大象传媒

The following is a verbatim copy of a document written by Sgt Leslie Millard in 1943. The original punctuation and spelling has been kept, and where the text is underlined, this was added by hand on the original typewritten document. The final sentence was typed in bold. The original intention of the document is unknown. It may have been a letter to a superior, a report, or simply a kind of diary. There are no censor鈥檚 marks or stamps on the document, which was typed in double spacing on standard foolscap paper. Mr Millard鈥檚 daughter, his only surviving family, found the document after his death in a pile of other papers, so unfortunately no further light can be shed upon it.

Sgt Millard
9/3/43
I first set out from England in August, 1938, and arrived at Port Said, later moving on to Palestine. I was on road building there for six months and also defence work. From there I moved to Egypt and then I went into the desert to El Daba. At El Daba I did water supply jobs and also manoeuvres with the infantry. We built reservoirs for the water supply. From there I went to Mersa Matruh and built defences, pill boxes and also mine laying. We laid mines there for four months, the Egyptian pattern mine and the Mark V anti-tank mine. From Mersa Matruh I moved to Sidi Barrani where General Wavell was massing an attack on the Italian armies.

I was stationed on the coastal area under the 7th Armoured Division and my job was to clear the mines and road Sidi Barrani. At the time detectors were not in use, and we had to use the old way of probing with bayonets. We moved three minefields south of Sidi Barrani by bayonets, losing two men. The mines were the Egyptian pattern mines. One minefield could not be found so lorries were driven over the area where the mines were thought to be, and after losing one truck, the mines were eventually found. From there I went to Derna, attached to the Armoured Corps tank bursting.

My first job was to go out with the Armoured Corps to find enemy tanks which were only disabled, for instance a track blown off, and my job was to blow the mechanism of the gun off and also the engine. We blew three tanks up successfully and took the crews prisoner and brought them back to our own lines.

I moved mines from Halfaya Pass which the Germans had laid. The mines they laid were Teller mines, and also our own which they had captured, Mark V. There we were using the Polish mine detectors. We used two squads, one on either side of the Pass, and moved about 150 mines throughout the whole of the Pass without any incident or casualty. We were also told to search the houses at the top of the Pass for booby traps etc. We found a few booby traps attached to doors and windows, and also stores which were in the houses. They were all disabled without any casualties.

I was in Tobruk during the months of April and May, 1942, and my job there was minefields. We laid minefields very early in the mornings and also just before dusk in the evenings. I saw tanks come to the outer defences and were caught in our minefields, sometimes three or four tanks would be blown up by the mines, and the others would change direction or turn around. Whilst we were in Tobruk we suffered very heavy casualties amongst Stuka dive bombers which, incidentally, we used to call the 鈥淪tuka Parade鈥�. They would come over not less than four times a day in about thirties and the Ack-Ack was a West Ham Btln. which were very good on the guns. I left Tobruk in April and the South Africans relieved us. When I was laying mines at the outer defences of Tobruk I always had to lay down owing to the machine gunning of the Stukas. They knew we laid mines every day and they used to try and prevent us from doing this. As we puled out from the mine fields after a day鈥檚 work, they used to bring mobile artillery within range of the field, shelling us and also the minefield. On one occasion the shells which were firing at us, followed us right into Tobruk gates-every time we moved so a shell would follow us behind the cars, trying to give us a run for our money. We speeded up a bit and got safely into the garrison.

