by Shaun Clarke
When Kearney had completed his report, Captain Stirling, looking even more dejected, confirmed that the rest of Kearney’s men had made it back, except for Corporal Barker, who was still missing. He then confirmed that the whole operation had been a disaster from the beginning, mainly because of the storm, with a lot of the men injured as they landed, others lost, and the rest marching into the desert as planned, though with most of their weapons and supplies missing. Because the storm hadn’t let up, more of the men had been lost. Another had suffered a fatal heart attack during one of the many exhausting hikes through the same storm. Over eighty per cent of the men from one Bombay alone had been lost and not found again, probably captured.
The damaged Bombay, which had turned back for Kabrit, had been forced to land west of Tobruk, where the crew made emergency repairs and took off again. However, they were then attacked by a German ME 109 fighter plane and forced to crash-land for a second time, after which communications were cut, probably because they had all been taken prisoner by Axis forces.
Twelve men from another Bombay had also been lost in the storm, then had run into a German patrol, engaged in a brief firefight, using only their Browning handguns, and only been saved when one of them, Sergeant Tappman, deliberately exposed himself to the enemy, distracting their attention, to let his comrades make their escape along the bed of a wadi. Some of those who were escaping had witnessed Sergeant Tappman being captured.
‘The truth of the matter,’ Captain Stirling said, still poking the stick distractedly into the sand, ‘is that the whole operation has been a bloody disaster. Calculating those captured, missing or presumed dead, of our original total of sixty men, only twenty-two have made it back. The operation has been a failure of major dimensions and I won’t try to deny it.’
‘There must be another way,’ Kearney said. ‘Yes,’ Captain Stirling said. ‘We avoid aeroplanes and use the LRDG to insert and extract.’
‘Damned right,’ Marty said.
Chapter Seven
This time they weren’t bothered by exploding flak, violent storms, unpredictable slipstreams or drop zones lost in darkness. They went in overland, inserted by the Long Range Desert Group, travelling from their FOB to the RV by Chevrolet trucks, dealing only with what the LRDG understood and could expertly deal with. They had to deal with sandstorms, but the LRDG saw them coming. They had to deal with the desert’s many sly treacheries and traps, but the LRDG knew them all and also knew how to avoid them or deal with them. It took longer to reach the RVs – a matter of days instead of hours – but now, when they headed for their targets, they usually managed to reach them.
The first of the overland raids was the attack on Tamit and Marty would not forget it as long as he lived. The LRDG trucks had recently been modified to make them uniquely suitable for the desert, but they were still dangerously overloaded with cans of petrol, bottles of water, packed Bergen rucksacks, blankets, ‘cam’ nets, pintle-mounted machine guns and boxes of ammunition. Having already adopted the clothing favoured by the LRDG for use in the desert – shirts, shorts, black woollen agal with shemagh– the SAS men perched precariously on their piled kit in the trucks were now also wearing the Arab sandal, the chappali, and the funnel-shaped leather gauntlets that stopped sweat from running down their arms and onto the weapons.
The journey by LRDG Chevrolet truck from the great white dunes, glittering lake and cooling palm trees of Siwa Oasis to the sunbleached escarpments of the Sirte coastline took all day and most of the evening, with the usual hourly stops for the checking of vehicles and weapons, but it passed without incident. Instead of having to parachute down in unpredictable winds as they had done the last time, the men were dropped off shortly after last light knowing exactly where they were: close to the Tamit airfield, though in the middle of a flat desert plain that offered no cover other than starlit darkness. The airfield, however, was only a few miles due west and could be seen in the distance, its hangars visible as rectangular blocks darker than the night and framed by the stars. A main supply route, an MSR, ran through the desert, straight to the airfield.
The men advanced in single file, with Sergeant Bellamy out on point as lead scout, Captain Kearney coming second as PC, the rest strung out in a wellspaced, irregular line behind them, and Marty again bringing up the rear as Tail-end Charlie. Kearney was carrying the bag filled with Lewes bombs and fuses, as well as a Thompson submachine gun with a 50-round drum magazine; most of the other men were armed with either Sten guns or Lee-Enfield .303-inch bolt-action rifles; and Marty was pleased to have a Thompson submachine gun, also known as the ‘tommy gun’ and popular with American gangsters in the 1930s. Everyone in the group was also armed with a Browning 9mm High Power handgun holstered at the waist, but otherwise they were travelling light, with no cumbersome rucksacks or water bottles to slow them down. The only sound as they hiked across the flat plain was the jangling of weapons.
