5
THE WESTERN DESERT
‘A White Fevver’
Baggush Oasis, near Mersa Matruh, Western Egypt. Lapped by the Mediterranean, weather perfect in October and early November 1941, blue swallows holidaying from Europe swooping so beautifully collecting the last of the accursed flies. And for us, pleasant English butterscotch bonbons and humbugs from little dug-in canteens where now and then a frosty bottle of beer to stroke and savour on reasonable ration, and then, just dodging an avalanche of fleas, off and away to battle, nearly 20,000 New Zealanders in 2836 vehicles covering 50 miles of open desert that first day together, that first time all moving together, us, the New Zealand Division. Freyberg’s Circus, with our fernleaf stencil the English thought ‘a white fevver’, using 40,000 gallons of petrol that first day – what a host – black dots streaming desert dust to the horizon and beyond, an unforgettable sight, the entire New Zealand Division on the move like a cloud of migrating muttonbirds.
Cargoes
Onward
‘Righto, start up!’
Onward, men of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force; onward, as our fernleaf badges say, on against the foe; and forward into battle our laden vehicle goes:
Libby’s and Carnation – ‘from Contented Cows’ – condensed milk.
Three blackened billies, beating a devil’s tattoo. (‘We’ll really have to fix ’em properly next stop,’ we’ve been telling each other for the last four months.)
Two primuses. (‘The Wonder.’ Made in Sweden. ‘Follow directions closely.’)
A Benghazi burner – fireplace kerosene tin.
Bully and biscuits ad nauseam.
Kraft cheese. (‘Best bung.’)
The old fig jam.
Tea, sugar, a little coffee and cocoa.
One bottle of Black Label: ‘strictly medicinal purposes only.’
M&V, tinned bacon, South African sausages, canned beetroot (stolen from the cookhouse in mistake for preserved black currants).
A litter of infuriating primus-prickers, with ends perpetually bent. Kerosene. Mess gear.
Camel water containers. Oatmeal and salt. Blanket rolls.
A bag of dried apricots looking like corpses’ ears. A musket or two. Gasmask-haversacks containing rifle-cleaning gear, old letters, Three Bells and Viceroy cigarettes.
Tin hats clattering about all over the floor, a grimy copy of One Night in Paris (author unknown, five-piastre edition), tinned fruits purchased with our own money, and a great can of toheroa soup (bought at the New Zealand Club, Cairo) to be quaffed in triumph at Benghazi on Christmas Day.
Morn in the Desert
The sweet, melodious music of an old tin can rolls off the slumber wrappings from my cool, moist, sweetly sticky figure as the pleasant, rhythmical sound ripples across the morning stillness like a city tram collision.
Close, on the slopes of a pretty little sand depression, hard by a clump of tall, deserted, yet stately tar drums, can be discerned, standing clear against the soft fused light of the rising sun, the gaunt and lonely figure of the cook, while his plaintive call, resounding in clear bell-like tones as some long forgotten melody, mingles with the many pleasant sounds of awakening life.
Stretching far away into the dim and misty distance is a panorama, superb in itself, yet like some sweet, untamed maid of an old world hamlet – ’t is simplicity. Here is no scene of tangled growth and sharp-etched, snow-clad peaks, but a thrilling vista of unbounded nothingness, unchanging, grand-stark-naked desert, rolling far to a flat horizon where hangs the rising sun.
The friendly little flies make sounds of gaiety with low tuned murmurings as they, too, awake from slumber, busy with neighbourly little overtures, floating here and there like pieces of gossamer, playing to and fro like eager school children until, satiated with new discoveries, they wing their way, half drugged, to share our morning meal.
Such are my thoughts, as the new day heralds itself – could I but visualise the hidden stores of beauty that lie before me – that rock-strewn wadi, gaunt and bare, breathing rugged grandeur, the thrills of discovery as, like Columbus, we stray upon an isle of broken, useless trucks far out in a wilderness of sand.
I breathe a prayer of thanks: a bountiful Government and Fate herself have spared me to live among such splendour.
Another Morning
There is little movement in the air. The morning mist, a milky curtain, stirs and slowly begins to thin. Now ragged strips of vapour peel up and coil away before dim outlines: trucks, tractors, reconnaissance cars, guns.
The curtain is rising, the stage is set, the pieces are in their place, but where are the players?
From snub-nosed tractors and quads they come, stretching cramped arms and legs. Yawning. Bleary-eyed. Frowsy. They have slept but little and they are very tired. The sentries of the night put down their heavy rifles, their long watch is over. Gunners rise stiffly from dew-damp blankets around the cold field guns and from out of a thousand scattered slit-trenches crawl the men of the infantry. We’ve lived through another night.
Close at hand, the sudden hiss and roar of a primus. Another and another, and small flashes of yellow flame stab the greyness all round. Every man is thinking, just enough water for a half cup of tea all round. Tea scalding hot and black and sugary to burn its way down the throat and into the belly, then spread and uncoil its glorious warmth like a great flower unfolding. Tea to end this raw cold. Tea to bring back the strength this cold, grey sand has sucked from us in our sleep.
Don’t be too long with that tea boys.
A cigarette first thing in the morning, before a cup of tea, tastes crook. Sort of musty. But after a mug of tea you can lie down and rest your head on the gasmask container and maybe the sun will be coming up, and, flat on your back, you can slowly suck in the smoke and it’s mighty good; and after that you’ll do your best and the officers will say:
‘Good show, chaps. Oh, you put on a good show.’
But, first of all, that tea.
Curtain Raiser
It is no exaggeration to say that Tiny Freyberg was mad on rugby and would go to extremes to facilitate top-level fixtures. The greatest event while our Division was fighting in the Middle East was the epic Desert Test, played between men of the 2nd NZ Division and the 1st South African Division while we were waiting at Matruh and Baggush to engage Rommel on his thrust east.
