大象传媒

THE BATTLE FOR SIDI BARRANI

Before World War 2 Mussolini had been busy invading and harassing the populace of Ethiopia.
At first the Italian army encountered set backs at the hands of some of the local residents who led the Italians a merry dance across the sands.
They tried to persuade them that it was not a good idea to enter their country and try to change it's laws without so much as a by your leave, etc.
But the natives of that country had no chance against the modern equipment of a mechanised army.
Haili Selassi the Emperor had moved to Britain and was in exile.
Meanwhile Mussolini's Marshal Graziani plundered and murdered in Ethiopia.

Barbed wire was strung across the country, the people were segregated and young women were dragged off to serve the desires of the Italian soldiers.
Anyone who resisted the Fascists and lived were given a mock trial then hung in public before their neighbours and friends.
Two posts were erected with a cross bar fitted across the top of both and the nooses required were tied to the crossbar.
Wooden ammunition boxes or chairs would be placed under each noose.
The people to be hung would have their hands tied behind their backs then assisted onto the box or chair, then the noose would be put round the neck and the chair or box would be kicked out from under them.
They were then left kicking, twisting, and choking to death while weeping relatives had to be held at bay by the Italian soldiers.

Hitler came to power and after some initial successes attacked Poland and that started World War 2 German Forces then swept through Europe and Britain was left to face the German Ogre.
Meanwhile Mussolini had been more or less sitting on the fence, but on seeing how Hitler had waltzed through most countries and was about to invade Britain he decided he would join the Fuhrer and get a slice of the cake before it was too late, so to speak.
But Britain after having tried repeatedly to avoid war was not about to give up just like that, and took on Hitler.
Britain declared war on Germany.
Fascist Italy declared war against Britain and France on June 10th 1940.
Mussolini could not subue the Greeks let alone take on the might of Britain and France.

A little later in the piece a British General O'Connor was in the Western Desert and under his command were a number of well-trained soldiers, one of these units was the 4th Indian Division.
Part of the 4th Indian Division were the 1st Bn The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
The Argyll's were stationed near Jerico in Palestine when WW2 broke out.

They had been busily engaged in enforcing the law by assisting Glubb Pasha and the Arab Legion, also the Palestine Police.
The Argylls moved to the Western Desert by railway and having got off at El Alamein, the last station in Egypt, they moved to Mersa Matru.
The Italians in Egypt were boasting, and with some influence in some quarters in Cairo had made no secret of their hopes to drive the British out of Egypt.
A force of approx 140 thousand Italians soldiers with equipment moved into Cirenaica and once there awaited the order to move into Egypt.

The expected Italian drive now took place. The British as a pivot point for defensive operations re-enforced Mersa Matru.
The Italians advanced to the east of Sidi Barrani and came to a halt with a broad no man's land of arid desert between them and Mersa Matru.
The 40 thousand British dug in and waited.
The Italians went to work between Sollum and Sidi Barrani to pave the way for more supplies and men for their push to the east.

The Italians built little forts and strung a line of these into the desert.
The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders moved out into the desert and dug in.
One company was moved a little further out into the desert and dug holes in the sand to live in.
As time went by they got used to the hot sun with no place to avoid it but the ground sheets laced together to form a roof over the hole they lived in.
Mail forms were issued once a week so the men could write home.
Kit bags were filled with what was not used in the desert and taken to Alexandria, so the men were left with one K.D. Tropical uniform while the other one was on it's way to Alexandria to be washed and pressed.
At night patrols were sent out on foot to locate the Italian positions and these would be noted and marked on maps.
Sometimes they returned to their position the next morning with a prisoner.
Sometimes they lost personnel due to sandstorms or mines or enemy actions.

At Mersa Matru the Western Desert Force carefully prepared an exercise to test the strength of the invaders from Libya.
Having done lots of exercises in the desert the Argylls were glad of another walk to ease the boredom of desert life, with it's never ending flies, dysentery, sand fly fever, etc.