Reaching the airfield, Marty was surprised to see that there were no sentries in sight and no fencing around the airstrip, even though a mixture of German JU-87 Stuka diver-bombers and Italian Capronis were lined up along it. About twenty metres from the wooden buildings at the side of the airstrip, Kearney silently signalled that those behind him should lie belly down on the ground. Doing so, Marty noticed that a faint line of light was escaping from below the door of one of the wooden huts. He also thought he could hear the murmur of conversation coming from inside.
Handing Sergeant Bellamy his bag of Lewes bombs, Kearney signalled for the men to remain where they were, then he advanced at the half-crouch, holding his Sten gun at the ready, until his shadow was touching the line of light beaming out from under the door of the long wooden building. The windows were covered in blackout curtains. Kearney stopped at the edge of the line of light, obviously listening to what the Germans inside were doing. After checking that his men were prepared behind him, he kicked the door open and boldly rushed inside, disappearing in a pillar of yellow light.
The guttural bawling of shocked, disbelieving Germans was followed by the abrupt, savage roaring of Kearney’s Sten gun.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Marty exclaimed in helpless admiration. ‘He’s taking them out on his own!’
The roaring of Kearney’s Sten gun was followed by bawling, screaming, the clamour of overturning tables and chairs, smashing crockery and, finally, the snapping sound of Luger pistols being fired in desperate defence. Kearney kept shooting, obviously covering a wide arc to hit as many Germans as possible, then the building was plunged into semi-darkness as most of the light bulbs were shot out.
Marty was staring intently at the building, listening to the clamour and trying to visualize what was happening inside, when the remaining light bulbs were shot out and Kearney backed through the doorway, firing his Sten gun on the move. Just as he made it outside, the surviving Germans in the building fired their weapons and bullets whistled past him, some actually whipping over Marty’s head where he still lay on the ground, a good distance away.
‘Let’s go!’ Bulldog Bellamy bawled, then he raced at the half-crouch towards the airstrip, taking advantage of the covering fire still being laid down by Kearney.
Marty jumped to his feet and raced after Bellamy as Kearney and four other troopers aimed a fusillade of bullets from a combination of Lee-Enfield rifles and tommy guns at the Germans attempting to escape from the building or firing from its darkened windows. The Germans outside the building were being cut to pieces as Marty raced across the windblown field towards the parked Axis aircraft, eventually catching up with Bellamy, who was kneeling beside a German Junkers, distributing Lewes bombs and fuses to the troopers. Some of the men, Marty noticed, were already zigzagging between the aircraft and lobbing the small bombs up onto their wings as if on a cricket pitch. However, before Marty could get his hands on some of the Lewes bombs, Captain Kearney, who had clearly left his four troopers to keep the Germans in the darkened building pinned down, raced up beside him, knelt down beside Bulldo
g Bellamy, and said excitedly, ‘Give me a couple of those, Sarge. I’ve waited a long time for this.’
‘Haven’t we all?’ Bulldog responded, handing Kearney three of the unusually small, light bombs. ‘The best of luck, boss.’
Kearney grinned. After glancing back over his shoulder to ensure that the four troopers he had left behind were still keeping the Germans inside the building pinned down (though now more Germans were firing out of the windows of the other buildings) he ran to the nearest untouched Italian Caproni to place his first bomb.
‘Me, too, Sarge,’ Marty said impatiently, holding out his hands.
‘Go for broke,’ Bellamy responded, grinning, handing Marty some Lewes bombs, then jumping up with him and running off in the opposite direction.
Racing toward one of the untouched Capronis, Marty noticed that as the other men planted their supply of bombs– all set to explode in thirty minutes – they were going back to join those still keeping the Germans pinned down in the darkened building and, now, the other buildings as well. Pleased to see that they were keeping their heads, he lobbed his first Lewes bomb up onto the wing of the Caproni. When he saw it nestling safely, he ran to the next plane, another Caproni, and did the same, hardly aware that German bullets were whistling dangerously close past his head.
