From Suez to Hellfire Pass!
Those of us who had manned the machine guns on the Rangitiki acted as a rearguard after the departure of all the other troops from the ship. We followed a few days later and found the regiment camped in the open desert at a spot that had obviously served as a base camp for other troops.
My abiding memory of that base camp is of heat and swarming flies! Many of us went down with 'gippy tummy' necessitating frequent and urgent visits to the latrine. I escaped that particular affliction but developed a painful infected lower lip that swelled up, made eating almost impossible and seemed to last for days.
We were paid in Egyptian money – 100 piastres equals one Egyptian pound. For a few piastres a native 'dhobi wallah' (Hindi, or possibly Urdu, for the laundryman) would take away our sweaty shorts and shirts and return them, washed and ironed, the next day. The laundry service appeared to use more starch than soap or washing powder! There was an open-air cinema known by us as 'Shafto's Shufti'. Shafto was the name of the proprietor and 'shufti' is Arabic for 'to look' or 'to see'. The cinema never had any change so we would proffer a 100 piastre note and come back with a couple of writing pads, bottle of ink, picture postcards and so on in lieu. Once inside and sitting on a bare wooden bench we found that the operator was as likely as not to put in the film upside down or show the spools of film in the wrong order!
We went, a few at a time, to Quassasin, a small town on the Suez Canal a few miles away from our camp. There we were accosted by sellers of souvenirs, fruit drinks, Turkish delight and other delicacies, with whom we were supposed to haggle over the price. Small boys grabbed our ankles and vied for the privilege of cleaning our boots. We were urged to visit an area that turned out to be the 'red light district', swarming with flies and of unbelievable squalor – almost unappetising enough to make the most ardent Casanova contemplate the joys of a monastic life!
We were several weeks at that base camp and weren't sorry when we were ordered up 'into the blue'. Operation Crusader was nearing readiness. It was aimed at driving the Axis forces out of Cyrenaica and eventually out of the whole of Libya.
We gunners travelled in the backs of our gun-towing vehicles, sharing the space with fifty 6in diameter (100lbs weight) shells, boxes of charges and fuses, tow ropes and other gear and, of course, our own kit-bags and packs, carrying spare clothes and personal belongings. There were nine of us in the back. The driver, his mate and the sergeant in command of the gun rode in the cab. Our 6in howitzer, connected to the towing vehicle, bounced along on its rubber tyres behind us.
In our convoy, as well as the sixteen guns and their towing vehicles, there were 30cwt. and 3 ton trucks carrying more ammunition, the cookhouse and other gear, together with 15cwt and 8cwt trucks, an armoured brengun carrier (a very fast and light open tank used for reconnaissance), and numerous motor cycle out-riders. We must have been quite a spectacle as we drove along the desert highways on our way to 'the front'.
First we had to get through Cairo and cross the Nile. As we approached Cairo we drove past high fences enclosing very green and pleasant areas very clearly marked. ROYAL DOMAIN – OUT OF BOUNDS.
I don't remember much about driving through Cairo and over the Nile though, since I never did get any leave from the front, it was all that I ever saw of them. Soon we were through the town and out into the desert. I remember well seeing the pyramids on our left. They were even more spectacular than I had expected; a 'wonder of the world' the reality of which exceeded expectation!
Soon we were past them and out into the open desert. We obviously must have passed El Alemain, later to be the scene of a prolonged bloody and decisive battle, but I don't remember even noticing it. We halted and set up camp at Mersa Matruh, a few miles short of the Egyptian/Libyan frontier. Back at base we had slept in large marquee type tents. Now we were using our bivvy (short for bivouac) tents for the first time. These were quite small, very basic tents that, if erected on level ground, could just about accommodate two sleeping men. The idea though, was that the occupants should dig themselves a pit, a kind of wide 'slit trench', and erect the bivvy tent above it, reducing the pitch of the tent and lowering it so that it extended over the pit. This gave two occupants a little more room, a little more comfort and, being a kind of enlarged slit trench, also affording the occupants some protection if the site were to be shelled or bombed.
We were camped at Mersa Matruh on 17th November when British armoured divisions began their advance into enemy territory, breaking through the barbed wire barrier that marked the frontier between Libya and Egypt and advancing on a wide front. The weather at that time was the absolute antithesis of what we had thought of as typical of the North African desert; chilly with a strong wind, threatening grey sky and drenching rain. Out came our battledress uniforms and back into our packs went our tropical kit. We could have been in England!