So it was whispered that tomorrow on the 9th of December they were going on another nature walk.
My name is Tom Barker and I was one of the Argylls who along with the rest of 'B' company was dug in some where in the desert.
It was no thrill though, because having slept on sand, in sand, under sand, we ate sand, we walked on sand, cleaned our mess tins with sand, we grabbed a shovel and walking behind the next sand dune and digging a hole we buried things in the sand.
Sometimes when a bloke was seen going for a walk with a shovel over his shoulder one of his mates would shout, "Why bother plantin' it Danny? it cannie graw oot 'ere wi nae watter!"
But even this bit of light hearted banter became boring after a couple of days and blokes would go for a walk with a shovel and no one would heed them.

The only thing that stopped one from going mad from sand and boredom was to move, and wave the flies away.
If one moved, the sand would still be there but the rocks would be in different places.
But the flies would follow no matter where one went.
One was always on the look out for booby traps and trip wires, also at night the odd visit from a desert spider or a scorpion.
Centipedes in the Middle East at dusk could easily be mistaken for twenty hermit crabs in heat, each one trying to couple with the one in front of it while staggering all over the place.
God must have thought, "It must be a bit boring for those poor buggers down there, I'll stir em up a bit."
Some days a small 'willy willy' would be seen skipping along the surface of the sand.

Like a twisting piece of rope made up of fine sand particles it would dance over the dunes and back then race away across the desert at the whim of the breeze.
One day it seemed to be extra hot and still and someone even remarked on it then someone shouted, "Wit the f---s' that?" and he was pointing to the distance where what looked like a brown mountain of cocoa powder was silently edging our way.
It appeared to reach to the underside of some low clouds and it looked like it was boiling. It stretched right across the horizon.

Suddenly one became aware that the whisper of cooling breeze that had been blowing was gone and an eerie silence had taken its place.
One bloke who had been cleaning his gun hurriedly put it all back together and others who had been chatting suddenly grabbed trench spades and shoveled at the sand like gophers desperate to get away from a predator.
Once they had a hollow dug that would accommodate their body they dug into their pack and got out their cardigans to act as a air filter, then pulling a ground sheet over themselves they hunkered down to wait for the sand storm.
"Take cover" someone shouted, as bits of twigs and other debris began to drift by driven by a now gusting hot wind.
The hot wind gradually increased and was no longer gusting, it was now a steady very powerful blast of very hot air and the moaning also had changed, it sounded like a huge choir but instead of singing now it was like a screaming banshee.

Some used a ground sheet others a blanket, anything to cover the body as protection against the stinging sand particles.
I had never experienced anything like this before and did not know what to expect.
As I looked out from under my ground sheet I could see others doing likewise with a quizzical look on their face as they wondered same as myself, what was about to happen.

Then it hit.

Where before we had been quietly minding our own business in the silence of the desert, small stones began to move on their own as if an invisible finger were pushing them, it was eerie.
Sand began to lift into the air as if there was no more gravity.
A huge scorpion came out from under a small rock that had moved and sampled the air then quickly made for a bigger rock and began to urgently burrow under it, and having got under pushed sand to seal the entrance.
Then it was as if someone had reached up and switched off the sun because it suddenly got dark and there was hot gray dust as fine as flour swirling around us.
Then a howling blast of burning hot air carrying dust and debris hit us.
It was as if the gates of hell could no longer contain the fury of Satan and had burst asunder.

The searing wind tried to drag my groundsheet away but since I was laying on part of it and in a depression there was no way it could be carried off.
The hot wind shrieked and buffeted and the burning sand stung and was so abrasive it rubbed any exposed skin off.
After a while one had to move because the sand began to pile on top of the blanket and it was hot.
So it was a case of move or be barbecued in the hot sand.

Wet through now with perspiration I grabbed a flapping loose corner and held on to it.
We laid there a long time patiently waiting for it to pass, after what seemed like hours it began to slacken and someone was shouting "Give me a hand somebody".
Someone had lain still too long and had got covered with hot sand and did not have his pullover and was having breathing problems.
We got him out and he along with another bloke with a badly skinned ear and blood running down his neck were sent to hospital.

We were issued extra water and salt tablets after the sandstorm was gone, everyone was wet through with perspiration and the warm water that we drank didn't help the situation very much.
But after what seemed an extra cool night the next day we were back to normal or near enough.
I heard later that sometimes these storms could last for three or four days.

Thank God that one only lasted a day.
The side of the Bren gun carrier and our truck that had been facing the sandstorm was stripped of paint as efficiently as a sand blaster in a factory.
Someone was on the ball because it was not long before the paint was replaced to hide the shining metal polished bright by the sand.