After placing his third bomb, he raced back to Bellamy, who was sitting upright over the collapsed canvas bag, opening and closing his hands to show Kearney that they were empty.
‘No bombs left,’ he said. ‘We only had twenty-three and there are thirty planes. It makes me want to puke, boss.’
Glancing behind him, Marty saw that there were no more SAS troopers in the vicinity of the aircraft – they had all joined Corporal Peterson to pour fire into the German buildings – so he knew that they had disposed of their bombs.
‘Twenty-three’s better than nothing,’ Kearney said, then he glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Five minutes to zero, Sarge. I think we’d better hightail it out of here.’
‘Right, boss, let’s do that.’
As Bellamy and Kearney were climbing to their feet, the Germans in the other buildings poured out through the doors to advance boldly on the SAS troopers. Instantly, Marty joined his fellow troopers in cutting the Germans down, firing his tommy gun in a broad arc to hit as many of them as possible. He then backed across the airstrip, firing his weapon from the hip, as Captain Kearney, obviously unable to bear the thought of leaving seven planes untouched, suddenly raced towards one of them, weaving to avoid the German gunfire, and started clambering frantically up to the cockpit.
‘No, boss!’ Marty bawled over the roaring of his tommy gun as he backed away from the Germans still pouring out of their barracks. ‘Those planes are about to blow up!’
Ignoring him, Kearney balanced precariously on the wing of the Caproni, right beside the cockpit, in full view of the Germans heading in his direction. Some of the Germans stopped to take aim and fire at him, but just as they were doing so, the first Lewes bomb exploded, blowing the wing off a Junkers, setting fire to its fuselage, and making it erupt with a deafening roar, spewing jagged yellow flames and billowing black smoke. Kearney was wrenching open the cockpit of the Caproni when another Lewes bomb exploded, setting fire to a second Junkers, followed instantly by a third, which blew a hole in the side of a Caproni.
The heat of the flames beat back the advancing Germans, then obscured them in oily smoke, enabling Kearney to reach into the cockpit of the Caproni and, as Marty looked on in amazement, rip the instrument panel out with his bare hands.
Other Lewes bombs were exploding in quick succession, destroying more planes and filling the night with fire and smoke, as Kearney threw the instrument panel to the ground, then followed it down. He glanced around him, excited, as more aircraft exploded, then followed Marty and the others, now using the pall of smoke to give them cover as they raced away from the airfield.
Knowing that the Germans would continue to pursue them, Kearney set a punishing pace for the hike back to the desert RV, marching resolutely ahead of the singlefile column, taking over the position as lead scout, letting Sergeant Bellamy drop back to the second position normally held by the PC. Rising to the challenge, and with little more to carry other than their personal weapons and ammunition, Marty and the others kept up the pace and had soon left the airfield far behind. Eventually, when they glanced back over their shoulders, they could make it out only by the crimson glowing in the sky caused by the still-burning fires and by the many fan-shaped, silvery-white flaring of the numerous explosions.
Reaching the general area of the RV, where they had expected to find the Chevrolet trucks, they were briefly confused by distant, moving lights that they thought were being waved by members of the LRDG. But, as they soon realized, they were torches being flashed by the German and Italian troops who had come in pursuit of them, lost them in the darkness, and were now circling blindly around them, unaware of their presence.
Seeing Captain Kearney’s hand signal, Marty lay belly down on the desert floor with the rest of the men, making no sound, until the lights of the Axis trucks had moved off to the west. When they had disappeared completely, heading away from the SAS troopers, Kearney signalled that they could stand up again and use the whistling signals they had devised for attracting the attention of the LRDG in the desert’s deep, starlit darkness.
Eventually, Marty heard the first of the whistled replies. Heading in that direction, he soon saw the shadowy outline of the LRDG trucks, their headlights turned off, waiting to carry them back to the base camp.
‘Home and dry,’ Marty whispered.
