battalions, and to hold two companies of special troops and one tank battalion in reserve.
From captured documents we now know that the Germans held the Salient in very considerable depth from their front line posts right back to Hill 209. The documents show that from May until mid-August the Germans had in the Salient the 2nd Battalion of the 115th Motorized Infantry Regiment on the southern flank, this Regiment’s 1st Battalion in the centre, and the 104th Regiment’s 2nd Battalion on the northern flank. In support they had two ‘Oasis Companies’ – special desert troops of the Afrika Korps – one battalion of the 5th Tank Regiment, the 115th Artillery Regiment and one battalion plus two companies of anti-tank guns. The defences of the Salient were constructed by the 33rd Engineer Battalion, which began to straighten the line on May 19th and finished the job by June 1st. Almost immediately the Germans abandoned the area east of this new line, but in this territory the German engineers left 2300 anti-tank mines and 1750 anti-personnel mines and booby-traps. In mid-August, the three original infantry battalions were relieved by three new battalions of the 90th German Light Division, and so long as Australians held the Salient no Italians were put into the line opposite them.
Covering the 5300-yard front they eventually held between R7 and S7, the Germans had more than 200 machine-guns and 72 anti-tank guns. Half of these were crammed into their frontline posts, giving them a machine-gun for every 50 yards and an anti-tank gun for every 150. Even with all its captured weapons the garrison never had such heavy fire-power as this, but what it had, it used to excellent advantage.
Potentially the Salient was a dagger in the side of the Tobruk garrison just as the garrison itself was a dagger in the side of the Axis forces in Cyrenaica. But from June onwards the Salient did not prove the embarrassment to Morshead that
the Tobruk garrison did to Rommel. The Germans in the Salient were forced on to the defensive; the Tobruk garrison, operating against Rommel’s flank, never ceased twisting the dagger. The cost to the Germans of holding the Salient might have been worth while if it had kept the rest of the garrison quiet. But Tobruk’s answer to this threat was not static defence but increasing aggression on every other sector of the front.
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1 Captain S. M. Gahan, Perry’s second-in-command, the company sergeant-major, W. G. Morrison, and the survivors of Jess’s platoon had been left in S6 when the others went on to S4. When Gardiner’s platoon was held up, Gahan took a section from S6 to help him, leaving Morrison in the post with twenty-six men.
2 The 2/15th Battalion, for instance, in five weeks had 24 men killed and 69 wounded, even though it made no direct attack on enemy positions.
3 Godfrey, who had commanded the 2/6th Battalion during the 6th Division’s attack on Bardia and Tobruk, had been appointed to command the 24th Brigade in February. He led it with great distinction at Tobruk and El Alamein. His death in action there was a sore loss to the A.I.F., for he was one of its finest and most popular leaders. Serving with the 5th Division in the last war he won the M.C. and in this war was awarded the D.S.O. and Bar.
4 There are three platoons – nominally with 36 men in each – to an infantry company, but these were below strength and only 129 of the 2/43rd were engaged.
CHAPTER 15
SALIENT SCENES
HOLDING the Salient was a matter of patience as much as courage, for boredom and discomfort were persistent enemies. In the pages that follow I have set down what I saw and heard while living for several days among the troops who held these positions.
ROOM WITHOUT BATH
All day we lay in a dug-out just big enough for three Diggers and me stretched out. Four feet above us was a roof of corrugated iron resting on sleepers and over that sandbags, earth and bits of camel-bush, which made the top of the dug-out just one more piece of desert to German snipers scanning the level plain from 500 yards away. The late afternoon sun beat down on the sandbags. We were clammy with sweat. The wind died away and dust stopped drifting in through the small air vent and the narrow low doorway that led to the crawl trench outside. The air was heavy with dust, cigarette smoke and the general fug we’d been breathing in and out for the past thirteen hours. We waited for darkness when we could stretch our legs and fill our lungs with fresh, cool air, and the troops could crack at the Hun who had been lying all day in his dug-out, too.
Every so often we’d hear the rumble of guns, and shells would whistle high overhead. The gunners were having their evening ‘hate’, but the enemy’s shells were landing well back. His machine-guns had been silent since dawn. Even his mortars had not been landing with their usual unheralded crump around our forward posts. It had been a quiet day – like so many since the hard battles in the Salient in May.
I woke about seven in the evening and started to scratch. I seemed to be itching all over – the itchiness of being dirty. You get that way after the flies and fleas have been at you all day. You don’t know whether you’ve been bitten or not, and you just scratch as a matter of routine. In the far corner Mick was doing a bit of hunting. He had his shirt off. Seriously, deliberately he ran his thumb nail under the seam and a slow smile of success spread across his face. ‘Got you, you little–––. That makes four less anyway!’
Over by the phone Ernie, the platoon commander, was censoring letters, which had to go back to Company H.Q. with the ration party after dark. He was only a sergeant and should not have been exercising an officer’s privilege of censoring letters, but his battalion (the 2/24th) was still so short of officers that this rule was not strictly observed in the case of platoon commanders whose commissions were about to come through any day.