Apart from the players who took part, and our longstanding rivalry with the Springboks, there was the magnificence of the game itself; the venue and its nearness to the front line; the fact that the Division was all geared up to go into action; and the secrecy surrounding the actual day and timing of the attack, which rendered the game very much an on-again off-again affair. And the massive, highly vulnerable concentration of troops, which would be inevitable – we did not have air superiority at that time.
Picture a small, flat two-acre paddock of soft sand, surrounded by low sandhills with an opening along one side which led out to a beach on the Mediterranean Coast. Instead of green grass, as at home, there was sand, not like the wet sand on the seashore but soft, yielding sand on which it was most difficult to maintain a foothold. There was not the wherewithal to water or oil it for consolidation. What we did was to entice some tankies in with their multi-wheeled tank transporters and to get them to drive round and round the pitch. This provided a surface hard enough to play on.
The ring of sandhills provided elevation for all to see. Partly for crowd control and also to define the ground clearly, we erected a fence of angle-iron pickets and barbed wire right around it. To complete the job we pitched a couple of ‘Egyptian Patent, Indian-Pattern’ tents as changing rooms and for the after-match function.
While all this was going on, the team chosen continued to train; no one was even sure that the game would ever be played, but ultimately the Desert Test was on. The day: 8 November 1941. The result: 2nd NZ Division 8; 1st South African Division nil.
Our side was captained by All Black Jack Sullivan; theirs by the renowned Springbok Pat Lyster. It was an extremely hard-fought game and typical of real test rugby. The only try – a brilliant one – was scored by Sullivan after an excellent breakthrough and it was converted by Arthur Wesney, who also kicked a penalty goal. It should be said that whereas we had five All Blacks, the South Africans had but one Springbok.
If the ground and its location provided a unique setting for hard-fought test rugby, the crowd that attended it and the after-match function was equally incongruous. Weatherbeaten Kiwis, as brown as their khaki shorts and shirts; row after row of them all talking at once and offering odds, despite an almost complete lack of liquid refreshment.
There was much hilarity in the two tents after the game on a diet of Chinese Ewo beer and bread and cheese, which I had got from Alexandria the previous day, as we were on hard rations preparatory to the attack. I can see the huge arm of Private Ghandi McLean, even to this day, as it reached over the heads of all and sundry, with bottle in hand, exhorting Tiny to come and have drink with him.
That this great desert test took place at all was truly remarkable. Within hours our Engineers had set off the Bangalore torpedoes which enabled the Division to break through the wire [into Libya for Operation Crusader]. And, but a few days later, two of the players, Arthur Wesney and Roger Anderson, were killed.
Crusader – Sidi Aziz
James Hargest
The attack [Operation Crusader] which began on November 18th, 1941, aimed at the destruction of General Rommel’s armoured force just west of the Egyptian-Libyan frontier, the capture of Sollum and Capuzzo, the relief of [besieged] Tobruk, and march westward to Benghazi and beyond ... The battle opened when we crossed the frontier wire barrier after a succession of night marches in separate columns across the desert ... The plan seemed simple enough. The Indian Division on the right was to attack and capture the German-Italian positions at Sidi Omar, and roll up the enemy line towards along the [Egyptian-Libyan] frontier towards Capuzzo and Sollum. The other two infantry divisions [1st South African, 2nd NZ] were to halt on their ground and await the issue of the armoured battle...
Meanwhile, the Armoured Corps had moved out in front. On the opening day Rommel accepted the challenge to his panzer troops. Battle was joined. For several days it grew in intensity, ending not in our success but in a stalemate in which all the advantage lay with Rommel. He had come down from his lair in the north with all his striking force concentrated, and had fallen on our still widely dispersed [British] armoured brigades. By the fourth day he had wrecked them all, smashed into the Fourth Support Group, and had mopped up the Fifth Brigade of South Africans. All that remained to us intact were the splendid Fourth Indian Division, the New Zealand Division and the remnants of the three armoured brigades...
Sunday morning, November the 23rd, and so far all had gone well with us; but by ten o’clock things began to happen. The Fourth and Sixth Brigades were ordered away towards Tobruk, taking with them my 21st Battalion and leaving the Divisional Cavalry in exchange. I stood in the desert and saw the 21st go past with foreboding in my heart. Once before they had been detached from me, in Greece, and coming under the hammer blows of a whole armoured division had been crushed almost to extinction. Colonel John Allen, its commander, a parliamentary colleague of mine, came over to shake hands. He was confident and full of fight. I never saw him again. He fell somewhere in the confused fighting around Sidi Resegh [Rezegh] ... As soon as the Division cleared the field I reorganized my forces and, as far as I could, dug in.
I left the 23rd and 28th battalions where they were, and moved Colonel Andrew and the 22nd up to Menastir to take the place of the Fourth Brigade.
Tony Vercoe
We were recalled to Menastir during the night of 23 November. At breakfast time next morning mortar shells started to land in our positions, along with heavy machine gun fire. Germans were attacking out of the sun from the direction of Bardia and an estimated two companies of them had approached to about one thousand yards before opening fire. Our breakfast was going to be delayed. The German fire was accurate and B Company had to get cracking.
Our guns – 25-pounders from 27 Battery, firing over open sights, and Bofors ack-ack guns with lowered barrels – opened up while we got organized and set off, true infantry style, in line abreast, to counter the incursion. I was carrying a Bren gun. The Jerries were soon halted by the devastating fire from our gunners and were preparing to retreat. Our pace was increasing now, in readiness for pursuit, and our guns ceased firing as we moved into their lines of sight.
For many of us this was our first action and the swift chemical changes brought about by apprehension and excitement were unfamiliar to us. But everything seemed to be going smoothly with the balance of power now in our favour. We found this reassuring and, moving easily across that open desert, a few hundred yards behind the retreating Germans, even enjoyable. Was this to be the pattern of our war, the Kiwi way in the desert? If so, routing the enemy should be a simple matter. It would be all over and done with in no time. Our growing confidence was catching, elation replacing apprehension. For me it would last another ten minutes.
