大象传媒

Kasserine Pass
On arriving in the late evening at Kasserine Pass, we took up a position on the side of the Pass beside the road out of Thala, a small town. After we had settled in, others and I were sent back to our rear H.Q. for a rest period. The road back to rear H.Q. passed through Thala and seeing it was full of troops, we realised something big was going to happen very soon, but not we hoped before we had managed to get some sleep.
We were given to understand that we were there to stop Rommels鈥� Africa Corps coming this way north to the sea. As they wanted to get across to Italy.
On arriving, at rear H.Q. we discovered the ration wagon was loaded and ready to go up to forward H.Q. but the R.S.M. (Jimmy Skinner) did not know where it had moved to. So having just arrived from there, we were able to explain where it was. This was rather difficult, because I had no map reference, and there were no street names, or signposts. In the end it was decided that I should show the driver the way, this meant my missing my sleep!
It was getting dark now, and lights were not allowed so the journey over these poor roads became much more difficult than the previous one through Thala, which was buzzing more than ever with movement.
On arriving at the place I had left Forward H.Q., we found that they had moved on. Now the only way to find them was to ask around. We soon discovered they were further into the pass and higher up the side into the bushes.
Now quickly we started to unload, as I wanted to get away to my bed. When suddenly the situation changed, I was up on the truck handing down cans of water to Sgt. Kirby when the whole area was illuminated by flares, the Spando machine guns opened spraying us with tracers and then the mortars joined in. The streams of tracers seemed to be everywhere. Suddenly I realised that the can of water that I was holding had been hit and water was pouring out over me. I jumped off the wagon and tried to get behind the rear wheel, it did not seem to matter that there were about six others trying to do the same. I do remember that at that moment I felt a big target and wished I were smaller. It was then Mjr. Redman, our second in command called out for us to disperse, I went the best way I thought, which was up the hill and I sat in a bush watching the fireworks and the patterns made by the tracers and mortars. Our infantry must have been having a bad time lower down. I think this was the first time that the Americans had been in action and I felt for them, as they had six thousand casualties in this engagement.
It was too dark to see where the Tanks were.
It now dawned on me how dangerous the situation was and what a near miss I had had.
During a lull when all seemed calmer, I came down back to H.Q. only to find that it had moved leaving me behind, to walk. I was not happy about that, as I was not supposed to be there in the first place.
I now decided to make my way back to rear H.Q. hoping that they had not moved also. I had my overcoat and rifle, and knew which direction to go. So moving higher up the hillside through the scrub, I kept level with the road, and carefully proceeded. The moon was out now and the excitement seemed to be over in this section except for some fires lower down. It was then that I heard someone moving through the bush above me. Suddenly, a voice called. 鈥淚s that you Ted?鈥� (As I was known in the army). It was Sgt., Kirby who also had been left behind so I did not feel too badly about the situation. Now together we made our way down to the road to see if we could get a lift. Fortune smiled on us, as coming towards us was our line party recovering cable. Cpl. Pogson was riding his motorcycle, this we quickly commandeered, to speed up our journey.
We sped along very nicely until we met up with one of our batteries going the other way, quads, with gun and limber. These very difficult to pass on these rough country roads as, there were high banks on ether side, of the road and being dark did not help. On entering Thala we found that a tank had brewed up and was still very hot, and being in the middle of the road made it very difficult to pass. To our surprise a Staff Officer was directing the traffic around the tank. This officer鈥檚 death was reported in the Daily Telegraph last year, 1997, and this incident was mentioned there. I later learned that the burnt out tank was one that the Germans had tacked on behind our returning tanks and got as far as Thala before being knocked out.
I did not enjoy the journey on the back of a motorcycle being driven on muddy roads.
On arriving once again back at Rear H.Q, we were in time to stop the R.S.M. from going up with a fully armed rescue party. He had had no news of forward H.Q. and was rather anxious about them but as the battle had moved on we assured him all was quiet, and sent a Despatch Rider to search them out.
