The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz

by Denis Avey

  The weather was making it hard too. Visibility was terrible in the endless blast of sand and dust, then we would run into an icy rain storm. The commanders got the worst of it, standing in the backs of trucks like desert mariners, frozen stiff. We were soon running dangerously short of fuel. At the best of times the carriers did five miles to a gallon. On this bad ground it was more like one or two and the crashing around was springing leaks in our spare cans. If the fuel tanks got close to empty, the dregs of sand in the bottom would be sucked into the carburettor and we would shudder to a halt. We were running short of water too, getting by on just a glass per man per day.

  Near Msus, sixty or seventy miles from the coast, the column closed up. Our aircraft had run out of spare engines, but one single working Hurricane reported a long column of Italian vehicles heading south from Benghazi.

  We were given new orders. The tanks and carriers couldn’t travel fast enough. They quickly put together a special force in the faster vehicles to race south-west and block the Italians’ way. Two thousand of us were chosen for this ‘Combeforce’, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel John Combe of the 11th Hussars. We left the carriers behind to follow up later.

  I picked up belts of ammunition and my bedroll and I climbed into the back of the nearest truck, leaving everything else behind in the carrier. By 1300 hours we were rolling again, this time more quickly.

  We had to stop at nightfall because the Italians had spread thermos bombs across our path. They were nasty little cylinders shaped like a vacuum flask but they were no picnic. We were moving again by sunrise, tearing along on a compass course to cut the road at Sidi Saleh, engines boiling. The desert was giving way to a more forgiving landscape, with a little more greenery and signs of cultivation. We were emerging from the wilderness into what had once been the granary of the Roman Empire.

  Three Italian fighters dropped out of the sky at a brief rest halt, machine guns blazing. We hit the ground but the scream of propeller engines soon became a distant drone. They had achieved nothing but someone knew we were here. Given that the dash had been designed to take the Italians by surprise, it was worrying.

  In the early afternoon, about 1400 hours, we reached the road near the derelict village of Beda Fomm. In almost a day and a half we had covered around 160 miles over some of the roughest ground the desert could throw at us. Not only that, we could see nothing coming from the north. We had got there before the Italians but, as it turned out, only just.

  The road ran through sandy ground with low ridges running north–south. The sea and the coastal dunes were two miles to our west. We were working hard to get the guns deployed across both sides of the road. Captain Tom Pearson was in charge and he began to lay a minefield. We barely had time to dig in before the enemy showed up in force.

  The first Italians came into view and imagine how they felt. They thought the nearest enemy was at least a hundred miles away so they were convinced the vehicles ahead of them must be friendly until our artillery opened up. It was a complete shock. They careered off the road, trying to get out of harm’s way, and then the fighting really began. They outnumbered us by a huge margin but luckily they didn’t know that. They launched some wild attacks and we threw them back each time but more and more of them were coming down the road.

  Late in the afternoon, our armour caught up, peeling off to attack to the north of us, halfway down the long Italian column. There were burning Italian vehicles everywhere by the time dusk fell and we had already taken a thousand prisoners but there were more Italians arriving all the time. What we didn’t know then was that ‘Electric Whiskers’ was in the column and he’d been given orders to break out of the trap. He should have been able to, because it wasn’t great territory for such an unbalanced battle, with flat terrain spreading out both sides of our roadblock. Our orders were clear: the Italians must not be allowed to break through between the road and the sea.

  Tom Pearson was one our best officers and he knew we had to convince the Italians there were far more of us out there in the darkness or they would drive straight round us. In the evening, he decided to send out a harassing force right along the Italian column.

  Mike Mosley took two platoons including mine, and a small section of artillery to do the job. I was relieved to be going into battle with Mosley. He was a bit of an enigma, a bishop’s only son who had himself been heading for the church until the war came along. A naturally curious man and a brilliant soldier, he didn’t have a fear in his body in battle. Since I had given him a fright in the carrier, I felt the slate had been wiped clean. I trusted him as much as any officer. That night he was to win the Military Cross.

  I locked the side handle on the Bren, checked the curved magazine and climbed into the back of the nearest truck. Mosley clambered up after me, pulled out his revolver, gave a bang on the roof of the cab and we lurched off in the dark.

  It must have been about midnight when the drone of engine exhausts told us another column was approaching from the north. My night vision was starting to kick in and we could make out the outline of trucks, tanks and big guns about 250 yards away in the night. There were 200 vehicles or more, stretching way back along the track. There weren’t nearly enough of us to stop them breaking out, so we began to create an illusion.

  I aimed my Bren low to allow for the recoil which always lifted it up and over the target. You had to force it down with pressure on the side handle. Mosley pointed at the target with his revolver and gave the order, ‘Bursts of five, when you’re ready.’

  It was pretty accurate at that range. The flames engulfed the first trucks quickly and those behind were caught in the orange light making them easier targets. In seconds, shadowy figures were running into the sand beyond.