We waited in readiness but it was several days before we were ordered to move forward. News from the 'front time' was fragmentary but we heard rumours of a bloody battle having been fought at a place that no-one had ever heard of called Sidi Rezegh. Nor did anyone seem to know who had won the battle.
We were confused – but then so was everyone else! General Michael Carver, in his book 'Tobruk' (Pan Books – British Battles Series), described in detail the battles in the vicinity of the Egyptian/Libyan frontier as 1941 was drawing towards its close. He wrote; At every level the distinguishing characteristic of these battles was a bewilderment about what was going on, the greatest difficulty in telling friend from foe, and in sifting accurate and timely information from wildly inaccurate and out-of-date reports. Judgements and decisions were made therefore, often on a totally false picture of he situation. When both sides suffered hallucinations and acted accordingly, it is little wonder that battles almost ceased to have a pattern at all, and to those taking part it all seemed a hopeless muddle.
Nevertheless, British forces began to prevail. The siege of Tobruk was lifted. Enemy armoured columns and mobile troops began to withdraw westward, with British armour in hot pursuit. Behind were a number of garrisons of well-armed and equipped enemy troops, often in strongly fortified positions, who awaited relief when the Axis counter attack came and, in the meantime, were a thorn in the flesh of British supply columns and bases in our army's rear. Our task was to help with the elimination of these garrisons. We were ordered forward and warned to be ready for action.
Our very first action was in the open desert against an enemy force entrenched in an area known simply as 'Point 105'. As we unhooked the guns and man-handled them into their firing position we watched a British spotter plane flying low perhaps a quarter of a mile away. There was a burst of tracer fire from the ground below and the plane went out of control, dived and crashed. A column of smoke arose from the point at which it had crashed. There came the chilling realisation that we were in a combat zone. Those who had downed the plane and, no doubt, killed the pilot, would try to kill us too if they could.
We went into the familiar firing drill, for the first time 'for real'. The gun layers, in response to shouted orders, peered through the dial sights focussing on the 'director' at the rear which served as an aiming point. They then, in response to shouted orders, waved their arms to indicate whether the gun trails should be moved to left or right and frantically spun the wheels for 'line' and 'elevation' to bring the gun to bear on its unseen target. 'HE 119 Charge 4' came the order, 'three rounds gunfire – fire!' The ammunition numbers brought up a shell on its cradle and rammed it into the breach with their ramrod. Another member of the crew inserted the charge and slammed the breach shut. The second-in-command (No 2 of the gun crew) of the gun inserted the tube (like a rifle cartridge but without a bullet) and connected the lanyard that would fire the gun. He then stood back shouted 'Ready!' and the gun sergeant gave the command FIRE! No 2 tugged at his firing lanyard. Within split seconds of each other there was a succession of ear-splitting roars. Clouds of dust and smoke rose high in the air as the four guns of B Troop hurled their deadly content at their target, leaping with the recoil as they did so. Immediately the gun crews prepared their guns for the second round of the 'three rounds gunfire' that had been ordered.
During the few days that we were in this position we were given four ancient Italian field guns that had been captured. Italian ammunition, shells and cartridges, were scattered all over the desert. The guns were put to use. We called them 'Jack Troop', I don't know why. Each gun had a crew of three; cooks or drivers with a gunner, who had to be a qualified gun layer, in command of each gun. For one of those guns, I was that gun-layer.
Their shells weighed less than 20 lbs and we fired off ten of them for every three of the 100lb shells that were fired by the bigger guns. We didn't have the sophisticated means of aiming them that the big guns had. With us it was a matter of 'up a little, down a little, a bit to the left, or right; try a bit bigger charge – if you don't think it will blow up the gun!' and so on. I think that they were quite effective though. I was sorry when we moved on to a new position and left them behind. I was told that they were later sent to China to help fight the Japanese.
We hooked up our guns and moved to other points in the desert, never seeing our targets, never really knowing the result of our shelling. The names Sidi Omar and Omar Sherrif come to my mind but whether those were the names of our gun position or of our targets I have no idea. Occasionally we would see a column of smoke rise into the air from the area into which we had fired, and we assumed that we had hit a target. Rarely did we attract return fire from our targets and as far as I know, the regiment sustained no fatal casualties during this period.