We could hear a small plane somewhere very high up in the sky and were ready to dive for cover
should he decide to dive on us.

It was some hours later we discovered hands were being blown off when someone found a fountain pen lying on the sand.
Then one of the lads picked up a thermos flask, assuming it had fallen out of some Officer's truck he tried to unscrew the top to have a nice cold drink.
But the top would not budge, a Sergeant grabbed it just as a young Lieutenant pulled up in his p.u. truck and called, "I'll take that Sergeant."
The Officer had a go at getting the top off, but he too was unsuccessful so he held it near his ear and shook it, presumably to see if it was worth the trouble of opening it.

Meanwhile our Sergeant having encountered a bloke with a hand missing guessed what was afoot and began yelling at the inquisitive crowd of blokes round the flask, but it was too late and the flask suddenly detonated with a roar and a cloud of sand and dust.

The Officer's head, shoulder and one arm were gone, the Sergeant was dead, two blokes were laid moaning in the hole the flask bomb had made
Five men were lost to one thermos flask bomb.
The Italian pilots would fly very high then switch off and glide over our positions and drop these little presents, and at first they did a lot of damage until we woke up to what was happening.

We did not take kindly to this sneaky kind of warfare.
One afternoon we saw a cloud of dust that usually accompanies vehicles on the move and sure enough a column of 30 cwt trucks came toward us and we relaxed as we identified them as ours. As the first truck stopped the others stopped along side.
Soon there were about 20 trucks parked side by side.

The first thing that was obvious to me was, all we need now is for a enemy plane swoop over and he
would get the lot with one hit.

Some of our lads were coming out of their dugouts to see what was happening and since the trucks were empty they suggested we were going for a paddle in the sea.
They could not have been more wrong.

"Anyone got any paper work on them burn it now" roared a voice, and
"Make sure you have your identity discs round your necks and then get dressed to move".

About half an hour later, "On truck" roared the voice again, and we got into the trucks and soon we were being whisked across the desert, dust from the truck in front were making it difficult to breath so we got our pullover's out and wrapped them round our face.

The ride was also very bumpy because we were not on a road and some times a small hillock would bounce the truck and everyone in it would rise and come down with a bone jarring thump onto the wooden seats.
Finally the trucks stopped and we got out and formed up to march. I noticed some blokes dressed in uniforms I had never seen before and upon inquiring who they were I was informed they were Spanish Mercenaries who would fight with us, since they did not like the Fascist or the Nazis.
Lots of speculation was flying round, like, "I hear the bloke in charge of the Italians is a bloke called Electric beard".

"Oh, you must mean General Berganzoli, yea well that's because he uses a battery driven electric shaver, but I think Marshal Graziani is the big noise."
" That's the back stud who strung up all those people in Ethiopia before the war an' put barbed wire across the country"
"Yea mate, but you got fat chance o' meetin' 'im aht 'ere"
Then all the patter ceased as an Officer strode to the front of the now gathered force and held up his hand.
Everyone was quiet as the Officer began to speak, "You men have trained hard in this desert and now we are about to see if it will pay off,"
"I have no doubts in my mind that you are the cream of the British Army and as such this is going to be a doddle, we are going to take Siddi Barrani from the Italians and we are going to hold it.
"We will now say a prayer"
"Our father who is in heaven' etc.
He then went on to say that there was no doubt in his mind on the outcome of this venture since we were in the right, etc.

And when that was finished the Medical Officer stepped forward and said "O.K. now any one wanting to go to the toilet I suggest you go now, because if you get hit you stand a better chance with empty bowels.
"Bloody charming" I heard some one mutter, "This is for real"
Someone else muttered, "Prayin' ain't goin' ti 'elp, on'y bugger that's goin' tae cum oot o' this is 'im wi' biggest guns".
And now there was a hum of conversation over the whole gathering.
Soon we were forming up in the now fading light and we set off across the desert.

'No talking', was the order, I did not feel like talking, my mind was full of "What are we marching into " this was no stunt this was for real". And it did cross my mind "Would I ever see England again?"
We marched until we stopped and word was passed along the ranks "The Italian positions are only half a mile away so keep the noise down."
The trucks with now no load to carry were just creeping quietly along in bottom gear about a hundred yards behind us.