Chapter Eight
The major battle for control of the Western Desert had begun and Captain Stirling’s dream of small raiding parties had become a reality. Thus, while his men were flown from Jalo Oasis back to Kabrit, Stirling departed for Cairo to negotiate further with the ‘Gaberdine Swine’ of MEHQ. Returning as a major, he informed his gathered men that he had been granted permission by the C-in-C, General Auchinleck, to launch a raid against the tankers and dumps in the port of Bouerat, which lay to the west of Sirte and Tamit. For this he planned to enlist the support of the Air Reconnaissance Unit (ARU) and the Special Boat Section (SBS).
Also, in open defiance of the Gaberdine Swine, he was giving L Detachment its own badge, designed by Sergeant Bob Tait and consisting of a flaming sword crossed at the base with the scrolled motto ‘Who Dares Wins’. The wings, he explained enthusiastically, were based on a pharaonic device of similar shape, such as those depicted in Oxford and Cambridge blues. He had decided, in consultation with some of his officers, that on completion of parachute training an SAS recruit could wear the wings in the conventional manner – on the shoulder – but those who had completed two or three operations could transfer the wings to their chests.
Marty was proud to be one of those who could stitch the new badge onto the breast of his tunic, rather than on the shoulder.
The raid against the port of Bouerat was not without its disasters, but Marty was pleased to be part of it. The first disaster came when the raiding party was spotted by an Italian plane as the men made their way along the Wadi Tamit and, after six hours of relentless bombing, the radio truck and operators went missing and were never heard from again. To make matters worse, Stirling had planned to enter the harbour with one of the clumsy, unpredictable foldboats lent to him by the SBS, but the LRDG truck transporting it in almost total darkness along the wadi struck a boulder and the flimsy craft was damaged beyond repair. Nevertheless, the remaining men continued on to the port, where they managed to plant bombs in the many unguarded fuel tankers and warehouses, as well as a radio station, with the fuses set for under an hour. Returning to the RV, the separate teams had the satisfaction of feeling the tremors of the many explosions and seeing the sky turning red from the flames of burning building, then black with smoke. However, making their way back to the base camp, they ran into a German ambush, though good luck prevailed and they man
aged to make their escape with no casualties after a vicious firefight.
From that point on, as the war in the Western Desert raged back and forth, with the opposing forces taking turns at advancing and retreating, at gaining Benghazi and then losing it, Major Stirling made it his business to prove to one and all that L Detachment SAS was a unique, invaluable unit, worthy to be a separate regiment.
For Marty, the following months were the most exciting of his life to date and confirmed for him that this kind of life was the only one he desired.
When Major Stirling determined to prove that his L Detachment SAS could raid waterborne targets in Axisheld harbours, Marty was one of those trained in foldboats and reconnaissance craft on the Great Bitter Lake, then used them to plant bombs on the Axis boats and in the warehouses of the port of Benghazi.
When Stirling ‘liberated’ a Ford V8 utility car in Cairo and had it mocked up to resemble a German staff car, naming it his ‘Blitz Buggy’, Marty was one of the six SAS men who, wearing civilian clothing, braved the heavily mined Trig el Abd to drive right into the heart of enemy-held Benghazi, through German and Italian roadblocks, and then, boldly wandering around the harbour area, surreptitiously planted Lewes bombs in boats and petrol dumps, before casually driving back out.
When Stirling decided to commit eight patrols to eight different targets, all airfields, Marty was one of those who planted Lewes bombs in the fuel dump of the satellite airfield of Berka, then fought his way out against vehicle-borne Axis troops to play a deadly game of hide-and-seek all night before escaping by the skin of his teeth.
When Stirling spontaneously decided to return to the scene of a raid to see its after-effects, Marty was one of those who eased the safety catch off his carefully hidden tommy gun as Stirling’s Blitz Buggy, filled with SAS men dressed as civilians, was stopped by a German roadblock, managed to get through with one of the SAS men speaking fluent German, and went on to where the men could plant some more Lewes bombs– some in an Axis petrol store, others in German trucks – before striking out across the desert to Wadi Qattara, pursued by German troop trucks for much of the way, again escaping by the skin of their teeth.