A month before the Alamein campaign started, we were training about twenty miles at the rear of the Alamein defences. We were on the exact job we were going to do during the capaign. We practiced making gaps and also of laying mines and lifting them. We also gave lectures on every enemy mine we knew about. By the time the training had finished everybody knew his job. On the afternoon of the 23rd October we were told that we would move off to the Alamein defences, leaving behind us all stores except our mine clearing stores which we needed. We left at five minute intervals so as not to give the enemy any idea that the campaign was starting. We eventually arrived at Alamein. Our orders were brief there and we were told that we would get more orders later. We were also told that the campaign was starting and we would have a barrage from twenty minutes to ten until ten-o-clock, to cover us. After that we would have the infantry in front of us, being the Maori Btln. The barrage would lift and the infantry would wipe out all the small arms fire. The signal would be given that all small arms fire had been cleared, and then we would go forward onto our first minefield. I set off with my men at 8.50 in the evening. It took us an hour to get to our destination. We laid in front of the artillery guns 鈥� everything was quiet and no trucks could be seen anywhere. Everything was carried by hand and no vehicles were allowed within a mile of the defences. The barrage opened up on time and at ten o鈥檆lock it lifted, and the infantry wiped out the enemy small arms fire in ten minutes. After that we were lying along our defences, on my left were two machine guns which kept us from getting to the minefield and behind me a Maori RSM, with three of his men. I asked him what he was going to do about the machine guns because they were keeping us down and we could not proceed with our mine clearing, so he said 鈥淎ll right I will go and knock them out鈥�. No sooner had he run over there than there was a terrific explosion. He had thrown sticky bombs into the dugout where the Germans had been lying and then there was the sound of machine gun fire. Everything went quiet again and I took it for granted that the small arms fire had been wiped out. I then moved forward with my men to our first minefield. Moving forward I saw the RSM coming back on a stretcher. He had his arm shot up by the German machine gun which was on the left flank, and he just said to me 鈥淚t鈥檚 all right. We have cleared them up and they won鈥檛 live to tell the tale鈥�. After that I got to the wire of our first minefield, the men pushing the tapes across the 400 yard length of the gap. Our first job was to 16 yard gap and extend it to a 40 yard gap. I got through the first minefield in one hour; being our own minefield it was easy. My next job was to go through and find our next minefield. At that time the artillery opened up again for fifteen minutes. Then it lifted and I said to my Second-in-Command next to me 鈥淚 suppose Jerry will be sending some more shells over now鈥�. We were proceeding to no-man鈥檚 land towards our next minefield, and the shells came over, mostly from mortars and small field guns, so we fell on the ground and laid on our stomachs. I kept moving up every time the shell fire lifted, covering about twenty or thirty yards at a time. The parties were well spread out and I was just about to get the detectors into action when two shells came across and landed quite near me. I asked the man next to me to get the detector going but all he did was roll over and show me his face, and I could see it was hopeless to tell him to do anything as a piece of shrapnel had hit him in the eye and he was wounded pretty badly, so I dressed his eye and sent him back to the medical post. I then asked the next fellow to do the same, but had no reply. I turned him over but he was dead.

I eventually reached the next minefield and made a 40 yard gap again. I informed the detector squads to tune in their detectors. This was done and the tapes were out and mine detecting was going on. We found quite a few mines in the first five minutes, Teller and, of course our own mines. The first incident on the mine field was one fellow who had a detector and was detecting the mines and tripped over a trip wire which set off a mine about five yards away from him. This caused the death of three of our sappers in the detector party and a detector, so I got an ambulance and moved the men. Fresh squads were put in place of the people who had been injured. I then moved forward about half way through the mine field still under shell fire, and then crawling along detecting mines, when I found two Maoris who had been killed by trip wires, so we moved them to the side of the track. Eventually the mine field was cleared and the Officer in charge of the gap asked me to take the suicide car through the mine field. On that order I got to the suicide car and drove it through the mine field. All went well on the right lane of the gap, but on turning round at the end of the gap my front wheel hit a mine and blew the truck in the air and me into the back of the truck. The mine blew the wheel and the hub to pieces and shattered the engine so the car could not be used again for any mine detecting. After about half an hour I had recovered from the shock and was going forward to my next minefield we were still under shell fire but luckily no small arms had come up in front of us. I went trough the next two minefields without incident and all the gaps were cleared by 4.30 in the morning, which we had been ordered to do. The tanks of the 10th Armoured Corps then poured through the gaps and were in battle positions by day-break.

The detectors we were using were all good quality. We had 50% spares but on going into battle we generally use our 50% reserves and sometimes more. The Field Park, which supplies us in the front, has only 50% spares and has to supply three field Coys. Our supplies at Alamein were just sufficient for our needs but when we went into battle we really needed 100% spares in case of casualties and destruction of detectors. The detectors are a very essential product and until the mine fields are cleared the armoured divisions cannot proceed to their positions. The main defense in the Desert is mine fields so you can see that the detectors are needed for the clearance of the mine fields to get a battle into operation. The Sappers in North Africa are doing a very good job, but in cases where detectors are short, they have to use the old method of bayonet probing which is very much more dangerous. They estimate 15% casualties with bayonet probing, whereas with detectors they guarantee no casualties whatsoever so you see if you let us have more of these detectors, there will be less casualties amongst the Sappers.

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