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I can remember the day war was declared very, very clearly indeed, because we had taken up a position at Agami Island and we could see across the bay to Alexandria and the Râs el Tin lighthouse, and suddenly it ceased to flash and a few minutes later we heard that War had been declared. We hung on there for a couple of weeks and then we moved on up the desert and dug in, in defensive positions, just inside Egypt and waited for things to happen.

But things didn't happen! Occasionally planes came over and dropped a few bombs on us, but that was basically all. And the worst problem was, dug in these trenches and dug-outs, were sand-fleas, and they used to eat me alive. I've always had a horror of being bitten and it was real purgatory there. The silly part about it was that at one stage I was back in a rifle platoon as they had earlier disbanded the mortar platoon. Believe it or not the mortar platoon was then resurrected but was yet again disbanded as now they had decided that mortars were no good for flat terrain like the desert. So I eventually landed up in an anti-tank platoon! We were a two-man team and the idea was that if a tank came along we would hide in a fold in the ground and hoped that the German tank - or Italian tank as it was at that stage - would come near enough for me to jump up and stick a crow bar into its tracks so that the tank would have to stop! Then we hoped that the tank commander would say, "Here, here, here, what's happened now?" and he'd open the hatch and put his head out, and my No. 2 would then jump up and pop a hand grenade into the tank!! The best part about this idea was we never did it for real!! We later got good anti-tank guns and equipment which we used, but I'm sure that I would not have survived a single attack had I ever had to try this crow-bar business.
At this stage we did a lot of night patrols. We'd wend our way out through the mine fields that we had laid out, and mainly reconnoitre - we seldom came into contact with the enemy at all. The problem was when we tried to come back, finding our way home again - It was very, very dicey. The desert can be as light as daylight at night when the moon and stars were shining butAfter these rather boring and tedious night patrols and the odd day patrols, suddenly we had to advance and we attacked. It was one of the few big battles I was ever in and it was against the Italians, which was quite awful. We attacked Sidi Barani and it was very strange because after our little 3" mortars and our 25 pounders, the Navy came up along the coast and they were firing these great big 6" shells over our heads, which were going over like ….well, it was like Euston Station with trains going over us all the time - they were rush, rush, rush, rush, rush - a terrible noise; we used to think, "Poor devils having to be on the end of that!," because you have to feel sorry for the enemy occasionally, and one does. But it's surprising, after all these bombardments all through the war, you think nothing could live through them, and then when they stop, heads appear, return fire starts, and an awful lot do survive - it's sometimes very difficult to kill people, very difficult indeed!
We rushed about a lot at Sidi Barani and did a detour round and cut off their retreat, and we finished off taking, I think it was, about 7,000 prisoners, or something like this and what do you do with them? We were stinted on water and we'd got no compound to put them in, we just put them in a heap, put guards round and tried to sustain them until we could get them away. And they were going crazy through lack of water - it was a very, very sad sight - prisoners were shot when they shouldn't have been, but they'd just come rushing. And, I might add here that I don't think, I ever…no, it's not 'I don't think'…I never committed an atrocity in the war - I don't think I ever could have done.

Anyway, we captured all these prisoners and eventually we moved on and presumably a ship came in and took them to wherever they were going.

After this attack, which had been so successful, we rushed all the way up the desert and almost got to Tripoli, which was some hundreds of miles advance, in no time at all. But of course we couldn't get supplies up, and eventually we met resistance, and as we did so often, had to come rushing back again. We all thought Wavell was a jolly good General but we really didn't have the equipment. We didn't have an air force - if there was a plane about it was normally the enemy - and in desert warfare aircraft are terribly important. So we'd rush up the desert and then be chased back again. Then we consolidated a little bit and we started doing these detour kind of patrols. One thing about the desert was that you'd got the Mediterranean sea on one side of you, but on the other side you could always go further south, always go round the enemy, right down into the Sahara if you wanted. You wouldn't need to go as far as that - but you went into virgin desert - and then you could come up, spread havoc, and then disappear into the sands - and unless you were spotted by aircraft, they couldn't find you. The clouds of sand stirred up by the tanks was rather a give-a-way so we used to get away pretty quickly.
By this time of course the Germans, the Afrika Corps, had come into the desert, and resistance was always very much tougher. They were wonderful soldiers, the Afrika Corps, and they were very, very well equipped. Our equipment was still a bit 'pre-war' - well it was pre-war, we were not getting the modern equipment that we needed, and it wasn't until Wavell had gone and Montgomery took over, and refused to move without equipment, that things picked up and we got a proper air force with Hurricanes etc. At this stage the only air force we had were a few glide Lysanders for observation, and Gladiators - they were bi-planes, and they'd only got a speed of about 60 miles an hour, I think!!

