by Denis Avey
I had been given a ticket to safety in South Africa and I had ripped it up; I was heading back to the fight. I felt I had to, but I was leaving Joyce behind and who knows what might have become of us, had I stayed. Such are the bloody stupid things we do.
The ship was full of South Africans in a valiant mood and there was a lot of singing on board, much of it in Afrikaans. I never mastered the language but the tunes that drifted across the darkened decks at night stay with me still.
It was hard to share their high spirits. I knew what was in store for them but I was reluctant to spoil the party. They would have a rough time on the blue, the South Africans, and I was to witness some of it. It wasn’t going to be easy for any of us.
When we were out of reach of the coast, I reported myself to a British officer on board. The response was predictable and direct. ‘Well that was a bloody silly trick’ was all he said. He was clearly perplexed. They soon found a berth for me but with the heat as it was, we mostly slept on deck.
There was more trouble when I got back on the blue. I had disobeyed orders in coming back, but being present without leave was an unusual charge to make stick. I got a standard ‘fizza’ but they needed men urgently. The Germans were hammering at the door. Our past victories were dead and buried. They belonged to a different war. Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, was the name on everybody’s lips. The Germans had stormed all the way to the Egyptian frontier and the garrison at Tobruk was under siege.
Chapter 6
We picked up the Bren gun carriers at Mersa Matruh and headed off to join the battalion. Now I was with some of the old crew again and when Les Jackson turned up we were complete. We were delighted to see each other but not much was said. I’m glad he didn’t ask me about where I’d been. While I’d been learning to tack with a beautiful young yachtswoman during the day, and waited on hand and foot in the evenings, Les and the lads had been forcing down bully-beef or greasy Maconochie’s stew in Wavell’s sandpit. That was now Auchinleck’s sandpit anyway because Wavell had been replaced as Commander in Chief, Middle East, after the failure of an operation or two, much to my horror.
Les was all right. He didn’t like to crack the whip, but he always got things done and, if he was commanding the carrier, then I was going to drive it. There was no argument. He had confidence in me and he left me to instruct our new gunner. We loaded the back of the carrier with ammunition and prepared to leave, heading for our final act together.
The offensive to relieve Tobruk would become notorious as Operation Crusader. As ever, we were kept in the dark but by now we could make pretty good guesses. The aim was to rescue the port city and push Rommel all the way back, recapturing lost territory. The main assault would be on the Trigh Capuzzo, a long desert track past Sidi Rezegh, south of Tobruk. It was meant to force the enemy to fight a huge tank battle on terrain of our own choosing. The besieged Tobruk garrison was supposed to break out and join us.
That name, Sidi Rezegh, meant nothing to me when I first heard it.
I was still in ‘B’ Company commanded by Tony Franklyn and we were part of Hugo Column, named after the major who lead us, Viscount Hugo Garmoyle. Our job was to engage the enemy to the west of the main advance.
That part of the desert was pitted with deep depressions, so many in fact that the maps list ten alternative names for their subtle variations. A dip in the ground could be described as an agheiret, or an agheret, unless it was a ghot, a giof, a gof or a got. Alternatively it could be termed a hatiet, a rugbet or even a sghifet and it was not to be confused with a deir which was the kind of depression you could camp in. Big ones could be useful to hide in. Small ones could break your tracks.
We gathered close to the Libyan frontier, forty miles south of the sea, in a forbidding but now familiar landscape of sand and gravel with lots of tiny saltpans which had once been lakes. At 0600 hours the next morning, 18 November, we cut through the wire and set off. As the sun rose, it was bright but not hot. There was no mirage and all around, we could see tanks and other vehicles streaming across the desert towards Tobruk.
Many had passed here before us. The arid landscape was dotted with Muslim graves, large and small and usually marked by cairns of stones; there were Roman water cisterns and even cave dwellings in the outcrops of rock. Many might have passed but few had stayed and you could see why.
Even at the best of times the carriers were as thirsty as an Aussie rifleman in the Sweet Melody, but we were struggling along in low gear, negotiating patches of soft sand, so we were knocking back fuel like nobody’s business. As ever, I was focused on keeping the tracks on, the engine running and the sand out of my eyes.
