大象传媒

EGYPT

El Tel El Kabir was an immense military arsenal covering dozens of square miles and was at one time I believe the biggest in the British Empire. Its geographical position being a third of the way between Ismailia and Cairo.

All that afternoon we were very busy changing and handing in clothing. The following three days slipped by very quickly on odds and ends of maintenance, getting some of our equipment replaced and making ready for the second stage of our journey. I was battery orderly sergeant the first day and that evening went with Stan, Vic and Eric to the YMCA. The weather was warm and sunny and most enjoyable for the first two days but on the third a sandstorm blew up and while nobody enjoyed it at least it prevented a 鈥淕enerals inspection鈥� being held, much to the relief of all ranks. During our stay all the vehicles were resprayed a dull pink to match the Tunisian landscape. Also we handed in to a central store one kitbag per man containing all unnecessary items.

The fourth day, April 11th, a Sunday saw us up not long after 0400 hours. The advance party left almost immediately and did so early each morning with Eddie, Dave and Ron on motorbikes and their job was to select and mark out the appropriate laager areas. They all had some interesting bike rides in sandstorms, clogged carburettors, punctures, even broken front telescopic forks and becoming stuck in patches of soft sand. One important part of their job was shepherding all the vehicles and guns safely into the 鈥渓aager鈥�. Being on a motorbike in these circumstances often meant that wherever they were their kit was somewhere else.

There was still a lot of sand in the air and we, the main party were not sorry to be on our way at 0600 hours. We travelled to and through Cairo, when an enterprising boy sold us some newspapers while we were driving through the city. Needless to say they were out of date copies but nobody worried very much. An Egyptian paper was a novelty and more than half of it was printed in English and so at least we had something to read. We travelled north out of the city and past those three great pyramids. They must have been a stupendous sight to the eyes of ancient Egyptians but now stripped of their sandstone covering they looked somewhat dilapidated, which is rather sad if consideration is given to the stupendous engineering feat that made their construction possible. I have since read that they are exactly at the centre of the land masses of the earth and I do not believe that that spot was chosen by accident or that any known means, so far as modern man is concerned, was used in their construction or that they were built by Cheops and Chephren but during a much earlier pre history era.

Cairo looked to us a most interesting place and at a later date closer inspection confirmed that opinion but I have since been told that, like so many other capitals it has been spoilt by modernisation. We stopped for the night a fair way north on the Cairo-Alexandria road and were up at 0500 hours the next day being well on our way an hour later. Just before reaching 鈥楢lex鈥� we turned due west and halted for dinner twenty miles due east of El Alamein on the road that runs parallel with the Mediterranean. I was driving at the time and had a fine view of the sea. We were soon on our way again and within an hour found ourselves travelling through the recently abandoned battlefield with the debris of war evident in all directions over a stretch of five or ten miles.

That night we laagered in open formation at El Daba and the next morning were up and away by 0700 hours. We passed through further remains of the battlefield on the ninety mile trip to Mersa Matruh where we arrived about midday. After 鈥渢iffin鈥� as lunch was called west of Suez the afternoon was spent on maintenance. We all bedded down fairly early there being nothing else to do and were off again in the morning to Buq Buq via Sidi Barrani, the weather being rather cloudy and inclined to rain. During all this movement we passed by all sorts of relics of the pursuit of the enemy, even smashed groups of aeroplanes that had been abandoned in the retreat.

We then moved through Hellfire Pass, Sollum and Bardia and the remaining fifteen miles to Tobruk, spending the following day within its perimeter. We route marched to the harbour, had a short swim and whilst there examined a few wrecked tanks and aeroplanes. There were lots of sunken ships in the harbour but the town looked as if it had been quite an attractive place in peacetime but I was most impressed by the awful drinking water. From Buq Buq onwards the water had been 鈥渂rackish鈥� but at Tobruk it appeared that the underground pipe had cracked here and there and salt water had seeped in making it almost undrinkable even as tea! That evening several of us played chess. In fact we had been playing this game on and off ever since leaving Baghdad.

