大象传媒

CHAPTER FOUR a)- NORTH AFRICA 鈥� KNIGHTSBRIDGE BOX.

Before we moved off from Cairo I was told to take some new cans from a large stack. We had been issued with two 4 gallon cans and I picked up four more 2 gallon cans and filled them all with water and stored them in my gun quad. Later on, up the desert when we had to retreat, being pushed back by the Germans, this water came in very useful.
We were told we would have to do Truck cooking. This was something new that we had not been told about. It meant that the men who were on my vehicle had to cook their own meals. We were issued with one week鈥檚 rations, once a week and we had to work out what we could eat each day. We were supplied with margarine, jam, bacon, milk, tea and sometimes tins of fruit and not forgetting biscuits and bully beef.
We had to work out the meals for ourselves; counting out how many biscuits we could allow for each meal and also how to cook, for we had no stove. We used petrol poured on to sand in a box, this would burn up to one hour.

Off we went in column of route up the coast road, which was a tarmac road on our way to Alexandria. We were allowed to go into the town and have a look round, so me and another lad called Joe Goldman set off. A man with a rickshaw came along shouting 鈥楨xhibish鈥�. So we both got in the rickshaw and the Egyptian peddled us around to some sort of building and told us to go in. Inside there were scantily clad dancing girls jigging about! We didn鈥檛 stay long! Then we had to walk the way back to our unit, but we had seen the town

The good hard coast road ended on the boarder of Egypt and Lybia and there was a small village called Sollum. After this village the road was just sand and stones and it wound up a very steep hillside. The name of the pass was Halfaya Pass but the troops called it Hell Fire Pass. When we reached the top the desert was fairly flat with firm sand so the going was good. After travelling about 15 or 20 miles we came to Tobruk. This town was deep down in the bottom of three parts of a basin with very high cliffs all around. We took up our positions about twelve miles out in the desert where our chaps had to dig gun pits, so the guns were down in the ground with the barrels just peeping over the top, and over the gun pits were scrim nets to disguise the pits from the air. By now the enemy were flying over.

Just in front of us was a small air strip about three miles away and we could fire and cover the ground up to 12 miles. Our fighter aircraft was using this airstrip and we found ourselves supporting three tank units, the Bays, Lancers and Hussars, who were away out in front. They had American Honey tanks with 37mm small gun and Crusader tanks. These tanks were useless against the German tanks because our tanks had 2 lb armour piercing shells and the Germans were shooting 4 lb shells. Our tanks didn鈥檛 stand much chance; I saw many of our tanks knocked out where the German shells had gone straight through them. I even put my eye to a hole and looked through.

We were now in the 鈥淜nightsbridge Box鈥�, why it was given this name I will never know. As far as I could see there was no bridge and no box! Just more and more desert.

As a driver, when we reached our destination my job was usually finished, but I had to cook the meals. At a quiet spell in the shooting, I was asked to go back to Tobruk for some goodies for the troops. An N.C.O. went with me to a great big corrugated building and when I went inside my eyes boggled.

There were tons and tons of everything in the food line. There were tins of meat, fruit, sausages, sweets, and chocolate also soap, razor blades, wine, spirits and beer. The N.C.O had a list of things he wanted and I bought a few tins of fruit and cream, which I later shared with my friends. I always had plenty of money in my pocket because I used to do some hair cutting. I had learned how to cut hair and had a set of clippers and scissors. As there was no way for the lads to have their hair cut, they came to me and paid me in British Military money.