Our vehicles were vital in the desert. We didn’t walk anywhere - we’d got a vehicle! - and if you lost your vehicle when you were out on patrol then you’d had it. So if you were attacked by an aircraft you’d do all you could to prevent that aircraft from managing to shoot you up. You wouldn't get out of it and run for cover, you'd drive off in a zigzag and do every evasive action you could think of! When we were advancing there was a wonderful feeling of exhilaration and we’d be on top of the world, but then when we couldn't get supplies, and we’d run out of, or have short supplies of water — and we’d have to retreat - it would get very depressing and we did an awful lot of advance, retreat: exhilaration, despondency, one time after another. Also sometimes we couldn’t get petrol for our vehicles and we’d go scrounging around from vehicles that had been shot up but not burnt out, and it would have been booby-trapped by the Germans, and the chap who went would get blown up. It was silly! But when you're advancing it's wonderful, and when you're retreating it's very depressing.
Our target was Tripoli and time and again we nearly reached it. There were sand depressions up there that made life very, very demanding. It made it difficult for the Germans to get through and meant you had to concentrate on a smaller front.

And then things went wrong and we had to really come back fast. We always had a pocket in Tobruk where the New Zealanders held out, and the Navy kept them supplied, even though we had retreated beyond them. Anyway, we were withdrawing fast towards Tobruk and then we made a big stand at a place called 'Knightsbridge' which was a fortification box. We had a very, very big battle there, and it was shortly after Knightsbridge, on the way back to Tobruk, that we were by-passed and I was left with my section. I was in a Bren gun section with Percy Head and another chap. I don't know what happened to the other fellow but Percy Head and I were left with a Bren gun to cover the retreat of the Company, which was following on behind the Battalion, because otherwise we would all have been cut off. The Battalion and the Company did get out, and the Black Watch who were again with us from Palestine, they got out as well.
The Germans, at this stage, were dropping leaflets because they said we were within the perimeter of Tobruk and as Tobruk had capitulated we were therefore fighting under the white flag, which was illegal under the Geneva Conventions - and so we were to surrender!! Well, we couldn't believe that Tobruk had fallen - I mean, Tobruk would never fall! Anyway, on the 21st June we covered this position for a time behind a mine field, which was protecting us from advance and from where we could cover the gap in the sand hills and fire at anything that passed there. Then a German tank saw the tracks of another vehicle going into the mine field, and it realized that the track would be clear, so it followed them through and it led straight to us!!! As he got nearer he lowered his guns and started firing at us. Well, we weren’t even in a trench, just in a fold in the sand - but it was so close by then that he couldn't get his guns down onto us - they rolled over our heads - and so it came on towards us. There was no point in firing at this thing with a Bren gun, I mean, the bullets would have just bounced off and hit us, or something stupid. So we just lay there hoping to roll aside as the tank went over us - we should really have had that damn crow bar! Anyway, when it was almost on top of us, it stopped, and a voice in almost perfect English said, "All right, Tommy, stand up". So, although we didn't know what would happen to us, we had no choice but to stand up with our hands above our heads. The voice said 'jump on the tank', so we got on the tank and off we went - we were prisoners…..I couldn’t believe it!! I thought I might get killed - I dreaded the thought of losing an arm or a leg or something like that, but never in my wildest dreams had I ever thought of being taken prisoner, and it was the most terrible feeling.
The Germans were very good to us and they took us to a big base where I discovered the whole of Tobruk had capitulated and there were thousands and thousands of prisoners.