We guessed we might now be close to the German’s original position. This was a rocky area where cartridge cases, bits of shrapnel, even discarded shell cases wouldn’t show up readily. We weren’t there to look for such things anyway. Watch out but keep moving.
I almost tripped over this object. Too big for a stone, the colours were not right either. But – a large lump of raw meat here? There were scraps of frayed cloth sticking to it and a steamy vapour was rising from it. Oh, God ... ‘All right mate,’ Doug Gray was there to help. Our section leader and a veteran of Crete, Doug knew the score, A few minutes earlier this had been part of a man. A direct hit from a 25-pounder and a vaporous red lump at our feet, torn and anonymous, was all that remained.
Doug made sure I understood. Innocence was ended there. We moved on. The official account concluded: Several Germans were killed, some prisoners taken and a few New Zealanders wounded.
James Hargest
The darkness of the early morning [26 Nov.] was shattered by the crash of an eighteen-pounder gun. The whole camp sprang into action. The klaxon horn sounded, men slid into their battle positions; shot after shot was fired by the gun. Then, as we waited for the assault of the enemy which we thought must surely be upon us, an unmistakably Cockney voice came across: ‘Stop shooting you silly bastards, we’re British.’ And so they were. A column of German transport driving British trucks full of British prisoners had stumbled on us in the darkness and the role of captor and captive had been rapidly reversed. At the sound of the first gun the prisoners in the trucks disarmed their German guards whom they were now bringing in.
Early in the afternoon large columns of trucks, tanks and guns began to pass us going eastwards towards Bardia, and I knew from reports that it was Rommel. He had filled up his tanks with British petrol in the dump area, and, passing through the gap behind the Indians, was now sweeping eastward towards Bardia. All afternoon we were in action against those columns, although we were not attacked. They passed on either side of us, pouring like a flood, leaving my little garrison a lonely rock in the middle of a swollen river
Night came down early, and with it a respite. I knew that Rommel would attack me the next day or the day after, as soon as he had taken what he required out of Bardia. I knew also, that my small force had no chance of defeating his attack, and that unless he was content to pass us by we would be overwhelmed. But my orders were ‘hold’, and they allowed of no compromise. We had to fight it out where we stood unless fresh orders came in the night; and they did not.
Tony Vercoe
27 November: At 6.45, our Div, Cav., scouting beyond the perimeter in their Bren carriers, passed a message to the Brigadier [Hargest]: Large force of enemy tanks approaching from the east – distance, three miles. Out of the sun again! The remaining Hurricanes had already taken off. Soon after 7am, the first shells began to fall. Ranging shots, from a distance of about two thousand yards. ‘Take cover!’...
Brigade HQ was a military microcosm, with all its satellite units – artillery, ack-ack, Vickers guns, Div. Cav., signals, infantry – condensed at this desert crossroads [Sidi Aziz] into a couple of hundred square yards or so of flat terrain from which it could not move. For the enemy it presented a wonderful, compact, fixed target on which to concentrate all his fire. Sitting ducks.
James Hargest
Rommel had chosen his time well. He brought his tanks up to within 2500 yards and then, forming them up in crescent shape, opened fire. Soon the weight of shells was increased by his artillery coming into action; it had tucked itself in under the lee of the tanks and brought a most devastating fire to bear, all of it in the very small area of our camp. Then the machine guns added their weight...
Tony Vercoe
What fire it was. This was 8 Panzer Regiment, containing the armour of 15 Panzer Division, an immensely powerful strike force ... a devastating onslaught of extraordinary intensity. Pinned down hugging the floor of our slit trenches, we waited and listened as the barrage waxed over and around us. Our guns were in action, the 2-pounders in front of us pumping out their rounds at top speed. The heavier 18 and 25-pounders in the rear, brought to bear at last, were now firing over our heads. Looking forward, our guns are being hit, their metal shields offer little protection against direct hits; but others are still firing. Lying there, trying to think, stupefied by all the violence in the shrieking air pressing in all round.
James Hargest
One by one our trucks were struck and set on fire, a load of land mines blew up, causing a minor earthquake, and then a truck full of shells ... In all my experience of war I have never before seen such a concentration of fire. From my slit trench, the whole camp was flaming ... Our men hit back. It was heartening to hear the crash of the 25-pounder mingling with the lighter noise of the two-pounder anti-tank and the Bofors anti-aircraft guns. I could hear also the rattle of our machine guns; but there was no target available for the Bren guns and rifles – we just had to stand and wait.
Tony Vercoe
No trees here. No falling leaves. No birds. Only the swift torrent of scourging metal and through the noise a single voice, crying...
It had started suddenly back there, somewhere in our platoon, the terrible sound of a man howling. He was sobbing with shock and terror, the wailing rising and falling, cutting through the thunder, a knife edge slicing sharp to the quick of fear in our consciousness. I thought I knew who it was.
‘Get your head down and shut up!’ the sharp command checked him. Waiting then for the next outburst, ears straining, catching the strange whimpering, a subdued and primitive keening. Perhaps we need someone to cry for us all. Perhaps we would all crack before this ended. No! Perish the thought! Endure. Stick it out son.
James Hargest
In the heat of the action I saw one deed of cool courage which in other times would have certainly been rewarded. A truck carrying an anti-tank porté – that is, the gun was carried on and fired from the truck itself – came back from the front and stopped at the dressing station to unload a number of wounded and dead men. Then it drove to a position abreast of me and at once came into action. There was only one man remaining (I found out his name afterwards – Gunner Michael Niven). I watched him load, aim, fire – load, aim, fire, time after time. Soon the enemy concentrated on him. His truck received a direct hit on one side, starting a fire, then another just behind the gun; a third struck the shield and shot the muzzle straight upwards, where it remained pointing to the sky. Niven slid down from the truck and disappeared unhurt.
Tony Vercoe
Massive vibrations assault the eardrum, escalating the pandemonium. Back there, somewhere to the right, Blue’s voice. A quiet and considerate chap, Blue, but that’s his voice, closer. He’s out of his slit trench, moving about. Get back Blue, for God’s sake. Then Doug Gray was with him, kneeling. Blue was on the ground. Had he been hit?