While we were at the front taking part in the 鈥淜nightsbridge Box鈥� our tank units were re-equipped with new tanks. They were much bigger than ours, American General Grant tanks with a 37mm gun in the turret and 75mm in the base of the tank.
We were soon ready for battle with these new tanks out in front, looking up a sloping hillside. We could see the tanks set off and we, the 25 lb guns were in support. As soon as the tanks reached the top of the hill they went up in balls of fire one after another. We lost many of these tanks, but we pressed forward with our guns in support and the infantry out in front.
As nightfall came, we found we had gone through one of our own minefields and were on the German side and the German鈥檚 were attacking. We had to travel up the side of our own minefield in the black dark till we came to a very rough craggy hillside. It took us all night getting through on to our own side.
The next morning, when daylight came we found we were being shot at on open sights. I was driving a 3-ton truck and saw shells dropping behind us. I drove down a hillside into a gully, which I am sure saved us. Eventually we did press forward past Beda Fomm and Agedabia and on to Benghazi, where there were some docks, but as far as I could see, a lot of ships were smashed about and the docks looked no good to us!
Then we got new orders. The Germans had pulled back beyond a little place called Sirte and we were chosen to go out on what was called a 鈥楯ock column鈥�. We went out into the desert a few miles, up past the German lines. For a few days our guns were in action shooting towards the road in an effort to stop the German supplies going along the road. We were never shot at, but after about four days Rommel sent 23 fighter-bombers over us to sort us out. We had two anti aircraft guns with us for air protection but the aircraft soon bombed them out. Then the aircraft had it all their own way.
I was driving a gun quad and two limbers or ammunition holders, so what I did, I jumped out and ran about 70 yards away from my vehicle and flattened out on the soft sand. I was pushing the sand away with my hands and bringing my feet up and pushing the sand away with my feet. I had managed to make a little trench when down came one small bomb and dropped about 10 yards from me. It made a hole about 10 feet deep but I didn鈥檛 get a scratch. The sand was so soft that the blast from the bomb missed me completely. I was very lucky as 11 of our lads were killed and some of our vehicles were burnt out.
That evening we were given orders to move back under our own steam, under cover of darkness. My Sergeant told me to drop the two limbers from the gun quad and hitch on the back a 25 lb gun, I also had to carry four extra men, so now instead of having five men in my vehicle, I had to take nine. This is when the extra water came in useful. We travelled through the night out into the desert, travelling by compass, as there were no roads. We got into a desert bog a few yards, and my vehicle went down to the underside. I could not reverse to get out, so this is where my winch gear came in useful. We hammered land pins, 3 ft metal rods, into the firm ground. We then hooked the wire rope on to the pins and I pulled the vehicle back out of the bog.
Later that night when it was pitch dark, we could see a flashing light away to our left, but nothing else. When dawn came we could then see that it was a gun quad like my own and we gradually drew together. They were out of one of our other batteries. When we first started out up the desert we had three batteries called A, B and E batteries. I was in B Battery and C troop. The other vehicle had five men in it but they had nothing hitched on the back, so they had lost everything.
After motoring many miles together, not seeing anyone else, we came to a place in the desert that looked like a dried up river bed with a banking on each side about 30 feet high and on our side of this river bed were a few hills and gullies. Down in one of these gullies were seven 3-ton trucks, all belonging to the Royal Army Service Corp. This was our first stop since leaving the desert bog so we decided to have our breakfast. As the lads got the fire going to make tea etc. I and two other lads decided to have a look around these 3-ton trucks. We found a stack of rifles all piled up together, so this proved to us that some of our troops had been taken prisoner. One of the trucks was loaded with four gallon cans of petrol, so we filled up our vehicles and had three cans to spare.
Then we got a surprise. One of the lads had walked up the ridge and looked over the top. He came back to tell us that there was an Italian gun battery with their guns pointing in the direction which we wanted to travel. We thought about taking our gun and pointing it over the hill, but we only had five rounds of armour piercing shells, so we decided that two or three of the lads should walk up to the ridge and let the Ities see them and their rifles, and this paid off. The Italian gun unit hitched their guns and went along down the dried up riverbed, round a corner and out of sight. So our group hitched up and moved over the ridge across the riverbed and over the other side and got on our way. When we were about three miles away from this place, we looked back and the Italians were shelling the position we had left with high explosive shells.
We motored on our way for some miles, not seeing anyone until we spotted a small vehicle coming towards us. It came up to us and turned out to be an Indian Officer. He asked us if we had any ammunition so we told him what we had, which was only five rounds of armour piercing shells, so he said 鈥橣ollow me鈥�. So we followed the officer in his 15cwt truck for a few miles then we could see there was a tank battle going on to our left. So I said 鈥業t鈥檚 absolutely crazy to take nine men into a tank battle with a soft vehicle and five rounds of ammunition鈥�. So I shot down one of these gullies and lost this Indian officer and on our way we went.
We got round past the tank battle back on to our own side and we travelled so far that we found we had come to Divisional Headquarters. Here they had big tents put up and looked as if they were sitting pretty! So my Sergeant went into one of these big tents and after a short while he returned with tears rolling down his face. He had been told in the tent that we were running away. I said that I wished it had been them out there and then it would have been another story.
We were told we would be rejoining B.E. battery, so that meant they had made one battery out of two. We were given directions to travel and on we went towards Agedabia. We could see we were going into the fighting area. As we went along we noticed armoured cars coming back towards us and one of these pulled up and an officer popped his head out of the top and asked us where we were going. So we told him we were looking for B.E. battery. The officer told us to turn round and go back as the Germans were coming our way with tanks. So round we turned and I put my foot down on the accelerator and went as fast as I possibly could. We could hear the shells dropping and bursting behind us. It sure was a close shave, but I went down into a dip and we were out of sight of the German tanks.