Leaving Tobruk the next day we passed through Gazala and Maturba and noticed that the land was becoming increasingly more fertile as we drove along and indeed there was thick grass where we camped for the night. We had been issued with two man bironacs at Tel El Kabir which were very comfortable and were quickly erected each night. Somewhere on this leg of the journey I lost a pipe. I also noted that the moon was so brilliant that I could easily see to write by its reflected light.

April 18th, which was also Palm Sunday on that day in 1943, dawned with a blaze of sunshine and we were allowed to take our time over ablutions, breakfast and the packing of bedding on to the vehicles before leaving later than usual. We soon passed through Derna but to reach this town which was once a Roman resort we had to drive down a very steep and winding path from which we had a fine view of a mass of plants and trees of all kinds. It was a beautiful oasis on the edge of the desert and where it meets the Mediterranean. The name of the pass leading down towards the sea is the Wadi El Keuf or the Valley of Grottos. On the 19th we passed through Barce Driana where I obtained a ten lire Italian banknote from a local Arab boy. What I gave him for it I cannot remember but it was probably a few cigarettes. In the evening we went through Benghasi, which was all smashed up, and laagered twenty seven kilometres west of it.

At this point it is worth mentioning that during our travels we met or rather were pestered by the Scarab. A beetle that flies, so far as I could see, all over the desert and puts in an appearance almost as soon as we dug our latrines. It moves through the air with its feet dangling down somewhat like the undercarriage of an aeroplane. It is a scavenger and no doubt does a good job but it is not a very attractive sight when airborne.

Our next move took us through country that was becoming real desert as seen on the films, Beau Geste and all that, and in the evening we put up our 鈥渂ivvies鈥� twenty five kilometres south of Godabia. We had a good wash down and Bill took some photographs onwards to El Ageila, a very hot and deserted township where we stopped for lunch before finally laagering just east of 鈥淢arble Arch鈥� which I believe, in ancient times was a disputed border between two tribes but during Italian occupation the dividing line between the eastern and western halves of Libya i.e. Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. In the morning we went through 鈥淜nightsbridge鈥� and the 鈥淎rch鈥� and later Nafilia, finally settling down five kilometres west of Sultan. We were right next to the sea but arrived too late for a swim.

The next day April 23rd and as always, St Georges Day, advance elements of our Division who had already reached 8th Army went into action at Enfidaville in Tunisia. We had another week of travelling in front of us before joining them. Our route took us through Sirte which had been abandoned and then through Buclat. A few miles further on we made camp and managed to obtain some very tasty peaches. A good night鈥檚 sleep then up early and away at 0700 hours passing through Mesurata, a well kept colony that still had Italians living in it. The land everywhere was carefully cultivated and I found it quite strange to see crops such as tomatoes growing out of the desert sand. I imagine it was a hard and precarious way of scraping a living. There were plenty of date palms about and they undoubtedly helped to bind the sand together and gave some protection during sandstorms and maybe there was an oasis in the area which usually indicated a fair amount of water near the surface.

On April 25th, a Sunday we set out on a long journey through Tripolitania, Homs with its Roman remains, Kasserat, Castel Benito and then south of Tripoli to Azizia. This part is really sandy desert and we had some trouble getting our tent pegs to stay in the ground. It was during this leg of our journey that we passed a genuine Bedouin on horseback and both were dressed in all their finery including lots of silver ornamentations. They could have come straight out of 鈥淭he Desert Song鈥�.

On Monday we halted for maintenance. Washing ourselves and our clothes, repacking trucks and so on until late in the evening. At night I did a stunt on guard from 21.30 to 23.30 hours and during this period was distracted from time to time by the searchlights of Tripoli that could be seen quite plainly in the distance, some thirty kilometres away. We were up at sunrise the next day, had breakfast half an hour later but then came a long delay while the guns and vehicles were manhandled out of the sand. Once on our way we eventually picked up the coast road again.

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