Battalion HQ was coming along three hours behind us. Later, they described the ‘subdued atmosphere of excitement’ that pervaded the column. I don’t recall feeling especially jolly. Les and I were a unit and we just got on with it. HQ even found time to stop for a wash, a shave and breakfast.
The RAF were doing a good job. There was no sign of enemy aircraft all day although we passed the remnants of two crashed and burned Stukas, which gave us some comfort. Our first real contact with the enemy came in the late afternoon, when we got into a brief duffy with five Italian tanks. Back at HQ, spirits were high. They were joking about ‘beer in Tripoli’. As it turned out they’d be lucky to survive for a beer in Cairo. I don’t remember the same feeling where we were leaguered. We spent the night in a series of small hills surrounded by vast depressions, sleeping on gravelly earth in a landscape peppered with tombs.
We got going early to make sure nobody caught us napping. It was a clear cold morning and it began with the sort of action we were used to, a dust-up with another bunch of Italian tanks. We chased them north towards the well at Bir Gubi, with 22nd Armoured Brigade’s new Crusader tanks joining in. Gubi was surrounded by enemy trucks, a tempting target, but what happened next was thrilling and horrible in equal parts.
We had grandstand seats for what they say was the nearest thing to a cavalry charge by tanks seen in the whole war but those enemy trucks were not what they seemed. They were a disguise for well-dug-in anti-tank guns. Soon all you could see was dust and smoke. Our tanks ran right through the middle of the enemy positions, running over them in their trenches but they were no match for the guns and they were decimated in the process.
Orders came through on the wireless for us to go in and collect prisoners. They claimed Gubi had been captured but the smoke cleared enough for us to see that it was still very lively indeed and spitting both artillery and anti-tank fire, so Captain Franklyn countermanded the orders, luckily for us. By late afternoon, 22nd Armoured had knocked out sixty Italian tanks but they had lost twenty-five new Crusaders. It didn’t bode well for when they would come up against the Panzers.
As it got dark, we went in to see if any of our disabled tanks could be recovered. Some of them were still smoking and there were dead and wounded from both sides spread all around the battlefield. At least two of our tanks had simply shed their tracks. There was a lot of engine noise and shouting coming from Gubi and, hearing people approaching, we managed to catch a prisoner.
The next day, 20 November, we buried my friend Bill Manley. Dear old Bill. It must have been a clean shot because he was dead when I got to him and I don’t recall seeing much damage to his body. The rest of us just had to deal with it. It was towards first light when we buried him. There was no ceremony, no ritual about it. I got on my knees, pulled as much sift-sand away as I could, trying to prevent it trickling back into the shallow grave. We removed one half of the dog tag from around his neck and dropped him into a shallow dent in the desert. I tried not to look at his face as I pushed the sand back over him. Bill was one of those prepared to talk about home, his family – the things that mattered – and generally you didn’t do that. None of us wanted to get too close and at moments like this, knees in the dirt, pushing sand over a human face, we knew why. We piled what stones we could find on top to stop the wild dogs getting at him and stood up
without so much as a prayer. I pulled the bolt out of his rifle, attached the sword to the end and rammed it barrel first into the sand at his feet. I turned away and left him alone in the desert.
Long after it was over, they came and cleaned up the site of those battles. They moved buried bodies to the military cemeteries but there were a lot they couldn’t find, so they listed them on the Alamein memorial. Bill’s name is there, so he still lies where I left him somewhere in the shifting sands south of Sidi Rezegh.
We were ordered forward again to see if Gubi was still occupied. We found out when all sorts of heavy artillery and anti-tank fire opened up. The South African Brigade arrived soon after that and we tried to warn them but their leading armed company sailed straight into the danger area and got badly smashed up, poor devils. Some of them were without doubt the boys whose hearty songs had raised our spirits on the Mauretania as we sailed up the coast of Africa.