From this point on we were retreating back towards Tobruk and three times we were ordered to drop our gun and wait for the tanks coming over the crest. While we were doing this all our soft vehicles were moving back. Anyway no tanks came over the ridge so we did not have to fire. Then, as we moved back we found our B.E. battery and were put into the same gun pits out in the desert in our prepared positions.

By now the enemy must have been consolidating their gains, because it was quite quiet for a few days but we had to put up a few barrages of shellfire. A few days later we were given the order to pull out of the gun pits and move back. I remember that the gunners had got their guns hooked up when we saw seven or eight fighter-bombers heading towards us. At first we thought they were going for the soft vehicles, but they turned around and headed straight for us. I dived under my vehicle between the back wheels and the bombs came down. It was all over in a few minutes. I came from under my vehicle and saw another truck about 50 or 60 yards from mine had taken a direct hit and was on fire and shells were exploding and flying in all directions.

My first thought was to get my truck away from this one, so I had a quick look around my own and found a large hole in the petrol tank, I could see the petrol and was amazed that it also had not caught fire. So I got in and it started at the first touch and I drove away about 200 yards and stopped. When I got out I found I was covered in blood all down my shirt and my leg. At that moment an ambulance crew rushed up to me and ordered me into the ambulance. After picking up some more chaps until the ambulance was full, we were rushed off back to Tobruk, down to the dockside and into a very large cave. The cave was lit with electric lights and fit up with many beds. I was ordered into bed and a doctor looked at my wounds. I was told I had a piece of shrapnel in my thigh but they couldn鈥檛 remove it at this field hospital. But they cleaned up the cut on my head and put a bandage round and told me I would be going on a hospital ship at first light in the morning. It was during this raid that my former friend George Allen was killed.

When morning came the cave was emptied of troops and we were all taken and put on the ship the Llandovery Castle, and we set sail down the Mediterranean to Alexandria. From the ship we were put on a train and taken to No. 1 Field Hospital along the side of the Suez Canal in Ismalia.

I was treated in hospital for six weeks but my leg soon healed and before I left there, I had a swim in the Suez Canal.
I was moved from the hospital and put on a train to the boarder of Israel to convalesce for six weeks. I was billeted on the beach in long huts with palm trees all around and these were loaded with dates. Whilst I was there we were taken out on one or two trips in a 3-ton truck.
At the end of the six weeks I was again put on a train back to Cairo, this was the second time I had been in this city.
I had to give all my particulars, name, number and unit to an officer who then told me that I had been reported Killed in Action. So I was told to send a telegram home, free of charge, to let them know I was O.K. Mary had already had a telegram reporting me missing and a letter of condolence from the King, but I had written home in the meantime and Mary knew I was alive.

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