大象传媒

General Montgomery鈥檚 Eighth Army.
(The Desert Rats).

October 1942: The Commonwealth Troops had suffered terrible losses at Benghazi and Tobruk for about a year or more, and were now being pushed back into Egypt. Bearing in mind that we had not won one land battle since the war started on 3rd. September 1939, we couldn鈥檛 afford to loose any more. No more plans for withdrawing/retreating. We only had plans to go forward. In Mr Churchill鈥檚 words this was 鈥淭he beginning of the end鈥�.

To put it mildly, we were a bit apprehensive. We hadn鈥檛 been trained for desert warfare. Apart from a few lectures while on the troop ship we knew nothing about desert conditions. The officers who gave us the lectures had just read about it. So they knew no more than the rest of us. We had some surprises to come about surviving in desert conditions. Temperatures would be up to 120F if we were still here in May or June next year. Water was in very short supply and unsafe to drink without treatment. Our supply of weapons, ammunitions, and food was from the U.K. and had to be transported all round South Africa, and up through the Red Sea as the Mediterranean was still occupied by the enemy. There was no bread during the whole campaign and hard biscuits was our main diet. We found problems with maintaining our vehicles and guns, as oil and sand mixed to set like cement. We had plenty of sandstorms where the sand got into everything. It wasn鈥檛 nice in food either. Apart from malaria, dysentery and tummy troubles, we had dangerous scorpions to deal with.

Orientation was different in the desert with no identifiable landmarks and few roads, which we didn鈥檛 use anyway. We relied on compass, mileometer, watch and the sun. Camouflaging our heavy guns and vehicles was a problem too. Digging-in was difficult in the desert, so we usually had to build walls with sand bags which caused a shadow, easily spotted from the air. Can you imagine trying to camouflage a shadow? Communications were crude. We used semaphore, Morse code and every code except the Highway code. No modern radio equipment in those days! Land laid lines were the best we could do.

The desert mirage, an optical illusion caused by reflection of light through different densities of air, was deceiving. It looks like water in the distance. No matter how far you go towards it, it remains in the distance. It was so easy to get completely lost in the desert. When you did get lost you had to stop. Otherwise you went round and round in circles.

Then we had the small task of reversing the advance of the Germans and Italians commanded by Field Marshall Rommel (The desert fox). They included the crack Panzer divisions who had mainly tanks and armoured vehicles which were better than ours. This turned out to be an experience which no training could have prepared us for. I don鈥檛 intend to describe any of the battle conditions in great detail. There鈥檚 not enough adjectives in my vocabulary to do that, and only those who have experienced it could believe it. I still have occasional nightmares featuring the bad bits, and it鈥檚 just like doing it all over again.

In war I don鈥檛 think there are any 鈥渃owards鈥�. Out of the few soldiers who were unable to deal with battle conditions, most were found a role behind the battle lines. Their job was just as important and just as risky as any other. I found that fear acted as a safety device, part of the survival kit. Most so-called fearless heroes didn鈥檛 live to tell their stories. Battle conditions were a severe test of character, bringing out the best in some and the worst in others. It was not unusual to see so-called non-believers on their knees praying. You could never judge the book by the cover.

The Royal Regiment of Artillery played a major role in the Desert Battles, supporting all the other Regiments of the 鈥淓ighth Army鈥�. We were in a group of Artillery units known as an AGRA (Army Group of Royal Artillery). We were well equipped with various modern Artillery weapons of that time, and we were well trained in Artillery work. We could land a shell on a target up to 20,000 yards away with an accuracy of a few meters, and within a minute of receiving the map reference or the position of the target. And as I said, we were a good team. Here are some of the notable places we recaptured during the desert battles in Egypt, Libya Sereneca, Tripolitania and Tunisia, a distance of approximately 3,000 miles at least. (not in any order). Some readers may remember hearing, or reading about some of the following famous battles.

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