Later we were told that a battery had lost two Officers who were killed when an O.P. had been over run. The O.P.鈥檚 are always as far forward as possible, always a very dangerous position to be in. We also had a linesman 鈥淏unk鈥� Harper, wounded and unfortunately he was wounded again whilst lying on a stretcher in the Casualty Clearing Station.
At last I got my head down.
We caught up with the battle later, at Longstop Hill 468, near Souk-el-Khemis.
Longstop
Here we managed to get my Office truck into a gully, because the area was flat and we felt exposed. The hill rose away on the front side protecting us from most of the shelling. On the other side the bank rose to about six feet. This was a good spot safe and out of view.
We had begun to get organised, when along came a crew with their Bofors Anti Aircraft gun, and begun to set it up on the bank just a few feet from us. I complained that the office could not work, as their gun would effect the relays in my exchange. They said that they had been ordered there, and that was where they were staying. We were pleased later that they did stay.
Any shells landed on the hill in front of us or well behind us, so we were happy being in a well-chosen position.
It was about midday when I heard a battery cook, as per usual, yell come and get it. Unfortunately a lot of the boys being hungry did as he said, and gathered at the cookhouse. At that moment Stuka dive-bombers appeared and it only took one bomb to take out many of them, (I was told twenty-four). I did not see this happen because at that moment we were being machine gunned by Stuka鈥檚 down at our end of the gully, and the Bofors, was blazing away, trying to turn them off of us. Some of the boys were having a go with their Tommy guns, and Bren鈥檚 which was a waste, as the planes moved too fast, though it did make you feel better when hitting back.
I was not standing about watching, but I had dived out of the wagon and was lying on the floor trying to get the whole of my body under my little tin hat. Every time the Bofors fired, and it has a fast rate of fire, I felt myself lifted off the floor and dropped, causing clouds of choking dust to rise. Also with each bang all the relays in the exchange functioned lights came on, and bells rang, and with the next round they all went out again. This continued all the while the gun was firing. It could have ruined the relays in my exchange, but it did not, though better the exchange being ruined than me.
The Stukers went as quickly as they came leaving a fair amount of damage.
Heavy fighting followed, and at times our twenty-five pounder guns were firing over open sights at the Tiger Tanks that were trying to over run us.
I had no time to worry about these things or to think about passed happenings, as the office got very busy.
Telephone lines had to be repaired, so linesmen under Sgt. Jeff were out and about working as ever whatever the situation, or weather.
Now Rommel was turned off Longstop, and had to try another way to the sea at Tunis and Biserta with us chasing him all the way, not letting him gather his forces against us.
We chased him into the sea at Cap Bon, and with our guns we gave him a good sending off, firing at the boats until they were out of range.
Then, our Colonel Tom Howard appeared, He had found a field of peas, and suggested we all went picking them. I think he must have been a farmer, as he was always at home on the old farms, and I think he reverted to type, now that he had nobody to chase. He always knew where to find the odd barrel of wine that had been hidden away. We always waited until he had had his fill, and was still walking about, before we tried it. Sometimes it was awful, but he still drank it.
On the way to Biserta we aquired a trailer, a rather large one, which unfortunately had a large spring missing from the tow bar, so every time we slowed or stopped it hit us up the back. After a few miles It was decided to leave it by the road side as it was dangerous, Sgt. Acton was nearly killed when it moved as he went to unhitch it cracking several of his ribs. I thought that he was a goner. I remember a few days later, hearing the Colonel, commiserating with him, as evidently he too was suffering with cracked ribs. I felt for them, as we were travelling over some very rough ground fast in a hurry, to catch Romel.

After the Campaign
The campaign being over we settled for a rest and refit. At a place called Setif, I do not understand how nothing surrounded by sand can be given a name. But this was a desolate place.
When settled in, to break the monotony, ten others and myself went off to visit nearby Constantine for a few days. It was a terrible road to travel on with a wagon it was very dusty and monotonous, as were most of the other roads we had travelled on and we were hot and dirty, which worsened matters.
