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'On Sunday about 14th June 1942 we were ordered to pull back to El Alamein. Everyone was quickly loaded onto their three ton trucks and they set off east. We joined the stream of vehicles heading east bumping across the desert. I was left to bring up the rear.

‘There was still plenty of war noise but our thoughts were now geared up to the prospect of getting away from this benighted spot, and after a reasonable time had elapsed we set off to catch up with the main party. Much to our surprise, we caught up all right. The bad news was the Company were on the way back into Tobruk. It was a daunting and demoralising journey back to the billets against the flow of a retreating army.’

The Company had been intercepted by an officer attached to the Brigade staff who told them to turn round as Tobruk was going to be defended. The staff officer, whose name Bill recalls bitterly, would have known that the German front line was already 100 miles south-east of Tobruk. Rommel had swept past Tobruk and it looked as if the town was in for yet another siege.

‘The following day there was a new plan and all personnel not needed to defend a besieged Tobruk were ordered out. The Company was not on the new list of those to be evacuated.’

This story was submitted to the people’s War site by a volunteer from CSV Oxford on behalf of the late Bill Harvey. It is a transcript of his own diary and several interviews. He gave written permission for the material to be edited and published.

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