大象传媒

I am the son of Kenneth Horseman, who died in 1989. After being called up and trained in England he was sent to North Africa, where he was a truck driver, and desert convoy navigator. He left his journal of his experiences for the period from the end of 1941 until the end of the war, and I trust he has no objection to its publication. It begins with his capture, and relates his experiences in some detail.
The journal is in pencil and in miniscule writing, some of which has now faded to the point of illegibility, and there are also some gaps. The initial phase is however in quite good condition, and this I propose to transcribe, without apology for the content, (since it was not written for public consumption) on an instalment basis.

He had been in the desert for the whole of 1941 and rashly demonstrated a skill in desert navigation. His dubious reward was to be made lead driver and convoy navigator. As he said himself, 'if there were any mines lying about the place, I'd be the one to find them'.

The initial journal entry is dated 26th February 1942, at Capua, Italy, and written in retrospect

Well, it really starts about Boxing Day. We were attached to the 2nd Armoured Brigade - a most inefficient brigade which seemed to be commanded by half-wits. For the past week, supplies had been very few and far between, and Christmas Day rations and petrol didn't arrive until 4.0 o'clock. The rations consisted of bully and biscuits, so we had a magnificent Christmas Dinner. Boxing Day we moved a few miles West, as far as I can remember without incident, but on the 27th after moving about ten miles (many trucks being stuck in sand banks) some enemy Mark IV tanks were sighted about eight miles away.
Our 25 pounders opened up on them, but as far as we could see without much effect. We could see a few vehicles on our extreme right (the tanks were on the left) but as they appeared stationary and about eight miles away, we didn't worry a great deal.
Night fell and we pulled into laager as usual, and we saw the usual Jerry flares going up especially to the West, but also at one or two other points.

Morning came (the 28th) and we broke laager as usual at first light and pulled about half-a-mile away from Brigade H.Q. We breakfasted, and Bert Land and I transferred my petrol reserve, approximately 16 gallons, into Jerry containers and stowed it away in the back (I mention this for a reason). At this time we were on the right of Brigade H.Q. facing approximately South West. About 8.30am we could see vehicles moving in front on both sides. I drove Major Clayton round the platoon positions, and en route we encountered an armoured car of the 12th Lancers. We enquired of them whose the vehicles in front were, but they hadn't the least idea who they were, and didn't seem very interested anyway.

We passed on to 2 Platoon's position, and found that Parker and the sargent had already gone out in a truck on a reccy to investigate the vehicles in front. As we were talking to the section leaders, the 15cwt. came in, Parker saying that he'd been fired on. From here I drove to Bn. H.Q., and the Major saw the Adjutant, who protested that he'd already spoken to Brigade twice, but had been more or less told to pipe down. However, he said he'd send the Intelligence Officer over in person to Brigade H.Q. to see if that would have any effect.

We drove back to our position, and Bert and I started digging slit trenches. We'd dug one, when the rations and petrol and water arrived (water 2 pints per man for 2 days), time approximately 10.00am. We got back on the trenches and almost immediately about a dozen Stukas came over and dropped some bombs about 100 yards behind my truck.
Bert and I dived behind a bit of scrub in rather ostrich fashion, Bert clutching the Tommy gun while the major dived into the trench. We didn't get in with him as we were rather fed up with his orders for carrying the water: he wanted it all on our truck while we wanted it all onthe trucks on which we ate, and the canteen truck.
No one was hurt by the bombs in our mob, but I believe there were a couple of shrapnel casualties.

Soon after this the shelling began, and the 'Honeys' (tanks) began to trickle back through our lines. After a short while I saw a long string of trucks moving South East on our left, with shells bursting amongst them, and before long one of them burst into flames. The shelling didn't affect us very much, most of the stuff appearing to pass over our heads. Every one else had retired, and still we didn't get the order to move, so Bert and I continued with our trenches, thinking that this was going to be another Gubbi.

However, at last we got the order to move and the Major told the S.M. to take C.H.Q back whilst he collected 3 Platoon and the Anti-Tank gunners. We collected 3 Platoon, and also the driver and crew of a broken down Honey, )the A.T. gunners having moved already) and we began to retire. By this time the rest of C.H.Q. were out of sight, all except the W/T truck with the 2nd in command on board, Captain *.
Shells were dropping unpleasantly close as we caught him up, so we stopped for the Major and the Captain to confer for a while. We started up a gain, and I picked my way as best I could between the sand banks, as the following 15cwts would have stuck and been an easy target for the gunners.