The only noisy thing was a Bren gun carrier, and an Officer told him to stop and he could catch up later. It stopped and looked like it was being left behind. But at least the noise of it was not now as loud .
Noise carries a long way in the desert at night.
We trudged on in the dim light of the African night just following the bloke in front until at last a halt was called and whispered commands were issued.

This was about 2 in the morning so we set to and quietly dug a depression in the ground to just accommodate our body. The order was whispered from mouth to ear, " No smoking no talking, lay down in your pit and wait for day light and the whistle.
I got a hole dug and lay in it and tried to doze, but I could not even do that because it was so cold, and it really can get cold in the desert at night, and because of the inactivity it seemed to be colder than usual.

Also my mind was conjuring up all kinds of fantasy
I also was aware that if the Italians knew we were there they could creep up on us and the surprise would be on us
I laid there under the bright stars and thought "Yea, they look brighter than normal, but then that could be because I ain't goin' ter see 'em no more cum mornin'.

The night dragged on, and the mind churns as the stars twinkled and a million miles away one shot across the heavens like some one striking a giant match.
I knew the Lord's prayer off by heart that night.
I wasn't about to sleep when some bloody ice cream walla from Italy might just pop in to slit me throat from ear to ear in the early morning.
I sat there and waited on the alert with my eyes just scanning for any movement until the sky began to lighten.
It seemed an eternity till dawn and in the desert one can see a false dawn.

The sky begins to lighten then half an hour later changes it's mind and begins darken and I became aware of my dry mouth.
Then the sky began to lighten a lot quicker and finally a thin red bright strip began to get wider and wider and shadows begin to form.

As I raised my head slowly to peer over the lip of my cover again I looked left and right and in the dim light I could just make out some of the bumps of greatcoats now, covering some blokes as they hunkered down in their cover, but only the shadows moved.
Then the real dawn began to lighten the sky and as the tip of the blood red sun began to show on the horizon the long shadows began to creep ever faster across the sand like an army of scurrying beetles.
I wished the sun would hurry so I could get warm, but now I wished it would not rise as I was fearful of what daylight would bring.
The chill of night was gone and I was aware we had not slept for about forty hours and was beginning to feel drowsy as I got warmer when I saw a movement.
Suddenly I was wide awake.

Some of our blokes began to stand up and stretch, and one bloke began to shake his blanket,
I thought "WHAT ARE THEY DOING IF THE ENEMY IS ONLY HALF A MILE AWAY?'
I began to think to myself "This is just another exercise."
Suddenly the silence was shattered by a sound like a heavy truck traveling at high speed with flat tyres.
The noise came rushing through the air and then an enormous explosion and the bloke with the blanket was gone.
Where he had been there was just a huge cloud of dust swirling and rising in the air and a ringing in the ears and a blast of hot air and sand and an acrid smell.
A bloke was on the ground and writhing in agony while another was walking in circles as though drunk until someone jumped up and pulled him to the ground and held him down.

Everyone who had been standing now for a brief second stood like statues then as if by magic they disappeared into the ground as more whistling noises and explosions were heard.

Now when I looked out but all I could see was dust and fine sand hanging in the air.
Then all hell let loose as shell after shell hit the ground.
The ground was now shuddering as explosion after explosion made the sand and dust into a blanket it
was impossible to see through.
I could feel grit in my mouth, my eyes were watering, even though I was wearing eye shields made of thin clear plastic the dust still got in.

There was another smell that reminded me of when I was a child and stood in awe as I watched fireworks being let off by adults, it was hot and stung the nose.
I checked to make sure I had a round up the spout and the safety was off, but the bolt was sluggish and difficult to open.
My rifle would not work because it was clogged with dust, and the bloke next to me had managed to get his bolt out and was licking the dust and sand off it with his tongue and spitting it out on to the ground.
There were snapping noises like some one slapping a wet leather belt on a table top and I suddenly realised they were bullets going by, so close.

I saw the bloke put his rifle bolt back in and he beckoned so I moved with him and we blundered into a truck, and we ducked under it for cover as with a huge roar something smashed into the front of the truck.
I pondered the futility of this venture.
What were the people who were in charge of us thinking of to send us into this predicament.