  Our bigger guns began barking explosive shells towards the enemy and we moved off down the column; sometimes stopping to aim, often just firing on the move. Some gunners liked to spray bullets wildly. I never fired more than five in a batch; I didn’t need to. We’d put the occasional tracer bullet in to see how we were doing and we would see them arcing over in the darkness.

  That column was the best part of three miles long and we brought it to a halt. When we got to the end, we spun around and prepared to cause more trouble on the return journey. They were firing back, of course, but not having much joy. We kept it up for three hours but a couple of our trucks were in trouble, so we had to head back for repairs. We were getting short of food and ammunition. There was a squally wind with bursts of heavy rain so you often couldn’t see much. The artillery couldn’t move because the armour needed all the petrol and some of the guns only had thirty rounds left each.

  The Italians weren’t giving up. It went on all that day, with sporadic attacks, gunfights and blown-up vehicles everywhere with soldiers crouched behind them. The CO of our headquarters company arrived during an uncharacteristic lull and decided what we most needed was a mess tent, so he put up a big white marquee right by us. What a silly arse. It made a beautiful target and Italian shells started arriving immediately. The main battle was now three miles north where our tanks were attacking the Italians on the road round the hill we called ‘the Pimple’. We were the ‘longstop’, the cork in the bottle, and they kept trying to break through.

  We were getting more and more stretched. A group of Italian tanks was heading straight for battalion headquarters and we only stopped them a hundred yards short. White flags began appearing and by the end of the day about 10,000 prisoners had been taken but the rest still kept attacking.

  Somewhere out in the dunes towards the sea, one of our NCOs, Platoon Sergeant-Major Jarvis, was guarding 500 prisoners with the help of Rifleman Gillan. They saw two big Italian tanks coming so they decided to rush them, two men on foot against tanks. The Italian prisoners, seeing a chance to escape, joined the rush and the puzzled Italian officer in the leading tank opened his turret hatch to see what was going on. Jarvis clubbed him on the head with his rifle then fired in through the slits and the crew surrendere
d. Gillan did much the same with the other tank and they captured both of them. They both got the DCM for that but when an officer congratulated them, Jarvis just replied, ‘Yes, it was all right, sir, because the rifleman and me had a nice, warm place to spend the night.’

  In the darkness, we could hear the rumble of heavy vehicle engines. It was clear they were planning something. Just before dawn we spotted them. A large force headed by thirty tanks was approaching the roadblock where it dispersed quickly as if to surround the barrier. It was their last all-out throw of the dice and when they broke through our forward positions, it looked like it might work. The lads had no choice but to drop back. We had eleven anti-tank guns left at the start and as we knocked out the tanks, they were knocking out our guns. The story goes that in the end we had just one gun working and the crew of that gun accounted for five tanks with their last five rounds. I’m not sure it was quite that close but that last Italian tank got to within twenty yards of our HQ tent before we stopped it.

  We dealt with the infantry following the armour and by that time, everyone could hear our tanks coming from the north to join in. White flags began appearing along the road and Italian soldiers started to emerge, many no doubt glad it was all over. I kept some pressure on the trigger. It could still turn nasty. Later we heard of an officer who had been attacked with an axe by a prisoner who had already surrendered. It paid to be cautious.

  The man was walking alongside the column when I saw him, past burnt-out trucks and hideously distorted tanks. More Italian soldiers with white flags appeared as he passed by. There are different accounts but I can still see him wearing a long cape open at the front. There were the occasional flashes of his uniform underneath and you could see he had more gold braid on him than Soft Mick. General Annibale Bergonzoli, ‘Electric Whiskers’ himself, was surrendering. He had escaped Bardia and Tobruk but he was now in our hands along with a clutch of other generals.

  As his dusty cape parted I noticed that he still had what looked like a small ivory-handled automatic pistol on him. I stepped forward and gestured towards the gun at his side. He stared at me defiantly, he knew what I wanted. Hardly pausing, he patted the tiny weapon with his right hand and then wagged his finger. I understood straight away. He was not giving up his pistol and surrendering formally to anyone less than an officer. I stood aside and waved him on in their direction. I believe it was Captain Tom Pearson who finally got it off him.

  And that was the battle of Beda Fomm. In just a couple of months we had taken a 130,000 prisoners. Our breathless race across the desert had allowed us to finish off the Italian 10th Army entirely, but there was no jubilation in our camp, only relief.

  Two days after the shooting stopped I picked my way through the tangled metal and twisted carcasses of vehicles. The danger that had kept me alert and focused during battle was gone. Mangled bodies were scattered around in the dust already attracting flies. There were severed arms and legs spread out over a wide area, cut off by explosives or even concentrated machine gun fire. Wounded Italians were propped up against odd-looking rocks like gateposts. There was a solitary tree. Most of the injured had been taken away but some were still lying in the dirt, too weak to groan. It was a ghastly situation.

  Everyone copes in his own way, I suppose. I ran into Mike Mosley again. The great war hero was mooching around amongst the sand dunes staring at the ground. He straightened his back and came across to me.

