大象传媒

NOTES BY ALBERT SHORE
My grand daughter Julie has asked me to relate any battles I was involved in during WW II.
I enlisted in April 1940 and for almost 6 years was with the 3rd Battalion Royal Tank Regt after 20 weeks training at a very strict Military Depot, Tidworth.
At Tidworth we found life very harsh, sometimes I wondered if I had commited a crime. When it was pay day on Friday evening we had to line up for 1陆 hours to receive our weekly wage of 25 pence, standing like Grenadiers, not daring to speak or move.
Considering the Army took over your entire existence 168 hours per week, I calculated there were 21 eight hour shifts and we were paid 25 pence, little more than one single penny for eight hours work. My entire training period of 20 concentrated weeks earned me 拢5. Today even small children spend 拢5 as though it was nothing. I think that was my first Battle. How to Survive.
Survive I did and was sent to Liverpool with the Regt to board a brand new ocean liner, 26,000 tons, on her maiden voyage. This was a lucky break, we sailed with 9 other great ships in a convoy calling at Sierra Leone in West Africa, Durban in South Africa, Mombasa in East Africa, through the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, disembarking at Port Said, Egypt and then by train to Cairo.
When our tanks arrived a few days later we were sent to the Western Desert with General Wavell. There were 30,000 of us facing an enemy of tremendous strength, some 333,000; odds were eleven to one, but within two months we had captured 130,000 of them. We were sick of seeing Italian soldiers; they all had to be guarded, fed, watered, toilet facilities, first aid.
Our next battle was in Greece, then Crete after we were routed, and I was lucky to escape to Egypt. Only 120 of us managed to escape, the other 800 or so were either killed, captured or wounded.
Back to the Desert again, made up to full strength with fresh men from England, we battled for months until we made a stand at El Alamein.
The Western Desert is perhaps 2,000,000 square miles, no roads, no trees, no land marks of any sort for hundreds of miles, imagine, 20 times the size of Great Britian. In the summer the temperature hovered around 120掳; the face of the desert begins to palpitate in the heat of the sun; imaginary lakes deceive the eye, distant objects seem to float. Towards sunset the landscape settles into solidarity and the billions of flies give up their day long torment, only to be replaced by millions of mosquitoes. (The Night Shift). Flies that followed wherever man went, crawled up your nose, settled on the moisture in the corner of your eyes, settled on your lips, flew in your mouth when you spoke, swooped on the food in your mouth, one hand was continually employed in waving them off.
Weeks before Alamein started, we planned a vast campaign of disillusion. Our tanks were covered with tarpaulin sheets and scaffolding and plywood to resemble lorries, while the lorries were prepared to look like tanks, even a thin telegraph pole to look like a gun. This operation was repeated by other regiments so when a German spotter plane came over to take photographs, we pretended to fire at him, but deliberately missed so that he would get back and develop his photos, with the false information on them. The next day we would remove the camouflage off the tanks only, and the German plane would believe we had enormous supplies of new tanks overnight and would think a great armoured attack was imminent, and so deploy his armour, whereas our tanks would be in another sector.
As we assembled close to the enemy in preparation for the coming battle, we were subjected to sporadic shelling and straffing by planes at night. I said to my mate, Lofty, 鈥淟et us try to dig a trench.鈥� After all night scratching and scraping we only dug 6 inches deep and 12 feet long; it was a rocky terrain. At last we lay in it and covered ourselves with our rubber cape-cum-groundsheet. I reared my head to say goodnight to Lofty and saw a vicious-looking scorpion making towards his face. I said 鈥淟ook out, Lofty, you鈥檝e got a visitor.鈥� In a flash he was out of the trench like a scalded cat. We sat and thought, fancy us prepared to accept shot and shell, rather than sleep with a scorpion.
The battle began with a line of 38 miles of guns each due to fire 400 to 600 shells. Just imagine a comparative silence, then at a given second all these guns open fire. I鈥檓 sure it must have shook all of Africa. Facing us there was a minefield 5 miles deep, every step mortal danger. Engineers had to find them and delicately take the detonator out, thus clearing a path wide enough for a tank to pass. At the same time, the Germans would be aware of this and would viciously contest this manoeuvre by shelling.
After the breakthrough the battle got under way. Night would fall. Fighting usually ceases in the desert and all the noise is from vehicle movements, leaguering up, replenishing, repairing and with luck, just an hour or two sleep. On moonless nights we never knew who was near us, that was why the Army law was to stand to one hour before the very first light in the morning sky to be ready for instant action.
Imagine a party of our anti-tank gunners when it was light enough for them to see they were surrounded by a German tank force who did not even suspect them. In an instant our gunners lined their guns on targets and in 8 seconds, 8 tanks in flames with another 8 in flames before the Germans could even grasp the situation. After all, to be fired on from within their own leaguer was most 鈥渄isturbing鈥�. The battle toll for this great action, the Germans lost 75 heavy tanks and self-propelled guns, and although badly mauledour men were never defeated.

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