‘Do you need help?’ I sung out, elbowing up. If he could get out, I could get out too. But Dougie Gray, the good corporal, wanted none of that and called back sharply: ‘No, don’t move.’ On my way up though, I might as well...
‘Stay where you are!’ A bit snappish, this; and I dropped back, relieved, hadn’t really wanted to budge. But Doug was doing it right, the only thing for Blue. He gripped the hand of a man whose life was ebbing fast from a terrible wound.
‘Goodbye boys.’ Like a sigh Blue’s voice carried just enough for some of us to hear, a wrenching, poignant farewell; and we knew too. Goodbye Blue. Rolling forward from the burning vehicles, dense black smoke obscured the sky and hung over us like a pall. For his trouble Doug Gray was hit himself. A bullet or shrapnel had passed clean through the cartilage between shoulder and neck. A few inches further east ... But Doug made nothing of that either.
James Hargest
Our fire died down. I did not know it then, but when it was over I found that every gun had been smashed or burned and its crew killed or wounded. It was a gunners’ battle with no hope against such odds; but they did what British gunners do in those circumstances, they fought to the end.
And the end did come at last. Suddenly, all the enemy guns except his machine guns ceased firing. I ran round the partially destroyed Intelligence truck to speak to Straker, my Brigade major: ‘Can we find some men to counter-attack these machine guns and drive them off?’ He pointed towards the east. There, not a hundred yards away, through the smoke of the burning trucks, I saw a line of tanks coming in smartly. They were in line abreast, not more than 15 paces apart, and stretched across the camp with the extremities thrust forward like the horns of a crescent.
Tony Vercoe
Now the first of the German Panzers were rolling in, subduing the remnants of opposition, the monstrous shapes materializing into our vision against the sky. Crossing the perimeter; past the dead gunners and the broken guns, grating and clanking towards us through the drifting smoke ... We climbed out under their guns to stand among these chariots of the victors on hell’s landscape. Blue lay there with the others. We, the living, thought our thoughts, unspeaking as the Germans checked that we were disarmed and herded us into a group.
Remain there seated or risk being shot. For you the war is over.
Brigadier Hargest had surrendered formally to the commanding tank officer, a Colonel Cramer, and the stage was set for a crowning dramatic touch ... With impeccable timing, a single great panzer now approached at leisurely pace, trundling into the central stadium. Even as it creaked and ground to a halt an officer stepped easily from it, a general, looking desert-weary perhaps, yet somehow familiar and the very model of compact authority. That British sun visor worn above the peak of his hat ... Of course–
‘Good Lord!’ This from Bill West beside me in our ringside seats, and from Doug Gray, on the other side: ‘Rommel!’
James Hargest
He sent for me. I bowed to him. He stood looking at me coldly. Through an interpreter he expressed his displeasure that I had not saluted him. I replied that I had intended no discourtesy, but I was in the habit of saluting only my seniors in our own or Allied armies. I was in the wrong, of course, but had to stick to my point. It did not prevent him from congratulating me on the fighting quality of my men.
‘They fight well,’ he said.
‘Yes, they fight well,’ I replied, ‘but your tanks were too powerful for us.’
‘But you also have tanks.’
‘Yes, but not here, as you can see.’
‘Perhaps my men are superior to yours.’
‘You know that is not correct.’
It was a perfunctory conversation ... Apart from his momentary annoyance at the beginning of our talk, he showed me every courtesy. He was quiet in manner and dress, and did not wear a monocle, the badge of most of his kind. Although he had been fighting for over a week and was travelling in a tank, he was neat and clean, and I noticed that he had shaved before entering the battle this morning.
We were left in the hands of a company of infantry whom I had seen following the tanks into the camp, for the most part they moved about quietly and methodically, collecting the men and searching them for weapons, papers, snapshots, etc., and as far as I could see not attempting any bullying or stealing articles of personal value. The commander, however, was a typical bully. As soon as his superiors had withdrawn he began to assert his authority. I was standing aside from the group of officers when he approached and, pushing his pistol into my back, began to prod me to make me move. I stood it for a moment and then turned on him, caught the arm holding the pistol and drove it into the air, where I told him to keep it. He looked a little abashed and walked away. I wanted to go to the dressing station to see our wounded, so approaching a German sentry I asked him to come with me.
The dressing station was full of wounded, our own and German, and the three New Zealand doctors there were hard put to cope with the situation. One gunner as well as being wounded was badly shell-shocked. His condition was pitiable. The ammunition and mines were still exploding and at each burst the poor fellow sprang as far off his stretcher as his wounds would allow, then fell back in terror. I stayed by him a little while and tried to talk him into quietness, not very successfully.
Then I came upon my great friend and parliamentary colleague, Major Arthur Grigg. He was fatally wounded and unconscious. I sat beside him for a little while until the Germans came to take me off to Bardia. He was a loyal comrade and a very gallant gentleman ... Members of all parties liked and admired him. He had come away with me, in the artillery, and after a period as staff captain to Brigadier Miles, had been given the job he wanted, with a battery, as second in command. On this day he had been in command of the twenty-five pounders and when ammunition had run low had himself gone off to get more. He had just driven up to a gun in a truck when a shell burst on the gun killing and wounding most of the crew. Grigg jumped down and, running to the gun, began serving it as Number Two when another shell scored a direct hit, putting it completely out of action and mortally wounding him. Gunner comrades carried him down to the dressing station, but he did not regain consciousness.
As I walked away I realized what the day’s catastrophe meant, Defeat, loss, grief; and the prospect of months, perhaps years, in prison. So great was my misery that I envied Arthur his quiet sleep in the sun.
The men were gathered in a large group sitting disconsolately on their blankets. They seemed crushed, overwhelmed by the disaster, yet patient and uncomplaining. I have never admired our men more than at that moment. I told them to keep up their courage and not to grieve, that all would yet be well; that even our enemies had expressed admiration for their soldierly qualities that day. With such poor comfort I left them, and entering the heavily escorted car was driven off to Bardia.