By this time shells were actually dropping amongst the 3 Platoon trucks, and were coming from in front of us, so it appeared as though we were being fired upon by our own guns. I whacked up the pace to about 30mph, hoping to get to the guns which we could see on our left front before they could do us any great harm, but at that moment someone opened up on us with an L.M.G., probably a Bren,and bullets began zipping in front of the truck. I think I must have looked a bit apprehensive - I certainly felt it, as the Major leaned down (he was standing up) and shouted to me to keep going.

As I put muy hand behind me and reached for my tin hat I remember comforting myself, probably rather callously, with the thought that if anyone's going to get hit, the Major will get it first. I hotted up the pace even more to about 40, the shells still falling pretty fast, but the machine gunning stopped as we pulled over to the right behind some big sand banks.
Almost immediately we came in sight of about half-a-dozen trucks, which looked rather like the Jerries', so we stopped again and I went round to the back and asked Bert how it felt to be shelled by our own guns. He said he didn't know they were ours, and seemed quite comfortable and not at all worried. It was decided by the Big Shots to make a right handed detour to avoid the suspicious looking trucks, so we moved off again, at right angles to our former course, me in the lead again.

I'd just crested a big sand dune when I heard an explosion very near, and caught a glimpse of something ahead. As we dipped down into the sort of valley between the sand-hills the Major bellowed at once to stop, and I stood on everything. We both hopped out, and I looked back and saw the W/T truck stop on top of the sand-hill, and something explode underneath it. All the crew hopped out and scampered down into the valley, and almost at once a second shell hit the truck and it blazed up furiously. The Major and I crawled forward to the front of the next sand-hill, he with the Tommy-gun, I with nothing.

We both peered up over the top, and about 100 yards in front I saw a Jerry Anti-Tank gun with its limber slightly to the left. I bobbed down a bit quick, while the Major let fly with the Tommy-gun, but it fired only one shot and then refused to function. Meanwhile 3 Platoon had made good their escape.
The Major threw the Tommy-gun down in disgust, and went back to the truck for a rifle. He went round to the back, and the next thing I knew was him saying that Bert had caught it. I remember repeating rather foolishly 'what, old Bert dead?' and he said 'yes'. I realised then that the first loud explosion I had heard was an A/T shell exploding in the back of the truck, having passed through the place where I had previously stored spare petrol.

The Major took my rifle from the front and came back to where I was. He popped up his head again and fired one shot. Captain , the driver of the two signallers from the other truck had reached us by now, and it was decided to crawl away to the right of the truck and to try to hide in the scrub until darkness fell when we'd make a break for it.
We crawled about 30 yards: I felt all the time that I could drink a barrel of water, although it was a cold day with a strong wind blowing. As we were crawling, a heavy machine gun opened up on us, and I could hear the bullets smacking into the sand not far away. Of course, we flattened ourselves in the sand, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a Dodge truck come up on our left with a chap standing on the roof with a heavy M.G.

It stopped near my truck, and I heard Major Clayton say that we'd better give ourselves up, as he'd already stopped one in the arm -I think they must have spotted his white cloak and fired at it.
I got up,and immediately about three Jerries came towards us, one with a revolver, and the other with Tommy-guns.
They shouted 'hands up, hands up', and we had to explain that the Major was wounded and couldn't put his hands up. We got to the truck and the Jerries were already looting the back. I saw Bert for the first time, and he wasn't a pretty sight, so we put some of the truck sheets over his head as he was lying on the ground near the tailboard.

The Jerries looked after the Major pretty well, and bandaged up his arm right away, while we asked the jerry sargent if we could bury Bert. He seemed quite pleased that we had suggested it,so Shirley, one of the other signallers and I dug a shallow hole (all we had time for), wrapped Bert in a couple of blankets, and covered him up.
Captain made a small wooden cross and just wrote on it R.F.N.A. LAND R.I.P. We couldn't find his pay book or identity discs, and we didn't know his number. The Jerries tried to start the truck (they changed the punctured wheel) but I had turned the petrol off, so it wouldn't start, so they left it. The Jerries marched us away then.

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