大象传媒

Chapter 10 鈥� 鈥楾ripoli, Tunis and Sfax鈥�

It鈥檚 all of a thousand miles from Port Said to Tripoli and that鈥檚 how far we had to go before we caught up with the 8th Army. Again I was put in charge of the Regiment鈥檚 GL convoy and we soon saw the guns disappearing into the distance. I think it took us best part of a week to cover the distance and we had to go so slowly because the coast road had certainly not improved since the time we had travelled it in the opposite direction some six months or so before. We used all the hours of daylight that we could which meant getting up at first light and journeying until just before dusk. And my goodness, it really was cold in the mornings, but as we were often travelling at walking pace and trying to dodge as many potholes as possible I sometimes walked beside the jeep. Indeed on one occasion I saw that my driver had put the jeep in low reduction gear and was walking beside it holding on to the steering wheel. In the event it was the story of the tortoise and the hare, because we passed two or three guns on the way with broken axles and when we arrived the gun convoy which had set off with such 茅lan had only beaten us by twenty four hours.

Sometimes on the journey we were passed by LOC (鈥榣ines of communication鈥�) vehicles carrying ammunition and other supplies to the forward troops and amongst these were three ton lorries packed with cans of petrol. So flimsy were these four gallon cans that many of them leaked and it was not unusual to see a steady stream of petrol running from the back of the lorry. I learnt later that this did not disturb the authorities at all because our proximity to the Middle Eastern oil fields meant that the one thing that the army was not short of was petrol. What was in short supply to us was steel, and hence the flimsy tins. It is significant that the Germans experienced the very opposite: they had plenty of steel but were very lacking in an adequate supply of petrol. So their petrol came in very substantial containers that a heavy man could jump on without making a dent. We called them 鈥楯erricans鈥� and the many that were left behind in their retreat were eagerly sought after for carrying our supplies of precious water.

It was not only petrol that demonstrated the different availability of steel between the opposing armies. British land mines were packed in fours with the merest timber batons to hold them together, but the German Teller mine came individually packed in a very substantial steel box and these we used as document cases because they were absolutely watertight.

It was noteworthy, too, that all German military equipment bore the date of manufacture and often did we see dates like 1934 and 1935 and realise that Hitler was preparing for his 鈥楤litzkrieg鈥� long before Neville Chamberlain鈥檚 flight to Munich and attempts at 鈥榓ppeasement鈥�.

Funnily enough I don鈥檛 recall being so short of water on this journey as we were on my previous sojourn in the desert; I guess we made sure we had a plentiful supply, in jerricans, aboard each vehicle before leaving Egypt. What I do remember is the speed at which every driver and his mate had a mug of tea in his hand whenever the convoy halted for a short break. The accepted way of brewing tea when on a journey in the desert was to pour a few pints of petrol onto the sand, balance a billycan on the damp patch and throw a match onto it. The water boiled in a very short time and then it was simply a matter of adding a generous handful of loose tea (no teabags in those days), an even more generous handful of sugar and some evaporated milk and in no time every one was leaning against their vehicle holding a steaming mug of the brown stuff and enjoying the inevitable cigarette. Most of the time that we were in the Middle East our cigarettes came either from Rhodesia, which were fine, or from India (called Victory Vs), which were ghastly. Such was the importance of this commodity that it was with real resentment that we learned that the British 1st Army, who with the Americans had landed in Morocco in November 1942, were issued with a weekly ration of English cigarettes in hermetically sealed tins of fifty; such luxury! There came a time, as we got further west when even Victory Vs were unobtainable and that really was bad for morale. Happily when we got to Tripoli an Italian cigarette making factory was reopened and the weed became available again though the cigarettes were even worse than the Indian variety; but we smoked them nevertheless.

The 8th Army fought several battles in Tunisia during the spring of 1943 and we continued to defend the RAF鈥檚 forward landing grounds as the army advanced. At one such airfield we were continuously shelled by a long range gun in the enemy鈥檚 attempt to destroy some of our aircraft on the ground. A fighting patrol of Ghurkhas of the 4th Indian Division was sent out to silence the gun: its report read something like, 鈥楨nemy gun destroyed; Prisoners taken, one; Enemy killed, ten; Own casualties nil; Expenditure of ammunition, Nil鈥�. Such was the effectiveness of the Ghurkhas personal weapon, the 鈥榢ukri鈥� (a long curved heavy broad-bladed dagger).

Tunisia can be very beautiful in the spring with the countryside covered in flowers, so that more than once when I left the road to reconnoitre a new gunsite the front bumper of my Jeep would become covered in pollen.

By the end of May the battle for North Africa was over when the Eighth Army joined up with the First Army. The German Afrika Corps under Field Marshall Rommel was forced to surrender and, at the time of the invasion of Sicily, the Italian government capitulated to the Allies and its military forces became known as 鈥楥o-belligerents鈥�, which I suppose avoided the necessity of our having to look after them as prisoners of war, though to my knowledge they never engaged in fighting the Germans.

By this time my Battery had reached Sfax on the Tunisian coast some hundred miles south of Tunis and there we were to remain for the next few months until we embarked for Sicily.

Our gunsite was on a polo ground and I well remember one day when an American medium bomber, I think it was a 鈥楳itchell鈥�, dropped out of the sky and landed right beside the guns. Out dropped the American crew who approached us saying 鈥淐an you guys tell us where Sousse is?鈥� We told them that it was about seventy miles up the coast but asked them if they had not got a map. They replied that they hadn鈥檛 and been told just to follow the coast. Quite remarkably they had not even noticed the large airfield that we were defending and which lay no more than two miles inland. In minutes a Jeep from the air field drew up in a cloud of dust and took the aircrew away leaving us to mount guard on the aircraft until the following morning, much to our disgust. The Americans weren鈥檛 the best navigators.

Our sojourn in Sfax was uneventful but we did get the opportunity of visits to Tunis and Carthage. In Tunis I went to the opera house where there was an E.N.S.A. troop performing. I can鈥檛 remember what E.N.S.A stands for except that the first word is Entertainment! Two of the group were George Robey, a famous comedian, but more of my father鈥檚 era than mine and Vivien Leigh presenting excerpts from her role as Scarlet O鈥橦ara in 鈥楪one with the Wind鈥�. In Carthage we swam off a steeply sloping shingle beach, and whenever I think of it the memory returns of swimming back to shore and fighting the undertow. It wasn鈥檛 until we were all lying on our faces on the beach that we admitted to each other that all of us had felt in danger of being carried out to sea. Not a nice experience.

During our stay in Sfax I went on a two week course at the 8th Army School of Tough Tactics, just outside Tripoli, and by the end of that experience I had never been so fit in my life. Because of the heat of the day we were up really early, did half an hour of unarmed combat drill followed by a three mile run along the sandy beach, in boots, and this before breakfast. During the heat of the day we were allowed to rest and this we did lying on a long flat rock besides the cool blue sea so that when we felt too hot we simply rolled off into the water. Then about five in the afternoon we started again for another couple of hours of punishing training.

It was in August 1943 that we loaded our guns onto an L.S.T. (Landing Ship Tank which must have been the forerunner of the 鈥榬oll on and roll off鈥� ferry of today) and set sail for Sicily.

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