On nearing Constantine we came upon a channel of hot spring water, running alongside the road in a very convenient canal, which was about three feet wide and two feet deep and nicely made of concrete. It was so inviting we stripped off and in no time were stretched out in one long line soaking in this wonderful soft spring water. This was a bath of a lifetime! I do not remember the last hot bath that I had, but this one made up for all those I had missed.
After this luxurious start to our leave, we went into a nearby army laundry, (not realising that this was where our dirty water had gone to), were given clean clothes, this was luxury number two.
Now we had to find a place to set up camp. We wanted to be near the centre of Constantine but in an inconspicuous position. Eventually we settled in a good spot well off the road.
Now the next important item was food, so after opening a few tins we lit a fire and were soon enjoying a good feed. Feeling full and smart, we left someone on guard to make sure the Arabs did not help themselves to our kit, and off we went to see what was happening in the big city.
Constantine is an old Moorish town, very pleasant to walk around. The inhabitants seemed to be more French than Arab and it seemed they spoke French, which was the official language, at the time, though they also spoke Arabic.
With Cpl. Pogson I sampled the local beer, which was very thin and pale, with no taste. It was served in tin cups, nicely made, shaped like a glass, tapering down to a circular base, they held about a third of a pint. The wine that was available was not red, yet not white, but more brown was perhaps a little better than the beer, if it had been cold it might have tasted even better. There was little food that I could in the shops; Their rationing I believe was not so organised as ours in Britain, or perhaps it was kept under cover because of the heat.
We were very nervous of eating preferring to wait until the evening back at camp. The bars we visited were smart and clean, though we found waiters and people around were disinclined to speak with us. We were not smiled at or even looked at. It was left to the little shoeshine boys who wanted to clean our shoes while we drank. They knew a few words of English and were prepared earn a few army Francs from us with a smile. The people around were normal Europeans and dressed as such. There were of course others, dressed Arab style I suppose. We had not seen many people where we had been to know how Arabs dressed, the ones I saw were wearing rags.
Finding a photographer I had my photograph taken. It turned up safely many weeks later.
On coming out of the photographers we walked into the Military Police, who were very helpful, and told us of the best and safest bars to use. They also said we were not allowed to carry arms in the town, and to conceal our revolvers, (perhaps this was why we were not smiled at). After that we kept them inside our jackets, as it would not have been safe to leave them back at camp even though somebody was always there.
This place had no theatre or cinema, and we walked all over and found nothing of interest. What we enjoyed most was in the evening back at camp lighting a good fire, and sitting around eating and drinking a decent mug of tea.
Our sleeping arrangements were as usual, on the ground, or on the ground. I do like sleeping under the stars.
On the forth day we were ready to move back to the regiment.
The change I am sure had been good for us.
There really had been no excitement in this place, nor back at the regiment.
The Regimental Headquarters was set out on the side of a hill. Our vehicles were lined up in the front rank, the second rank consisted of our two-man tents in two rows. The Regimental office and the Signal Office tents were a little apart. The Officers tents were further over.
One warm afternoon we had a little excitement when we were visited by a whirlwind. It swept through the camp nearly pulling the larger tents down. All my message pads in the Signal Office went up in the spiral of air, and floated down like confetti, they must have gone up about two hundred feet, and came down all over the camp. The smaller tents stood up to it well. It of course covered us with even more sand.
Now we were out of action life was very boring, with very little to amuse ourselves. Two of the boy鈥檚 used to compile crossword puzzles, which were in great demand. A Rifle competition was organised between the whole A.G.R.A. a group of six regiments of which we were one. A range was set up in a nearby gully for us to practice on. Our Lt. Quartermaster was very enthusiastic and had us all out there enjoying ourselves. I did quite well, but there were no prizes. The only prize I got was whilst on a few days leave in Bougie, (a spot on the coast just sand and sea, nothing else that I could see). There all I found was one tent and two Sergeants who gave me a tent and took my revolver and said I could set it up wherever I wanted. It seemed to be a rest camp where all you could do was rest.

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