Western Desert
Belhamid – Sidi Rezegh
E.S. Allison
Belhamid is almost sacred to me. It was a milestone in my life and for many who had been boys and cobbers with me it was the terminus of their lives. The life and world I’d known in the 1930s ended there. I never knew what freedom was until I lost it on Belhamid.
[In 1957] I asked an officer of the Tobruk garrison if he knew of any easy way to the hill, and he lost no time in condemning my plan as stupid, worthless and highly dangerous.
‘What, with minefields everywhere!’ he snorted in that cold Oxford accent that jars colonials. ‘And it’s twenty miles of rough going. I’ll have no hand in it.’...
There was only one thing left to do. Walk. I had gone but a few chains when a young R.A.F. officer came running after me, shouting, ‘Hold on! I heard you in the orderly room. I’ll take you in the jeep. I’m Desert Rescue Officer, just new here. Need practice in desert navigation ... Couldn’t see you stuck,’ said the young fellow. ‘You chaps did a great job. I was just a kid then in England. My name’s Taylor. Now this hill Belhamid, am I heading in the right direction?’
But I scarcely answered. My hands clenched and unclenched nervously, my mouth was dry and my arms tingled. Perhaps I was tempting fate too much. Those mines, those unexploded shells. What an ironic twist of fate; to end my life on a peacetime jaunt to a battlefield.
Soon I recognized the long yellow escarpment of Sidi Rezegh, and crouching two miles to the north of it, the hunched back of Belhamid, all glaring white under the sun with barbed wire snaking below it. Taylor swerved off the donkey tracks and I held my breath as we crashed over boulders and halted at the foot of the hill. And as though reading my thoughts he said, ‘I’ll stay here. I think you’d prefer to be alone.’
I jumped out and walked up the slopes of Belhamid, noticing the remains of trenches and some Bren gun magazines lying beside them – Gun Leckie firing his Bren until he died – Belhamid that had reeled with turmoil and slaughter now lay peaceful and innocent in the white sunshine so far from New Zealand – from the sheep on green hills, from the smoke of manuka fires brewing billy-can tea in the bush on picnic days.
Geoffrey Cox
Tuesday, 26 November, attacks were launched in the dark by 6th Brigade to capture the remaining enemy positions on Sidi Rezegh, now centred near the Mosque, and by 4th brigade to seize Belhamid, a low ridge between us and El Duda. They were to be attacks with the bayonet, under cover of darkness, the first use in the desert of this tactic which was to become the hallmark of the Division.
Dan Davin
So this was Zafraan. That would be Bel Hamid over there to the north-west ... Somehow on the ground the hills seemed less real, less recognisable than on the map ... Back at the truck Bob was waiting for him.
‘The Brig’s just been on the ’phone. I’ve got to go over and show him my timings for the tanks, guns, anti-tank and MGs. There’s a draft copy there, you’d better take a screw at it. They’re not going till first light. So she’ll be a pure infantry show tonight. And, by the way, a couple of war correspondents are coming over. You’d better tell them the tale.’
Bob went out. Tony heard his voice outside the canopy.
‘You the correspondents? The IO’ll tell you what goes on. That truck there.’
Tony went to the canopy flap. Bob called back to him: ‘Here they are. I may not be back for a while ... we’ll probably watch them go over the start line. See you later.’
‘Come in,’ said Tony.
‘Are you sure we’re not disturbing you?’
‘That’s all right. She’s all set to get cracking. Sit down ... Here’s the map. There’s the start line marked in black. Eighteen and Twenty Battalions cross it at 2100 hours. Four and a half miles to go on foot. Objective, Bel Hamid. You can see what Bel Hamid’s like, bare as your arse – not at the moment of course. At this stage of the battle the important features are Bel Hamid here, Sidi Rizegh here by Trigh Capuzzo and El Duda just beyond that road. The fourth is the one we’re on, Zaafran. As you probably know, 6 Brigade is going for Sidi Rizegh and El Duda tonight. They control the Tobruk corridor as you can see. If we get them, the garrison will break out and join us. Seventy Div., the Poles and a bit of armour are in there, as you know.
‘As far as we’re concerned, the catch is that Jerry’s been piling up there in the thousands. He’s got a bit of a clue as to what these features are worth. And there are plenty of tanks prowling round, Mark III’s and IV’s. If we link up with the Tobruk boys, we’ll have split 15 Panzer Div. on the West off from 21 Panzer Div. on our right. They won’t like that much. They’re fond of each other. So, for a start, they’ll do their damnedest to keep us off the features ... He’ll try to make it so hot for us by fire alone that we’ll have to get off. Remember there’s bugger all shelter.
‘If that doesn’t work and we still hang on, the next thing he’ll do is counter-attack, boots and all. If 30 Corps has knocked out as much of his armour as they say, and I don’t believe, we should be all right. In any case, there’ll be all hell to pay in the next few days. I reckon Tobruk’ll be relieved, but that’s only a personal opinion from knowing our boys.’
‘Thanks very much. That’s very clear, thank you for taking the trouble.’
‘I’d sooner take the trouble than take Bel Hamid.’
Geoffrey Cox
In the hope of securing an early identification of the enemy on Belhamid, I joined 20th Battalion as they gathered on the start line, ready for zero hour at 9p.m. The next day I snatched half an hour to set down the scene.
E.S. Allison
From the summit I walked down the eastern slope, thinking of ‘Kip’ [CO 20th Bn] giving his quiet talk to us before the bayonet attack. The German machine-gunners must be wiped off Belhamid with the bayonet, and the road to Tobruk opened. ‘Good luck men,’ ‘Good luck to you, sir,’ we reply. Then quickly and silently into the night, the black figures hunched forward, a Very light or a shell burst glinting for a second on the long bayonets held ready to thrust.