We might just have well have been armed with a big stick as a rifle that could not be used in desert conditions.
There was a bloke under the truck's diff gearbox on the back axle, obviously thinking it was a safe place to be.
But I saw he was in danger of being crushed should a tyre be hit.
I shouted for him to get out of there.
But there was so much noise he either did not hear or he was content to risk it.
If the tyre got hit he would be trapped.

Then I heard him screaming as one back tire slowly deflated as something ripped through it and the bloke was too slow moving as he realised it was the diff touching his back. With his two Bren gun pouches pressed into the sand he had no chance of wriggling free.
Trapped he was slowly crushed into the sand as the diff settled down on his back.
The terrible screams.

We tried frantically to get the sand from under him with our bare hands but it was hopeless.
Then he could not draw in breath so the screaming stopped and he expired.

Someone was shouting, "Get away from the transport they are aiming at the transport"
And I suddenly realised that made sense, we were trying to shelter from the small arms fire but the Italian artillery was firing at the transport.
I nudged the other bloke and as we got up we could see into the cab and the bloke behind the wheel was dead.
We did not have to check because half of his head was missing and there was a hole through the back of the cab.

The bloke on this side was struggling to open the door, he had the window down but the door was jammed tight.
So I grabbed the handle and pulled but the handle was hot and burnt my hand.
The other bloke with me was trying to get the chap in the cab out of the window.
Flames were now licking the inside of the cab and I shouted 'get through the window"
He shouted "I can't the engine has pushed back and caught my bloody foot, I can't see it for the flames.
He was gasping and shouted, "It's gittin' too bloody 'ot in 'ere"
Then there was a whooshing noise as flames leaped up and the heat drove me back from the window.

The bloke inside began screaming "Shoot me, I'm burning, shoot me you stupid b-d shoot me.
Then suddenly he slumped and was quiet and as the flames died down I reached in to see if I could pull him nearer to the window,
Everything was red hot, and as I pulled on his arm it was like peeling a pullover off, the skin peeled away and I had to let go and retire because I had moved him and the flames got higher again and now I could see he too was burning.

I was brought back to earth by clanging noises as metal fragments ripped through the body of the truck.
The windscreen now and again starred as a bullet smashed it's way through leaving a little spidery hole.
Some one in the fog of sand and dust was screaming, "FIX BAYONETS"
As I drew my bayonet I saw Ginger Craig next to me he grinned at me and slammed down on his bayonet to fix it to his rifle.
We moved forward away from the now useless truck as another shell exploded and suddenly there were noises like angry hornets as bits of shrapnel whizzed by.
Ginger Craig sank to the ground like a balloon losing air.
I went over to him, and he was very pale and his mouth was moving, I had to put my ear to his mouth to hear him whisper, I'm cold Tommo".

I took off my great coat and wrapped it round him
I asked him, "Where are you hit?"
He said "I don't know but I'm cold Tommo and my chest is numb"
"My chest is just numb, I can't feel anything" Mumbled Ginger Craig
I undid his equipment buckle and ripped open his shirt and fitted a field dressing but it could not contain the blood .
I felt so helpless because I could do nothing to stop it.
Another bloke came and put his coat over Ginger, but he still whispered "I'm cold Tommo"
Then someone hit me on the shoulder and screamed in my ear.
"LEAVE HIM, YOU CAN'T HELP HIM"
I was loath to leave Ginger Craig
But I had to go or I would let the others down.

" Leave him you can't help him, listen for the whistle" screamed a voice and he was gone in the fog of dust.
Everything seemed to be so urgent all of a sudden, I was torn between two desires, Ginger Craig who was dying, and to get at the back studs who had done this.
I moved his pack up so his head could rest on it, I wanted to re-assure him he would be all right but I guessed he knew what was happening and I did not want to make it worse with a clumsy lie.

His mouth moved, I put my ear down to his mouth but I could hear nothing, and when I looked at his face he was looking past me at the sky and he was gone and fine sand was settling on his open eyes.
I thought about wild dogs and hyenas and Ginger Craig lying there in the open, but I did not have a choice.
With mixed feelings I got up and followed those I could see and we seemed to move into clearer light.
Now I could see the others and we were more or less in a skirmish line about four yards apart.