There is a drill for when you're taken prisoner, which I'm sure everyone knows. You're not allowed to give the name of your Regiment, or any other details - all you can give is name, rank and number. I don't think they were managing to take details from half these prisoners — there were too many coming in at once but as we came in on our own, just the two of us, a German Intelligence Officer came across to question us. I gave my name, rank and number, and he made me repeat the number as he turned it up a little book. He said, "Oh, Coldstream Guards 2657301 - You've been in the Army a long time. You must have been in before the War?" So much for all our careful
plans to not give out information! Soldiers, as I understand it, have been tortured to make them give details of their Unit. But that was that.

Percy Head and I stayed together as prisoners for an awfully long time, although we did eventually get split up, but at this stage I was not aware of anything - I was absolutely shocked, I didn't know what had hit me, I was so despondent, I couldn't believe what was happening.

Before herding us off to join all the rest of all this great big crowd of prisoners, the Germans, who were good to us, they gave us water. Thousands in this main crowd were gagging and gasping for water, but we really did have our fill before joining them. It was obvious that they did respect us because we were Coldstream Guards, there's no doubt about that, although I hadn't got much of that for myself - I had been taken prisoner - it seemed a shameful thing to me. Yet there had been basically nothing we could have done about it, and we had really done our job in covering the gap in the sand hills while our Company had withdrawn.

Well here I was, of all things - a prisoner, and we were herded together with all these people as they hadn't got any camps. They did try and put some barbed wire around us in places, but it was basically exactly the same as we had done to the Italians at Sidi Barrani. They had taken more prisoners than they could cope with and they just didn't know what to do with us, and so we were huddled there, with no latrines or anything really. When water was delivered in 40 gallon barrels occasionally, people fought over it and eventually it was all spilt - it was degrading - it was an absolute horror.
I don't remember how long we were there but eventually we were put on trucks and we went back up the desert, and of all places to reach, we at last reached Tripoli, which we had fought to try to get to so many times!

All this time we were exposed to rumours! Rumour, rumour, rumour, it was all quite ridiculous. . but these wild rumours that there was a patrol on its way to relieve us, but it had got lost due to a sand storm and it hadn't been able to see the stars to find its way out! - all sorts of silly things. But when we got to Tripoli we were put in a wire compound again that could hardly cope, but at least it was a camp of sorts with holes in the ground as latrines - not that many people needed them!
Fortunately in this camp we had loads of water. We had to boil it before we could drink it but there was no food worth mentioning apart from the huge cactus leaves growing all around us. The M.O. said that if these were boiled three times, and the water was thrown away each time, then we could eat them without being poisoned. And this we did. The result was that later on some soldiers got dysentery and others, like me, became completely constipated.

During a war you must have a friend, and he must be a reliable one and Percy Head was mine. He looked after me like an old hen looks after her chickens. He even got a bayonet stuck in him as he protected me, because a sentry was being unnecessarily unkind to me and butting me, but fortunately it wasn’t too deep and he recovered.

Eventually we were shipped out of Tripoli and onto a boat which we found had been partitioned up with planks so that there wasn't room to even stand up between the decks. Some of the men had dysentery and it was dripping down through the planks - it was real hell!! The latrines were at the other end of the boat somewhere; I never quite worked out where as only four were allowed out at a time and there were thousands of us so it was absolutely hopeless. Being constipated was quite useful then but by the time we eventually arrived in Italy, I was really ill. Without Percy Head , who was big and tough, looking after me I would have been dead!

There was another boat load of prisoners that left Tripoli at the same time as we did and the rumour went round that it had been sunk by one of our submarines with most of the hands lost. Whether it was true or not I still don't know, but we were on the right boat, even if it was very unpleasant.

I don't know how long it took us to get from Africa to Italy but it had been about a month since I was first taken prisoner. We landed at the Naval port of Taranto where, when we came out on deck, we saw for the first time the might of the enemy fleet, both Italian and German, and it was really frightening to think we had been fighting something as formidable as this!!

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