大象传媒

This letter was written to his uncle by Lt F.E.R Ambler of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment in May 1943.
My dear Uncle,
Much has happened since I wrote my last letter to you on board the ship, and I hope you will forgive me for not writting before. I had better start the account of my adventures right from the beginning.
Our outward voyage lasted several days. It was very large convoy, protected by corvettes and destroyers. Shipyard workers stopped their rivetting to cheer us, as the armada of mighty ships steamed slowly down the Clyde. There were 6000 men including the crew on our boat, but apart from the over-crowding, we were not uncomfortable. Two days out, we ran into a very heavy swell, and 70% of the ships company was seasick. The voyage itself was uneventful until the last day. At 0300 hours " Action Stations" sounded. I rushed on deck, and saw a large tropper, wallowing, and emitting smoke from the stern. We gradually left her behind, and the last i saw of her was her Aldis lamp winking on the horizon. It transpired that a sub had torpedoed her. She gradually filled, and the Navy had to sink her. The troops were taken off in destroyers, and reached port the same day after us.
On the same morning as these happenings, we made port, which was Algiers. A march of twenty miles followed disembarkation, and wee arrived late at nightat a transit camp . The African sun, and the hard marching caused a few casualties. It fell to my unenviable lot to march at the rear of the battalion, and organise the stragglers. We were at the transit camp for a few days, and then the battalion received orders to move up to Tunisia. Much to my disappointment, I did not accompany them, for reasons which I will enlarge upon.
On leaving England, I had been made the battalion machine gun officer. The snag was, that we arrived in Africa without our Vickers guns, although, of course, we had our Brens. Any way, I was sent to the Base, to wait for the Vickers, and look after the reinforcements.
I will not weary you with a description of my two weeks at the Base. Suffice to say it was very boring, and full of typical "base wallahss" finally, I received orders to take 200 men upto the front as reinforcements. I was to be O.C. troop train.
It was a nightmare trip upto the Tunisian border. It took five days, travelling in filthy carriages, and all we had to eat was bully beef and hard tack biscuits. After the third day, at a place called Beni Maucour, we heard news of the battalion. At Beni Maucour, during one of the tedious halts, a hospital train pulled in.In it were some of our officers and men. They told us that the battalion had been in battle, the colonel had been killed with two other officers, and we had sustained considerable casualties. This was most grievous news, and you can guess how I felt at being left out of our first action. However, my time was to come.
I finally found my people, and handed over the reinforcements. The Vickers had arrived and I took over commandd of them. The same day we attacked. Our objective was a famous hill in the Medjezel- Bab sector. The Boche held this in strength. It was a day of bitter fighting, and both sides suffered casualties. My machine guns were in action all day, and we succeededin putting out a Boche 88mm A/Tk gun, which had already scuppered four of our tanks. Night fell, and still no decision had been reached. Our boys fought like tigers, but the Boche held tactical advantage. As darkness fell, we had to cease fire, as it was hand -to-hand stuff now. It was difficult to tell friend from foein the dark. Individual men stalked each other, and fired at each others flashes. Some of the Boche appeared to be drunkor doped. They were yelliing, singing and shouting "Jager" "Jager"! They also callled out to us in English "Hallo, who's there" and "Come on boys get your ice cream". During the night, our guns had moved up, and with the dawn, we withdrew and they opened up. Our gunners were terrific. They pounded and blasted the Boche, and when our infantry went in, we had him jicked, and the hill was ours.(The following was typed.)
Ihave slightly injured my hand, so I will continue this in type. During all these operations, we were opposed by the famous Hetmann Goring Division. They are or rather were, about the best troops in the German Army, so we had all our work cut out to beat them.After the action described above, we went into a rest area to lick our wounds. The Boche meanwhilehad held us up on the Tunis road at a place called Peter's Corner, and all efforts to dislodge him failed. This state of affairs continuedfor a few days, but unknown to us, the high command were perfecting the final plans, for the Battle of Tunis, when we smashed through the Boche defences.You will have read all about it in the papers.
The battle opened on 6th May, the fourth anniversary of our wedding. This suddenly occurred to me in the middle of the fun, and I had to smile rather wryly at the difference between 6th May 1939 and 6th May 1943. The day before, we received our orders, and had a look at the ground from a camouflaged O.P. The blow was evidently to be a crushing one. It was aimed at what was considered to be a weak spot in the Boche line. We were to attack on a two division front about two miles wide. The amount of supportwas staggering.We were to advance under a creeping barrage of no fewer than 700 guns. The Infantry were to punch a hole in the enemy line, and then two armoured divisions were to push through it and smash on as far as they could. We thought it would take about three days to make the hole. What actually happened you will see. In addition we were to have coulds of bombers and fighter to strafe the Boche as soon as the light permitted. To my Brigade fell the hounour of being spearhead of the attack, we were first over the line. Our task was to assault and capture three hills which dominated the line od advance. Zero was at 0300 hours.
That evening we moved off, and took up our battle positions on the start line. My job as machine gunner, was to help put up the rifle onto the objectives, and to knock out any enemy machine and anti-tank guns that threatend to spoil the party. I lined up my Bren carriers as dusk fell, and we settled down to wait for 3 o-clock. I am certainly no hero, but I can honestly say that I felt None of those funny feelings in my tummy which are reputed to assail the warrior just before battle. It seemed just like any normal exercise at home I think most of us felt the same. Perhaps it was on account of the confidence we had in ourselves, and the thought of those 700 guns lying silent in the darkness behind us. Everything was deadly still, and all one could hear was an occasional cough. Our old pals The Herman Gorings were a little jumpy that night, for they kept on putting up amber versy lights in an endeavour to see what we were doing.