The apprehension I had felt earlier had disappeared, I was so full of hate all I wanted to do now was get to the enemy lines and kill as many as I could
On my right was a bloke called Harry Chalmers and one time as we lay on the sand a shell landed right between us
It threw up a little sand but did not go off but twisted side ways and booled away behind us.
It was buff coloured and had coloured rings round the nose, and my guess is it was about a foot long and four inches in circumference.

I looked from the rolling shell and caught the eye of Harry Chalmers who was just to my right.
He had also watched the same shell and as it stopped rolling we looked at each other then he held up his thumb and grinned.
I remember giving a weak grin in return.

Then we were up again and advancing on the dug in Italians, the Officer in charge of our lot was up to the mark.
He would blow his whistle when he saw the enemy guns were being reloaded we would get up and move forward, and when we heard the whine of the shells we got down.

Trouble was when we got up to advance again some of our blokes were writhing in the sand and some would never move again.
The bloke on my left grinned and nodded and indicated with his eyes.
I looked and saw our R.S.M calmly stoking his pipe with his walking stick over one arm.

Reaching into his top pocket he calmly took out a box of matches, lit his pipe, put away his matches, and having got his pipe going he said something to the Piper beside him.
Taking the stick from his arm he leaned on it while puffing at his pipe and waiting for the whistle to blow.
The Piper began playing as soon as the whistle blew and we advanced again.

The R.S.M. was swinging his stick with one hand and a .38 Smith and Webley revolver in the other and the pipe going full blast in his mouth as if he were having a Sunday afternoon stroll.
One bloke was advancing the next minute his head was gone and twin spurts of red came from his neck as he collapsed to the sand.

Another was trying to keep pace with us while holding his intestines in, he had dropped his rifle and was hugging his middle with both arms while staggering forward.
The whistle blew and we all got down, but he kept staggering hoping to catch up, then he jerked as though hit by a big fist and sank to the sand and remained still.

It was not a bayonet charge like in the First World War where everyone went over the top yelling and screaming and getting mown down.
This was more sedate in that we stupidly walked forward for half a mile like the metal ducks at the fairground while the Italians in the cover of dugouts in the sand potted at us when they felt like it.

It was a bit unequal in that we were in full view of their guns while all we could see was a steel helmet with two eyes peering out over the sand.

And most of us could not shoot back at these tiny targets because of the clogging dust on our rifle bolts.
However this was now about to change because we had got so close to them they were now not sighting their guns but looking down the barrel and firing direct.
This had a negative affect because the shells were hitting the ground and not going off, also some of the Italians were now panicking and running off into the desert.

At one time I was laid behind a rock and my tin hat was protecting my head while I snugged my rifle close to my face in case of flying shrapnel.

I heard myself muttering " If I get out of this I will go to church every Sunday I promise, and I will help little old ladies across the street, meanwhile I was trying to shrink behind this tiny rock.
"Don't worry me old son, nutt'n an' no body is gonna' get yer, trust me" I could just imagine Bill with his Liverpool accent standing there grinning down at me.
I have often pondered why I thought of Bill Nightingale when I was near death, instead of my Father.
Then my reverie was shattered as the whistle blew and I got up.
Upon seeing some of our blokes writhing in pain and some not moving I felt the terrible rage building up inside again.

Also one or two Italians were now standing up and raising their arms, but some were still frantically shooting at us.
All I wanted to do now was get at these back studs who had been firing at us since dawn.
It was now past midday.
Now we had got this close did they expect to put their hands up and surrender just like that, because now there was a chance of their lives being in danger.
We had suffered for months in the desert.
Hands being blown off, disfigurement, blokes killed by imitation flasks of drink, land mines, quick sands, poisoned water, flies, strafed from the air, sickness, and now this final showdown and they wanted to put their hands in the air and walk away from it.
We ploughed into them and suddenly I was face to face with an Italian who was desperately trying to reload his rifle, he never succeeded.

It is enough to say I survived these actions and I will not belittle the enemy, who, unlike some of their mates stood their ground and died for what they believed in.
I suddenly became aware of my hand was smarting and it was wet and when I looked a huge blister caused by the hot truck handle had burst on the palm of my hand. I put the loose skin back on and wrapped it with a piece of cloth cut off a field dressing.
We were now upon the dugouts where the Italians were hunkering down.
Some jumped out and ran away into the desert, some stayed to fight and were butchered.