  ‘Do you know, Avey,’ he said, ‘I’ve found no less that twelve species of wildflower in this little patch of sand alone. Amazing.’

  Chapter 5

  Despite the pasting the Italians had received during the battle, we had captured quite a few weapons and vehicles intact. I was told to list all the useful Italian clobber we could salvage. There were private cars in that last desperate column. Their polished fenders were now coated in thick dust. There were coaches too, which had carried prostitutes from the Italian bordellos of Benghazi. The women were packed off with the rest of the civilians back the way they had come, to the annoyance of some of the lads.

  Later, Bergonzoli claimed he lost partly because all those civilians, over 1,000 of them, got in his way. Ridiculous. He had the grace to admit that what he called ‘the excellent marksmanship of The Rifle Brigade’ had something to do with it as well.

  It is surprising what you find after a defeat. I came across a splendid collection of cockade hats all with their own flourish of feathers. The generals wouldn’t be needing those any more. I kept one. Then there was a beautifully crafted set of surgeon’s tools in a hand-sewn leather case with dried blood still on the scalpels. I was more interested in water. Rations hadn’t improved much and I was desperately thirsty.

  My eye was soon drawn to a largely intact group of trucks. They carried hundreds of wooden crates, each two feet square and about eight inches deep. I was suddenly energised by the thought that the crates might contain food or drink. There was another chap with me. We hopped up onto the first truck. ‘Come on, look lively,’ I said, ‘Get your sword on to it.’

  He hacked a hole in the plywood. I was immediately disappointed. There were no bottles or cans, just printed paper. He prised the top off altogether. ‘Good heavens above, take a look at that,’ I said. The crate was stuffed with thousands and thousands of crisp, newly printed Italian banknotes.

  The second crate was the same and the next and so on and so on. The trucks belonged to the Italian army pay corps and there was enough money to pay an entire army but to us, those millions of lira didn’t mean a thing. I found out later you could change them in Cairo at 600 to the pound but I would have swapped the whole lot for a few bottles of clean fresh water and some decent grub.

  I reported it and that was that. We threw a couple of crates onto the pick-up and forgot about them. Some of the lads used Italian money to light their fags, even taking handfuls off into the desert to wipe their backsides, enjoying the joke as they crouched. The Cairo exchange rate on those might have been a bit worse. We were more impressed with the rice and tomato purée we salvaged later. You could eat that.

  We waited for days to be relieved by another column coming down from the north. Eventually the order came to head up towards Benghazi to try and make contact with them en route. The crates of cash were still in the pick-up when we set off.

  It was a journey of seventy miles with glimpses of the sea from time to time to remind us the whole world wasn’t dusty. We came to a halt in a traffic jam in the outskirts of Benghazi. Then above the sound of exhausts and honking horns a shot rang out followed rapidly by another and the zinging sound of a bullet deflecting off something hard. There was a sniper on the loose. I spun the pickup around and retreated rapidly back down the road. I drove until the streets felt calmer and stopped outside a smart-looking bar.

  I wasn’t keen on the sherbet then, alcohol didn’t impress me much at all, but with throats like cardboard, it was an easy choice. The five of us went in and we took a crate of lira with us.

  We walked into the most beautiful place I had seen since leaving Cairo, a cool and airy room at least a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. The walls and ceiling were covered with elaborately etched glass mirrors. There was a long marble bar down one side and it was crowded.

  There was a muffled scream from one of the few women and a sharp intake of breath from the rest of the clientele. Everyone was watching us, and they were terrified. One glance at the wall of mirrors and I could see why. We were desert desperados, battle-stained and grimy, and we looked ready to shoot the place up.

  We didn’t hang about. Two of the lads went straight through to check out the kitchens and backrooms for anything suspicious. Someone had been taking shots at us just ten minutes before and the last thing we needed was any more surprises. When we were satisfied, we headed for a table and the occupants quickly made space for us. We sat down on the polished metal armchairs, keeping an eye on the doors.

  A small chap approached cautiously and said something I d
idn’t understand in Italian. He was aged about forty with a carefully trimmed black moustache and a white jacket. We guessed he was the owner.

  ‘Drinks all round,’ I said pointing to a glass and signalling around the room with my hand. He got the message, there was a snap of his fingers and a few words of Italian. Drinks started to appear, including beers for the lads, and the atmosphere eased a notch. The customers were never going to relax fully with a gang of enemy soldiers, fresh from battle, making jokes in the middle of the joint.

  The bar was filled mostly with Italian civilians and they had every right to be jumpy. They had been in the evacuation of Benghazi. Many of them had witnessed the battle before we sent them packing back here again.

  ‘You know,’ I said to the lads, rocking backwards on my chair, ‘we could probably buy this place outright, what do you reckon?’

  A smile spread across their faces. We were getting back our sense of fun after some pretty rotten months. We lifted the crate onto the marble bar and called the owner across.