Thankfully, one of our officers managed to get to the main body of their troop-carrying lorries before they came in range and they dug themselves in. Twenty-seven Stuka dive-bombers, complete with fighter escort, appeared overhead. Usually they were flown by crack pilots but this lot delivered their bombs into an empty patch of desert. Only one managed the usual steep dive, though he spoilt it by failing to pull out in time and followed his bomb into the ground. It prompted quips that the pilots must have been Italian but I found it hard to believe the Germans would allow Italian pilots to fly their planes. Perhaps they were novices.
We were getting near our objective. Fifteen miles to the north was the ridge, overlooking the Trigh Capuzzo track. On that ridge was the mosque tomb of Sidi Rezegh, a white building with a dome, and a big airfield. 7th Armoured Brigade had already rampaged across it, destroying Messerschmitts and Stukas, crushing their fuselages with the tanks. It came at a high price in casualties. My friends in Major Sinclair’s ‘A’ company had suffered, losing two carriers to anti-tank guns. Looking back, I find it was described later as ‘one of the outstanding exploits of the desert war’.
Seizing the ridge allowed our forces to overlook the so-called Axis road towards Tobruk but the assault was making slow progress, not enough for the besieged garrison to break out to meet us.
I’ve read the military histories so now I know what went wrong. The Germans didn’t share our appetite for a set-piece tank battle. They chose their moments and used their superior weapons to take us on in separate, unconnected fights that cost us dear. They were good at it. That morning, 21 November, I drove the carrier up out of a nullah and as I crested the brow I saw a German tank a thousand yards away. The gun swivelled and he was firing on us in a flash. I only just had time to do a skid turn and drop back down into the dip.
Major Sinclair’s ‘A’ Company met the Germans in the early afternoon when seventy-five panzers came straight at them in a confusion of dust, shell bursts and burning vehicles. Our men were hopelessly outnumbered and their anti-tank guns had been knocked out. The survivors took to the wadis for protection and were soon trapped between tanks to the south and infantry to the north as the light faded. Soon he and his men were in the bag.
Les and I had been buzzing around in the carrier for most of the night with the rest of Hugo Garmoyle’s column. In the morning we were sheltering in the valley south of the airfield when we heard despairing messages from Battalion HQ, which was pinned down. It was no more than three small pick-ups with wireless masts, completely exposed on bare ground, the HQ staff crouching down for shelter behind the trucks. We heard them on the radio.
Five Crusader tanks were sent to their rescue but they were set on fire straight away. With two of the pick-ups burning, HQ radioed that they were taking to slit trenches. Among the few guns left working was a Bofors anti-aircraft gun but its unsuitable shells just bounced off the German tanks. The crew of an anti-tank gun, mounted on a truck, were knocked out. One of our officers, Lieutenant Ward Gunn, ran 150 yards under heavy fire to take it over. He got two enemy tanks before he was killed and won a posthumous VC for that. Some of the HQ staff crawled to safety as German infantry bore down on them.
Just as Major Sinclair and his men were being brought in, a salvo of shells landed in the middle of the group of prisoners and in the dust and confusion, he ran for it. He found a sangar and hid under a groundsheet until dark while Germans looted a truck ten yards away. He spent a chilly night under the stars before he made it back. At the end of it all, two officers from ‘A’ Company and forty men were missing. Only twenty made it out safely. ‘A’ Company was no more.
Operation Crusader was in disarray. We were running out of tanks and ammunition. The Sidi Rezegh aerodrome had been recaptured by the enemy, which would have devastating consequences for the men immediately around me. We had watched at a distance, seeing the shell bursts on the aerodrome where ‘A’ company had been pinned down, but now we were at the centre of the battle.
The 4th Armoured Brigade began withdrawing through our position, and carriers on the aerodrome were also being forced slowly backwards.
At that point a bunch of enemy tanks appeared on the ridge to the south of the airfield and not more than half a mile away. The panzers passed thirty yards from one of our platoons but even at that range none of our weapons, the Brens and the useless Boys anti-tank rifle, made any impression on them. The battle between our twenty-five-pounder field guns and their heavily armoured tanks was hopelessly uneven but Garmoyle kept them at it, going from one gun to the next, encouraging the gunners and giving orders. I didn’t see it but there’s a story that a shell fell right by him as he walked calmly around. A rifleman said to his mate, ‘Hey, look, a shell fell right on the Major.’