I heard later that one of our blokes had found an Italian hiding in a dug out and the man raised his hands with a white rag above his head and came out, but as soon as our bloke turned his back the Italian pulled a stiletto from his sock and struck the bloke in the back.

One of our Officers who observed the incident calmly walked over to the Italian and pointing his revolver at the man's head, the Italian put up his hands instinctively to ward off the bullet but the bullet went through one of his hands and on into his head and he fell dead onto the sand.
"Anywhere to get away from that advancing line of bayonets "One Italian said
There were Italian bodies laying in all kinds of postures, one had a bayonet still in his body and I thought the Jock it belonged to had either not fixed it properly and it came off his rifle as he withdrew
Or he had used it like a sword and maybe had been too busy fending off another Italian and just forgot about it, either way it did not matter now because it was over.

I sat on the sand and ran the blade through the sand and that cleaned my bayonet, all my anger was gone and I felt empty and very sad, what had happened here today was beyond tears.

The quiet was unreal except for a ringing in the ears and a bloke came to me and his mouth was working but I could not hear him.
A big bang would be felt rather than heard as a truck petrol tank blew up, and the odd flash of a pistol shot could be seen rather than heard.

The Bren gun carrier had a shell hole through the front of it and when we looked in the drivers seat and surrounding walls were black and there was one boot on the floor with a foot still in it.

Somebody said "Look how white the bone is" and I was delighted that it suddenly occurred to me that I had heard him, so I was not going to be deaf for the rest of my life.
The driver of that Bren gun carrier was to my knowledge, one Sgt McFee 1st A&SH

Wrecked trucks were littered about on the landscape and smoke was ascending from them as they burned to the now clear blue sky above.
From a dugout came the sounds of some one groaning and weeping.
Black patches in the sand were moving and on approaching these I discovered they were in fact masses of flies attracted to blood soaking into the sand.

One of out blokes walked over to where I was sitting and said something.
I could see his mouth working but all I could hear was a ringing in my ears.

I just grinned and he grinned and walked away and saw a bottle of wine stood up in the sand so he went over and picked it up and it blew his hand off, it had a hand grenade tied under it.

Then when I got up to go to him my right foot felt wet in my boot but I did not bother about it I was more concerned for the bloke minus one hand, but a medic came and took him away.

I sat down and took of my gaiter, boot, and finally my sock and my foot was bloody, but my foot was o.k., blood was running down from a cut in my leg.

I think a shell must have hit a rock and shattered it, and a fragment of rock had hit me in the leg.
It had cut clean through the top of my sock where it was turned over, so it had gone through a double thickness of wool, I considered I was lucky because the wool would have slowed it down a lot.
We took prisoners and they seemed to be glad it was over.
I think the final count of prisoners was in the region of 44,000.
During that evening some of the Italians came out of the desert and one Officer came toward our Officer and offered to surrender in exchange for food and water.

Our Officer politely requested him to f---k off back into the desert and come back in the morning.
And they did.

We stood some bottles in the sand and potted at them with the Italian rifles.
They fired a bullet not unlike a .22 but the bullet was twice as long as a .22 also the charge was bigger more like a .303, the brass casing that is.
But the rifles were pathetic. I think the bores were worn out.
I aimed at one bottle and the bullet hit the next bottle to the left of it, and at fifty yards.
Totally unreliable.

But I had just come through a battle against a superior number of the enemy and survived it.

Perhaps I should be grateful that their rifles were not accurate, but then we did not use ours except to fix our bayonets to.
All I have to show today is a blue scar on my leg and memories for the Sidi Barrani battle.

The blue scar I can put up with but memories at night are something else. I did hear later that we
should have been supported by tanks and air cover,
But we saw neither. But we had given Britain her first land victory in WW2,
The only consolation we got was a rum issue after the event, and that should have been issued before we set off, however the times we had been taunted out in the desert with trip wires and mines and machine gunned from the air was enough to try the patience of a Saint and finally came to a head at Sidi Barrani.

But like every army we had our fair share of cock-ups to coin a phrase.
Then we were taken from the 4th Indian Div and sent to garrison Solum.

Also the Australians went on to attack and take Bardia.
We watched the skyline light up at night as if it were Guy Fawk's night the Australian guns put down barrage after barrage.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.