At three to the tick , the guns crashed into life. I have never heared or seen anything as hellish in my life, and I probably never shall again. The di was simply stunning, and behind us the hills were silhousetted black againest the blinding fun flashes. The faces of the men looked sickly in the eerie light, and guns and vehicles gleamed. As the barrage broke, moved off. The barrage lifted every three minutes as we followed up steadily behind it. I went on foot just ahead of my armoured carriers to guide them over the rough track. The Boche started to shell and mortar us, but his shooting was erratic, and few were hit. After about a mile and a half of this, our leading troops came within assaulting distance of the first objective. We were now under machine gun fire. A man on my right fell with his chest riddled with bullets. We got our machine guns into action as our boys stormed up the hill. Just then dawn broke. In an increditably short time they were on the summit and we had to cease fire. A batch of about sixty Boche prisoners stumbled towards us with their hands raised, but we swept past them onto the summit, and pointed our M.G.'s towards us the next hill in front.The Boche were now gunning us from our right, but just at that moment our Churchill tanks came streaming across the plain, with the dawn behind them, and a brave sight they made as they pressed inexorablyon. They soon settled the hash of the Boche on our right, and our chaps pelted on to the second objective. Suddenly we came under a crossfirefrom two machine gun nests and the boys had to go to ground.Through my glases I spotted them, and we got our guns into actionjust below the crest, so that their ugly shouts just cleared the top. From this position we were well screened from thier fire, and after firing abot four belts, one of my corporals put both Boche machine gun crews out of action. This enabled the riflemen to strom the second hill, were most prisoners were taken. Here we sorted ourselves out, and deployed for the assault on the final objective. This time we went in with the tanks. As the leading tank reached the top of the last hill, there was a screaming noise followed by an explosion, and the tank burst into flames. It had been hit by an 8mm anti-tank gun which we hadn't spotted. It was firing across a valley to our right front. We had no time to use the range finder but I gave one gun 1300 yards and ordered it to fire a burst. We observed our strike behind the gun, so I came down 200 and ordered a long burst. This time the Boche hopped out of their gun emplacement like fleas, and the next burst moved them down. The Churchill was thus avenged, and we captured an 88mm intact. We smartened up any Boches who showed themselves as the boys attacked, and in a very short time we had captured the hill. so that by 0700 hours, we had taken all our Brigade objectives, and the hole had been made. The armour came pouring through, smashing onwards towards Tunis, and by the evening of that day we were fighting in the suburbs of hat town. The next day Tunis fell.
I am afraid that I have given you a very narrow view of the battle, indeed the only part that concerned me, not that I did a great deal in any case. The ame sort of thing had been going on on our left. As soon as it was light, our planes cam over like locusts, bombing and gunning, giving the gun no rest. The battle was over for us. We consolidated our gains and other units went through to mop up the emaining pockets. Prisoners began to trickle in, a trickle which was to become a mighty flood during the next few days. During the afternoon following the attack, the Boche did a little more mortring, shelling and dive bombing, and we lost a few more men. Our casulties throughout this action had been remarkably light, but I was very distressed when one of my pals was killed by one of our own shells which dropped short and exploded in the middle of his platoon headquarters.
The retreating Huns made for the Cap Bon Peninsulawhere they made efforts to evacuate. Here the Navy was waiting for them, so the whole lot surrendered. The Roche seemed stunned by our artillery. I spoke to a tow headed youngster of the Hermann Goringe on the last hill, but he was so shaken he couldn't speak. He was trembling like a leaf. All another could gibber was "Artillerie! Artillerie!" We treated them very kindly, bringing in their wounded and giving them cigarettes. It is strange, but we are very poor haters. They on the other hand, behaved with great dignity, and were grateful for any service we rendered them. Their officers were punctilously correct, and their discpline even in defeat was marvellous. They gave themselves up in their thousands. One German Brigadier and his staff surrended to me. When I asked him he name of his regiment and what divison he belonged to, he looked at me gravely and said "Das Weibjich nicht". I replied "Wir sind auch Soldaten, und wir verstehen". He was so pleased he jumped up in his car, clicked his heels, saluted and said "Danke sehr Herr Leutnant".
The Italians are as disorderly as the Germans are disciplined. They are little more than a dirty rabble and arrant cowards to boot. The Germans heartily dislike them, and will have no truck with them at all. The other day, I was loading uo a truck ith Axis prisoners. I had put the Germans on first, and one of their officers asked me if the truck was ready to start. I replied that I had to put some of their friends on first, and pointed to the Italians. He was most indignant, and denied that they were is friends, or the friends of any German. We have captured large stocks of supplies. This is a German typewriter I am using now. Our present job is "cleaning up". This means sorting out captured stuff into dumps, passing on prisoners to the various cages, and supplying guards for this and that. There is a large German Military Hospital near here, and it is about the most spotless and efficient thing I have seen. The Kommandant complained that the Arabs ere looting the hospital stores, and asked us to supplt a guard. We told him we were unable to do this, as we could not spare the men, so we re-armed the Germans, and told them to find their own guards.
Well Uncle, that is all the news up to now. I do not hear much from home. Johnnie wrote that she had heard from you and that she was writing to you. What lies before us I know not, but I should like to go home before we commence our assault on the continent, but I don't think there is much hope for that. I get very little time for writing. I write to Mother and Johnnie as often as possible, but not i detail. I would therefore be very glad if you would lend Mother this letter, as I don't know when I shall be able to write at any length again.
Fondest love to you both,
your affectionate nephew,
(Signed) Francis Ambler

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