Ernie had shaved since lunch and then ‘bathed’ in his shaving water. He said he felt a new man. The phone beside him buzzed. ‘Ernie here,’ he said, ‘. . . Say again . . . oh . . . ammo. . . . Send us up 500 Bren and 500 Breda . . . yeah . . . got plenty o’ smokes . . . an’ look, what’s the ration with that writin’ paper? . . . What? . . . Three envelopes and eight sheets a man . . . an’ I got to censor the lot . . . O.K. . . . What? . . . Oh, pretty quiet down here . . . not even enough to make life interestin’ . . . No, nothin’ else – not unless you got some bloody beer.’
Beer? Even Charlie woke up at that; a Queensland miner, he still had a miner’s thirst. He didn’t do very well on a water-bottle a day. ‘Beer,’ he said, ‘there ain’t no such thing. I ’aven’t ’ad four beers in the last six months, and we won’t get no more now till they get us out of ’ere; an’ Gawd knows when that’ll be.’
Mick chipped in again – ‘I know what I’ll do when I get out. I’m going to a pub and I’m going to have a hot bath and splash the water all over the floor – I’m going to waste it. Then I’ll drain out the mud and fill the bath again with clean water and I’ll lie there and wallow. And while I’m lying there they can bring me iced beer. And when I’ve had enough of the bath, and I’ve had a feed, I’ll just get into bed and they can bring me beer and more beer. I’ve got a six months’ thirst!’
Charlie broke in – ‘Well, if you was given the choice of beer or a bath right now, what’d you pick?’
‘I’d rather have a bath,’ said Ernie. ‘One beer now’d only take the dust off my throat. Even a bottle wouldn’t do any real good. I’d rather get clean in a decent bath and get on some clean clobber instead of the lousy things that you live in here day and night till you stink.’
They all agreed with Ernie, but right then a cup of tea would have done. We hadn’t had one all day. We didn’t have a primus and we couldn’t light a fire. The enemy hadn’t picked up this post and the boys didn’t want to give him a trail of smoke on which to lay his machine-guns.
We’d been up all night and during the day the flies and fleas had done their best to stop us sleeping. We’d had a quiet night, but the troops were still weary. The tucker had been late getting up from the company cook-house, and the bully stew and tea were almost cold by the time they reached the forward posts. The carrying party had been held up by enemy machine-guns firing during those few hours just after dark when there was almost a gentleman’s agreement not to fire at all, so that both sides could get their evening meal.
Usually from dark until midnight you could safely move around the Salient posts, but about twelve o’clock the fun started. By day you couldn’t move at all. In the dead flat desert the machine-gunners and snipers on both sides could see every move. And so for thirteen hours of daylight both sides lay quiet and fought vermin and boredom. In most parts you couldn’t even stand up, for the unyielding Libyan rock made the digging of deep trenches impossible in this sector. This meant that you lay in a stuffy dug-out all day and sat in a cramped shallow weapon pit all night. You might stretch your legs going back to Company H.Q. after dark to guide the ration party forward. That was exercise but it was no pleasure stroll, for you never knew when the Hun would forget the rules and start sweeping the desert with machine-guns.
You couldn’t dig communication trenches leading back to Company and Battalion H.Q., as in France during the last war, and for hundreds of yards back behind the front there was no dead ground to give you cover. In fact, most of the time you were safer in the front line posts than walking about on the plain. You might also find some exercise in working on the posts at night – repairing the wire or digging deeper weapon pits and trenches; but you couldn’t do much between bursts of fire. You had to keep the upper hand by giving the Germans more than burst for burst. Some nights these private machine-gun battles developed into willing combats with fire from mortars and artillery added. During the night you took your turn in the listening post a couple of hundred yards out in no-man’s-land – lying in an 18-inch trench; straining your eyes and ears; slowly growing numb with cold. Then came the stand-to, and you waited for dawn with its uneasy quiet.
There was little to do in the drawn-out daylight hours in a muggy, cramped dug-out. You could try to make up for lost sleep; or write a few letters – only there wasn’t much to tell; or read a well-thumbed magazine or book that was lying round the dug-out – but you’d probably read them before; you could smoke cigarette after cigarette – if you had enough. The supply was better than it had been – fifty a week as an issue; perhaps another fifty from the canteen or the Comforts Fund. But you needed every cigarette you could get when time hung heavy on your hands.
Boredom and discomfort took your appetite away. You had a hot meal at night. That was usually fairly good – these days anyhow – bully-beef stew with vegetables; tea and a pudding, sometimes stewed fruit. But for other meals you couldn’t cook anything. If you didn’t possess a primus – and few posts did – you just had bread and marg., jam and cheese, washed down with chlorinated water for breakfast and lunch.
Usually you didn’t feel hungry enough to tackle the ration of cold bully, let alone the cold tinned bacon or salt herrings. There were about twenty tins of these stacked in a corner of the dug-out.
Tobruk 1941 Page 27
