大象传媒

NORTH AFRICA

This was written by my late father, George Edward Whiting, about his experiences in North Africa during 1943.

We marched through Bone and there were not many people on the streets. The town hadn鈥檛 got over its war experiences yet and some of the buildings showed signs of bombing or bombardment or both. Some of the people on the streets pressed tangerines into our hands as we passed to quench our thirst.
It was a dreadful long march or it seemed to be that night. Afterwards, we used to walk both ways into the town and not feel it was too far, but that night it was hot and we were sweating. The straps of our webbing was cutting into us and the packs on our backs felt like a dead weight. We had to have many stops to rest and at every one Mr Fernie, who was leading us, would say it was just another few hundred yards. He said that a good many times until at last we finally reached the Transit Camp.
There were only two marquees between the battery on the Camp and they were both quickly filled, but as it seemed so hot it didn鈥檛 seem any hardship to sleep outside. So I found myself with many others sleeping out under a canopy of stars that seemed so low one could have reached up to touch them. Two hours later we were up, all of us, freezing cold, stamping our feet and trying to get warm, but I didn鈥檛 get warm again until the sun rose. So ended my first night on African soil.
In the morning we got a bit more organised and we shifted our camp area to a position right on the beach. Each troop had a marquee and I had a position in ours with Maxwell next to me and Benwell and Nicholls on the other side. It turned out to be so cold at nights that Maxy and myself made a double bed and besides that I wore my pullover and my balaclava at nights together with my trousers and tunic on. The days were just the opposite extreme though and we wished for our issue of khaki-drill on those blazing days, but at night we were glad of our battle dresses.
It was an ideal beach for bathing with fine golden sand and low cliffs. Looking out to sea just across this beautiful bay we could see the town of Bone gleaming in the sun, the high mountains behind the town, green fields of corn and the many orange groves on our left. Above Bone, set right in the hills, high up was (it appeared to be) a palace. Some said it was a mosque others said it was a Catholic college. I didn鈥檛 find out what it was actually, but from our camp it looked to me just like the castle in the advertisement for Gibbs Dentrifrice.
It was good being near the sea and we got plenty of swimming in and I was glad I had brought my swimming costume with me, while we were lying on the beach Arabs would come along with oranges, tangerines and dates. Oranges cost us one franc each; tangerines a little cheaper and dates were twenty francs a kilo. By English standards that would have been roughly, oranges five for sixpence, tangerines nine for sixpence and dates at eightpence a pound. It could have been any English beach except, perhaps for the total absence of women.
We were warned by the MO about the danger of dysentery through eating too much fruit and because we had been so long without fruit in England, but it got rid of twenty-two oranges one day without turning a hair. I would have sent some of then home if I could, but there was no parcel service running then and later, when the system was started the maximum weight that could be sent was five pounds, which put the tin hat on heavy oranges.
Next day I paid a visit to the town and was slightly disappointed with it. On the outskirts of the town were the hovels of some of the poorer Arabs. Built of grass or branches of trees with just one small entry to it, a fire usually burning in the centre and the whole family sitting round it, no pig in England had ever had to lower itself to such a hovel.
In the town itself the buildings were much better and in some of the streets there were some magnificent buildings. There were plenty of shops but very little to buy except oranges, tangerines, dates or wine, there were numerous wine cafes, but only a few were in bounds to us and one taste of the cheap wine and I had no more. It tasted like vinegar gone sour to me. We were disappointed that no NAAFI or YMCA had reached Bone yet, but there was a canteen run by the French for our benefit with French Boy Scouts serving lemonade or fruit to us. Although there was nothing to eat, it was certainly a fine effort on the part of the Scouts.
The Arabs outnumbered the French quite a lot, but the few French people that were there were very well dressed. The women were dressed in Summer outfits and frocks easily up to date to English fashions, if not, in front of them. Their complexions too were expertly made up with every artificial use possible and as they passed a waft of perfume would come our way. The Frenchmen too, were dressed in clothes that would look out of place in England, but which suited the surroundings perfectly. White suits were predominant but I saw grey, green, blue and brown suits with shoes and hats to match and it all made a colourful scene. I wondered then, and I have wondered often since, how these people could possibly mix as they did with the dirty Arabs. Of course, there were some Arabs dressed in spotless white with bright red fezs and some of the Arab women too had dresses of spotless white with jashmaks covering their faces but they were few and far between.
I think if there had been a canteen there it would have made a difference, but I came away from the town feeling slightly disappointed and I only went once more to it in the ten days we were at Bone. I expect, by about another month if we could have returned we would have found things more organised, perhaps with canteens, pictures and possibly more shops open. As it was they had not quite got over our landing on their town at the beginning of the North African affair and they were still a bit sore about it.
We had very little to do at Bone as we were waiting for our equipment to come in. It was coming over in a slower convoy than ours, so to occupy our time we were put on various fatigues such as ammo humping, rations, or various guards at the different headquarters that were in the town. I managed to miss the fatigues but got a guard on the BOD headquarters. It was in the residential part of Bone, in one of the pretty villas there and besides getting some good food (base places are always well fed) I saw my first stork and its nest. Opposite the BOD was a mosque and on its oval roof the stork had built its nest. It was easily the size of a small dustbin. The Arabs think the stork a sacred bird and like it to build its nest on their mosque or home as it is considered very lucky. The species of stork was called Abdalla. The mosques are everywhere in North Africa, their white dome shaped roofs making them distinctive. Even out in the less populated places, perhaps only a few houses, there will always be a mosque.
Here at Bone we had to begin that extra chore, doing our own washing. I had been putting it off until I had nothing else clean to wear. I took all my clothes to a fresh water pool nearby and did my best, but for all my rubbing I couldn鈥檛 get the clothes to revert to their original whiteness. Although I have become more proficient by plenty of practice and more frequent changes of clothing I shall never forget coming back with that pile of dirty grey washing and an aching back that first day I attempted it.
We had a route march another day and we went as far as Bone aerodrome a few miles out from the town. The drome was being used as a dummy airfield and there were many crippled British planes laid out on the field as decoys. Mr Cockshutt who was in charge of us thought it would be of some education to us to look over the different types. I got a piece of Perspex from a Beaufighter as a souvenir which I hoped to make a small locket out of for Vi, but I never got round to doing it.
There was no startling news of the war about this time and we often wondered if the big offensive would start without us, but we had no such luck. The war seemed much farther away at Bone than it did in England. The only reminders we had of the war were two daylight raids. They were only of the hit and run type though and were soon over. Six silvery planes high up in the sky suddenly diving on to the town with a terrific roar were my first sight of the enemy. With a deafening din the defences of Bone opened up and it was over in a few minutes.
Thunderstorms were frequent here too and everyone commented on the brilliance of the lightening which was terrific. We had such a storm one night, with a great gale blowing as well and it uprooted our marquee before we could get out of bed and hang on to a guy rope. I had a job to find my boots in the dark amongst all the debris, but I wasn鈥檛 so worried about the boots as I was about my teeth which I had put in my boot for safety the night before. Half-asleep men were groping for their clothes, boots or glasses. but we couldn鈥檛 do much. We were all wet and we patiently waited for the morning. Most tents had blown down during the night and we spent all the following day sorting out and drying our blankets and equipment.
On Sunday the 14th February 1943 our trucks began to come in and for the next two days we were busy putting in our wireless sets and generally getting ready for action. On Tuesday the 16th the guns had arrived and they were loaded straight from the boat on to transporters. The carriers too, were loaded on to transporters and that night with me sitting in the carriers on the transporters we moved up towards the front line.

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