Geoffrey Cox
Then the whistle went and the line moved off. No tanks went, no carriers, just the four waves of men abreast, their bayonets fixed, walking silently ahead in the darkness. They looked a tiny force, thin, too thin a group in this great desert waste. The company commander walked in front, compass in hand, with a runner behind him counting the paces. On either side, men were fanning out, and the bushes breaking underfoot, and dark figures against the sky, and it is dark and heavy going.
E.S. Allison
Tom and Paddy counting the paces to the foot of Belhamid. Such a black silence I’ve never known. ‘Kip’ asks me to check my compass bearing for we’ve gone too far north, losing contact with the advancing companies. Soon there is no need for a compass...
Geoffrey Cox
The 20th had over a mile to the edge of Belhamid, and it was nearly half an hour before the darkness was broken by lines of tracer bullets, and by Very lights cascading suddenly upwards and, faintly but unmistakeably, the high yell of men charging.
E.S. Allison
This very hill and the silent night are shattered by shouts and piercing screams as the infantry looming out of the blackness drive their bayonets into the waiting gunners. Pandemonium swells to a deafening crescendo, and the hammering German machine guns cut the blackness with vivid stabs and streams of light, but the gunners cannot face the long cold bayonets.
The screaming drowns the stutter of the machine guns and rises above the savage yells of charging Kiwi infantry – chilling, soul-searing screams as bayonets enter living men. I stumble on a huddled shape and it mumbles, ‘Wasser! Wasser bitte!’ – And Spicer kneels down and gives the German his last drink as he murmurs feebly, ‘Danke. Danke.’ Thanks from a dying enemy, a Jerry with the sand about him wet and warm with his blood. We leave him to die. Hot savage fighting one minute, mercy the next. But the cheering of the attackers and the blood-chilling shrieks of the Germans rise higher until I wonder when it will all end.
Then almost suddenly there is a lull, a tensed eerie pause, and there is no telling which black shapes are ours or theirs in the night. Three figures digging a slit trench or a grave loom up before us. I think they are New Zealanders, and soon there is no doubt for they challenge ‘Kip’ as he goes forward and one says, ‘Don’t trust the bastard. Shoot him.’ But the next second they recognize him, and he tries to re-group his battalion.
Geoffrey Cox
In their parallel attack on Sidi Rezegh 6th Brigade had met very tough opposition. When dawn came the enemy was still holding out around the Mosque, in strongly fortified positions, some of which were concrete ... As a first move towards linking up with Tobruk, Barrowclough [CO 6th Bgd] was told to seize the next obstacle on the escarpment, the enemy positions around the Blockhouse, and Inglis [CO 5th Bgd] was ordered to advance below the escarpment, along and to the north of the Trigh Capuzzo. By midday these objectives had been attained, though on the escarpment 6th Brigade had once again had heavy casualties in attacking across the open ground under withering enemy fire.
Early in the afternoon I visited 6th Brigade to see what documents and prisoners the attack had yielded ... the cost of the morning’s fighting was marked on the slope beyond Point 175.
‘We knew we were up against New Zealanders,’ one German prisoner was later to say to me. ‘They are the chaps with false teeth and wristwatches.’
Jim Henderson
Must be about November 28. We’re linked up with advanced units from Tobruk. We’re getting some of our ammunition from there. The country is dead and bare and rocky. Whenever we stop we dig slit trenches. It’s getting harder and harder work. Our ration is reduced to one mug of water a day. We don’t shave or wash. Subalterns call us by our Christian names repeatedly. I’ve lost all sense of time and know we’re vaguely near Tobruk. It was rotten last night. Extra pickets and listening posts were formed and, keyed up, we expected a night attack. Nothing came but there was much small arms fire.
There’s a solitary blockhouse on the ridge to our right. We watch the infantry dragging out prisoners. They form a long line and march past our guns. We watch in silence. We’re shelled heavily. Big stuff. We take cover. Thwee ... OWWWW!! Scream the shells coming over. Nose pressed into the dirt at the bottom of my slit trench, I watch an ant going round and round. Many shells do not explode. We listen sharply for the Whoof of the explosion. When it doesn’t come the shell is a dud and from around I hear muffled cries of ‘Good old Czechoslovakia!’
The sun must have set early. I feel cold creeping from my feet stealthily up to my thighs. When the shelling stops we rise up and I’m surprised to see the sun still high in the sky. I rub my legs to restore the warmth. Ralph is doing it too. Nerves. Literally, cold feet. We all make haste to relieve ourselves. We always do after attack.
Sidi Rezegh – November 1941
Geoffrey Cox
I was on duty in the G truck early on the morning of Friday, 28 November, when an urgent message from 13 Corps reached us. It gave confirmation that the power of the Afrika Corps was about to be unleashed against us. It was an intercept of an order sent by Rommel to the two German armoured divisions: ‘15th and 21st Panzer Divisions are to rendezvous at Point 123456 (the map reference is not in my papers) destroy the New Zealand Division and advance on Tobruk.’ I took it across to where the General’s bivouac tent was pitched. He was washing in a green canvas basin. I read the message out to him. He finished drying his face, and then said, ‘Where is point 123456?’
I tried to sound in good heart. ‘By my reckoning, sir, it is about the second tussock from where we are standing.’
‘Read the message again.’
I did so. ‘Destroy the New Zealand Division,’ he said thoughtfully. Then a note of cheerful defiance came into his voice, and he said, ‘We won’t let ’em Cox. We won’t let ’em.’
Jim Henderson
There have been casualties (as the army puts it) but the poor old infantry out in front has suffered heavily ... A padre gives us chocolate. He is serene and cool, as he speaks to each one of us, kindly, as a father to his children ... ‘Boys, would you like us to pray together?’ We look at one another. We read the answer in one another’s eyes. Toppie says: ‘We don’t mind if we do padre.’
So we kneel down among the empty blackened shell cases and from the rise ahead the machine guns clatter like giant typewriters and from between my fingers I watch drifting smoke from a burning truck as the padre says:
(Webbo’s face looks very red and Ralph has his eyes tight closed, his clenched knuckles individual white lumps. I think of the Nelson Cathedral, cool, grey marble and the light coming in from coloured windows in red and purple shafts.)