‘What did he do?’ asked the other.
‘Took a longer stride.’
Those gunners, and Garmoyle’s encouragement, held up the German advance until nightfall but many of our vehicles were captured before they could get back out of range.
That last night of freedom was relatively quiet considering the chaos all around it. We withdrew well away from the ridge. Other units were leaguered up with us by now. Right through the night, small groups of tanks from the 22nd Armoured Brigade kept turning up. I swapped my desert boots for heavy leather ones and put on my leather jerkin. I expected something bad to happen.
At first light on the morning of 22 November we were right back in it again. Fifty of our surviving tanks held an enemy panzer attack at bay. Then came a false dawn as the light tanks of 4th Armoured Brigade raced up having fought their way north-west. Brigadier Jock Campbell led them into battle, racing along in front in a pick-up, flying his blue scarf as a flag. They rushed straight into combat but the attack was more gallant than effective. They arrived in small groups and were destroyed in small groups.
We were now in a precarious position on the edge of the Sidi Rezegh aerodrome. There was a lot of confused discussion on the wireless because we were using a different set of place names to those issued to the 11th Hussars. It didn’t bode well. We were ordered to follow a bearing of 22 degrees as the most suitable line of attack across a featureless expanse. They told us to beware of enemy tanks, which were prowling around looking for prey.
With two blue flags held stretched out at arm’s length the platoon commander ordered us to advance line abreast. I adjusted my leather jerkin as the carrier engines growled around me. It was hot and sweaty and I had a white handkerchief tied to the steering wheel to wipe my brow. I crunched the carrier into gear and we lurched forward, rocking on the tracks as we picked up speed until we were just a neck ahead of the other four. We had no idea what they had ordered us into.
The ground suddenly dropped away ahead of us and I had to swerve eastward along the edge of an escarpment. Then from nowhere machine guns opened up and the armour plating was soon ringing like hammer blows on an anvil. We were for it now all right.
Les said nothing. ‘Fire, for God’s sake,’ I shouted at the gunner behind me. I heard the metallic bursts of the Bren firing abov
e me. The sound was deafening. I could feel the heat from the Bren’s muzzle. Used cartridges showered down on to my neck and into the driver’s foot-well.
There was a pause behind and a clash of metal as the gunner changed magazines. The bullets were still smacking into us, sending vibrations through the carrier as if a pneumatic drill was at work on the armour plating.
Les was focused on firing the Boys anti-tank rifle alongside me. I had my seat dropped down in its action position and, instead of looking over the top of the armour, I was peering through the glass in the tiny windscreen slit. I was leaning to my right, away from Les, looking through the screen at an angle in case a bullet came through it.
The recoil of each shot kicked him backwards, its echoing blast lost behind the clatter of incoming machine gun fire. Another pause and I could hear the frantic sound of the gunner changing magazines again. The armour plating was zinging with incoming fire. I was struggling to control the carrier and empty cartridges started spitting down on me again, then suddenly that stopped. All around the din continued but the Bren was still. My ears were ringing but the silence from our gunner was awful. I knew instantly he’d copped it. Then they opened up on us from both sides.
We were driving into a narrowing funnel of German gunners. On our left, they were hidden below the lip of the escarpment. On the right, they were level with us. Les, who had been firing and reloading without pause, wanted to take aim at a gun position.
‘Stop!’ he screamed.
‘Not bloody likely! We’ll be a sitting target.’
They were already firing at the tracks and the wheel assemblies. If they knocked those out, they could pick us off at will.
We were bearing down on one of the machine-gun posts in a blizzard of crossfire. With the gunner out of action and Les struggling with the anti-tank rifle, the only really useful weapons I had to hand were a pile of hand grenades next to the seat, and the carrier itself, which could still do some damage.