A week or two before Christmas 1941 we were told that our targets were to be places with names that were familiar to us. 232 Battery became part of a force besieging Bardia, a coastal town between Tobruk and the Libyan/Egyptian frontier. We in 231 Battery played a similar role in the siege of the Axis stronghold of Wadi Halfaya (better known to the troops and to the British Press as Hellfire Pass). The enemy occupied a strongly defended defensive position in and around the pass which gave access from the high interior Libyan plateau to the level coastal strip which, varying in width from between a few hundred yards and several miles, stretched from the Egyptian frontier to Tobruk and beyond. Not far from the lower end of the pass was (or had been!) the town of Sollum. Both enemy-held positions were well manned with German and Italian troops equipped with ample arms, ammunition and other supplies.
Both batteries were acting in support of South African Infantry Divisions, the South African Army having no medium artillery in North Africa. We spent day after day, and night after night directing 'harassing fire' – a dozen or so shells at a time at two or three hourly intervals throughout the day and night. This also harassed us, and the South African troops we were supporting, but nobody worried about that!
Two incidents occurred during this period that are worth a mention. One of our lorries, returning from base with supplies, lost its way in a sand-storm and strayed into enemy territory. The supplies were, of course, welcomed by the German patrol that intercepted the lorry, and its occupants were taken prisoner. They were put under guard in an area of Wadi Halfaya. Large letters POW were then marked out with white stones on the desert where they were held captive to prevent their being accidentally killed by 'friendly fire' or bombing.
Eventually, of course, these prisoners were liberated when the German garrison surrendered. Among them was Sergeant Meadows, our battery paymaster. He was liberated only to be recaptured with the remainder of us at Tobruk and then sadly killed by 'friendly fire' nearly a year later. Together with a cargo of British POWs, he was being transported from Tripoli to Italy on the Italian vessel SS Scillin when it was torpedoed and sunk by a British submarine. Fifty members of the 67th Medium regiment RA (by far our biggest single batch of casualties), all young men in their early twenties, and most territorial army volunteers from East Suffolk, were among the British casualties on that occasion.
The other incident related to Christmas and the New Year. We did not celebrate Christmas that year and made sure that our opponents were unable to do so either. Unrelenting, we kept up the harassing fire throughout Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. On New Year's Eve, just as dusk was falling we learned that the German garrison had hoisted a white flag – they were surrendering. Our emissaries would drive over to meet their commander in the morning. In the meantime we would cease fire till further orders.
On New Year's morning the white flag had been lowered and warning shots were fired over the heads of those who had attempted to enter to accept an Axis surrender. Hostilities resumed. However we had all enjoyed a good night's sleep and the enemy had enjoyed whatever New Year celebrations were possible for them.
These two incidents, I think, illustrate a point that those who fought at other times, on other fronts, during Word War II find difficult to accept but which, I am convinced, any veteran of the campaign will confirm. In Egypt and Libya, during the campaigns of 1941 and 1942 both sides meticulously observed the 'rules of war'. No-one fired on the Red Cross. The white flag of surrender was always respected. Prisoners of war were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. There were occasions on both sides when a forward patrol in the desert no-mans-land would capture prisoners they couldn't accommodate and couldn't hope to get back to their lines. On other fronts, at other times, such prisoners might well have been summarily shot. In North Africa the prisoners were disarmed, provided with water and basic rations and then directed in the direction of their own lines. On occasion, if their own lines were beyond reasonable walking distance, they'd be allowed to use one of their own trucks.
It's true that I, and everyone else captured at Tobruk, had a very rough few weeks immediately after capture. However, we weren't allowed to starve to death or die of thirst and, though it may not have been everyone's experience, I never felt that any guard was deliberately trying to make my life more miserable than – as a prisoner of war – it inevitably was. Imagine the logistic problems of any army that, in an arid desert and hundreds of miles from its own base, had suddenly captured 30,000 prisoners!
The German garrison in Wadi Halfaya didn't have long to celebrate their peaceful New Year. Their comrades in Bardia were attacked by the First South African Division and the 1st Tank Brigade, supported by 232nd Battery of the 67th Medium Regiment, on 31st December. They surrendered on 2nd January. The commander of the Axis Troops in Wadi Halfaya surrendered a fortnight later – they had run out of supplies and had given up hope of being relieved.
Nearly 14,000 Italian and German prisoners were taken in these two actions which had been an unqualified success.
Wadi Halfaya had been the last centre of resistance in the Egyptian/Libyan frontier area. Our task had been satisfactorily completed. We withdrew to a base camp at Sidi Barrani on the Egyptian side of the frontier. Rumour had it that we would soon be en route for Palestine.
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