‘For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power and the Glory
(The choir always used to sing this in a rising note of triumph and always I was greatly excited and trembled within.)
‘For ever and ever.
‘For ever and ever.
‘Amen.’
Tappa-tap-tap-tap, sing the machine guns.
We take turns on guard throughout the night. Between watches we sleep like dead men. It’s the 30th of November. This place is called Sidi Rezegh.
Sidi Rezegh
Jim Henderson
We’re for it now. Here they come. And it’s early morning, Monday, December 1, before breakfast. That’s pretty crook. Tanks before breakfast – tanks a lot!
Over to you artillery – over to you, you ninety-mile snipers – over to you, those bloody tanks coming straight on, malignant, determined death beetles.
Crouching, bent at the waist, elbows pressing hard on hips, we run to the gun, the good old ‘Eliminator’ frog-squatting in the sand, her muzzle inclined towards the sky of the young day.
Snipers about. Phit-phit-phit, the bullets wing past like angry bees. ‘Don’t expose yourself unnecessarily,’ say the good old Boer War manuals, written 1900, revised 1914, redrafted 1925, remodelled 1935. The sky is grey and the desert is cold and dull, and we scuttle thirty yards to our positions on our 25-pounder gun, ‘The Eliminator’. She’s a little beauty. She’s done a lot of damage, too.
Don’t expose yourself unnecessarily
Hell! I feel as big as a horse, a great lumbering horse with a blown-out belly. That’s why I’m crouched up like this, for phit-phit-phit you can hear those bullets go past you alright. That’s why Goodyear is crouched up, too, as he runs, little scurrying figure, and Webbo, red in the face, is bent in two. So are Ralph and Farmer. But Toppie, the sergeant, he’s already squatting behind the gun, waiting, watching us. He’s only young. Twenty-one six months ago. Little Toppie. ‘Come on you blokes,’ he yells and he puts up a hand and straightens his tin-hat. Rather fastidious touch that, I think. ‘Come on for Chrissake, they’re coming straight at us.’
Into our positions – scramble – load – crouching low behind the gun-shield – hard tin-opener faces and keen profiles of the tin-hats – in goes the shell, in goes the shell-case – slam the breech. Oh, it’s no scrambling now, no ungainliness: no, we’re home now. It’s just a rhythm of arms and bodies and levers and instruments, flesh and steel, each man in his place, doing his job ... We’re going into our dance. Our dance of death, Jerry, and here it comes and it’s over to you. Our shells. Our steel. Our armour-piercing. Our high explosive.
Whammmm!
You little beauty, you ‘Eliminator’!
Slam ’em in, dust and recoil and flame and bitter stink of cordite and explosion and hiss through your teeth, and it’s load again and fire, and still the tanks come on away out there and the troop, four guns, blazes away and I can’t see a damn thing for I’m down behind the gun and this shield is in front of us ... Webbo can see them coming through his telescope; he’s peering through that now and he’s waiting. Eye clapped on the rubber eyepiece, hand resting on firing lever; he’s waiting till the tank crossed that black line, that mark on the glass, then back jerks his hand and the gun roars, the sand flies, the fumes swirl and it’s load again, quick, for the tanks still come on.
I’m on the ammunition. Pull out the tray. Two shells – long, grey, red-banded at the base – two brass-cases containing the explosive. Up with the clip. Wrench at the strip of tin holding the shells tight. Out with the shell. Unscrew the cap usually – but not now, not with tanks.
Hand it to Ralph. Ralph swings it to Farmer. Farmer, lower lip between teeth, slams shell into breech. There are sway of shoulder and twist of right leg, and Toppie rams the shell home with a rod. Quick now with the shell case. Slam – and Goodyear, swinging back, shuts the breech. Webbo is hunched over his gadgets. All set now. The tank, 250 yards off, crosses the little black line on his telescope – WALLOP!
Through and through my brain. Can’t get it out of my mind. Crazy tune for a battlefield. No thoughts, though. Can’t hear the bullets phit past now – just the crash of the closing breech, the roar of the smoking gun, the rhythm of the gun-crew all bending, all as one with those four lines, over and over again....
‘REST!’
We’ve driven them off. The tanks have pulled out. Rest. Hunched, tense shoulders slump down, backs curve, bodies relax – we wipe our mouths with the back of our hands and look round at one another. We’re all tired. Ration of one mug of water each day for three days knocks a man.
‘You’re doing fine boys,’ says little Toppie, the gun sergeant, who is so very young and so very old and so very tired. ‘You’re doing fine.’ The words are thick and clotted, his lips hang heavy and dry. ‘We’ve knocked out a couple of tanks. Four direct hits. See more when the dust and smoke clear a bit.’
Ralph sprawls against the limber. Relaxed like a dirty, big, rag-doll. ‘They said,’ says Ralph very slowly, very deliberately, very bitterly, ‘they said yesterday we’d got old Jerry surrounded. I guess we have – surrounded from the inside.’
Suddenly, we all go flat on our bellies.
Here’s trouble! A sudden flurry of machine-gun bullets around us – t-t-t-tutt! The tanks have gone, But they’ve dropped machine-gunners, and somewhere out ahead Jerries are sprawled out in little hollows, and they’ve set up their guns and they’re peering through their sights at us, getting us on little black lines and fingers go to the triggers and t-t-t-tut, we’re on the receiving end and it’s not such fun. Those bullets are swarming past us now and we bury our faces in the earth...
More shells now ... more bullets ... you can hear the guns firing close now, tat-tat-tatta-tat, like the patter of giant typewriters. My God! and here come the infantry, not many of them for there’s not much left, but back they come, running, faint, stooping figures, some carrying Brens, some rifles, some empty-handed; out of the corners of my eyes I can see them; they’re pulling out, there’s no one in front, we’ll be all on our own and there is the whirr of truck engines: ‘Start up, quick, you bloody fool – Christ! that was close’ – they’re pulling out.
They’re away. But not that one. Crash ... screech ... tear ... direct hit. A body catapults into the air like a cat arching her back, from out of a bag swiftly, and sudden flash and flash again, then flames and black, thrusting smoke.
That was a truck.
There shall be in the rich earth a richer truck concealed.
Looks like Freedom and Democracy going west with a bang now.
The shells sing our requiem.
Why don’t we withdraw?
Pht-pht-pht.
We’ve had no orders to withdraw.
Thwee-OWW!
We just stay put.
Tat-tat-tatta-tat.
We sure do.
WOOSH!
A dud. (Good old Czechoslovakia.)
If I should die, think only this of me...
Phwit-phwit-phwit-phwit...
I’m browned off lying with my face rammed into the sand like a bloody ostrich. I’m browned off with these fool thoughts and mixed quotations and I’m sick of cowering here. I’m angry. I want to get up. I raise my head. That’s Webbo, three yards away. Shoulders hunched up. Hands clasped, the knuckles white, eight knobs of putty. Lips moving soundlessly. Eyes closed. Praying.
‘TAKE POST!’
One second we’re flat on the ground. Next second, each man in his place. No thoughts now. Can still hear the phit-phit ... they mean nothing. Webbo’s forgotten his prayers – he’s putting that little black line on to the tanks swirling out from the dust ahead. I’ve forgotten to blither about this woman ... load and fire and load and fire
Goodyear’s stopped it. He sways away from the breech mechanism. Slowly falling, out to the right, feet still together, falling to the earth just like a tree. Rigid, He’s done. All that means is that we move up one.
Goodyear’s gone; five work the gun instead of six. That’s all.
Tweet-tweet-tweet ... not a damn hit in a hundred
I swing round farther now with the ammunition, take two paces, give it direct to Ralph, who loads. Farmer takes Goodyear’s place.
Load and fire, load and fire. Out with the shell, swing to the left, two paces forward into Ralph’s hands...
Ralph’s not there. There he is, away with bloody hands, dazed, crawling behind the limber. Ralph’s smacked.
I’ve got to load and work the ammunition now. All according to Hoyle. Four of us left.
Phit-phit-phit...
Old Jerry’s going according to Hoyle too. A damn sight better.
Load-fire-load-pause. Why no fire?
A belching groan from Webbo and back he falls from his seat on the gun, his face looking as if someone had stood back and splattered him in the mug with a brush of red paint.
What a silly trick!
Toppie and I lift Webbo aside. His mouth is half open and I can see bits of green where he’s been careless at cleaning his teeth.
Tweet-tweet-tweet.
Thank God they’re shelling.
We’ve thrown Webbo aside. He’s not in the way now. Where’s Farmer?
My left foot. That’s curious. I must remember this. Like a brace and bit boring into timber. I can feel the bullet go through my left foot; I can feel its white-hot track. It seems to take a long time but now it’s out on the other side of the foot and the pain ends. I can’t stand on the foot so I just fall over.
‘Toppie, Toppie, I’ve been hit. I can’t stand.
‘Crawl behind the limber then, Hebrew.’
I crawl there. Up comes a quad. I can see Biff Giles’s face tense and drawn as he steers up to us, and Biff isn’t giving a damn at the bullets spraying all round. He waves to me to get in. Good old Biff. Instantly, I rise on my feet; peculiar, I can walk quite well now. But Farmer is lying in his slit trench. I run over to Farmer and place my hands under his armpits and heave...
‘Let me alone. Let me alone.’ Agony in his voice.
Then SMACK. No pain this time. As if someone has hit me a tremendous blow in the thigh. I’m conscious all over I’ve been hit and hit hard. A spin and a lurch and a great honey-coloured disc comets towards me and I am falling back, back into frothing darkness all around.
Dan Davin
While he was waiting for the section leaders, Tom lay on his back, staring up at the stars. Shorty sat near him crosslegged, his rifle across his knees.
‘I suppose that was 6 Brigade getting the bum’s rush off Sidi Rezegh, boss?’
‘No doubt about it, Shorty. Those were Jerry tanks all right.’
‘More flares about tonight too, than usual. They must be teeing up something very special this time.’
‘Bound to be,’ said Tom. ‘Now they’ve got Sidi Rezegh back they’re bound to have another crack at us. But it’ll have to be better than anything they’ve staged so far ... Anyhow, Boss, what day is it?’
‘First day of the month. We’ve been here five days.’
‘Jesus, only five days. Feels like five years. Fancy five days like that, with the shit scared out of you and killing Jerries for trying to chase you off a place where you hate like hell being.’
‘Not as much as the Jerries hate our being here.’
E.S. Allison
Sunset on Belhamid and Basil with a load of identity discs and pay-books; they have drawn their last wages. He looks at one and says, ‘Bremer was a cobber of yours, wasn’t he?’ – and at that I run into the dusk crouching low, searching for Bremer amongst the Fallen. I find him beside Hayward who has died with a packet of cigarettes in each hand as though trying to throw them to somebody else. Bremer and I at school together in Invercargill, fighting each other in a boxing tournament, lips cut, noses bleeding. Bremer leading the forwards in the rugby matches in Dunedin, the mock battles in the school cadets in the sand hills at Oreti, and Bremer finding a live round amongst the blank ammunition. Bremer leading a haka when I left for the war. I look around me, suddenly struck by the stark fact that I know every man lying there – Jack Shields cycling into Wyndham on the frosty mornings, his ‘Morning lad’ – yes I know them all, but some I cannot recognize for they are just purple stains on the sand and rocks.
We bury them two days later under shell-fire then crawl back to our trenches. Then news of relief. One thousand Aussies and 50 tanks are coming to our aid, and I’m ordered to take the news to each platoon, and each fetes me with a brew of tea. ‘Bloody Intelligence! About time ya brought some news. Who ya playin’ for – Rommel’s side?’ The shells keep coming over. I shelter in a crater with a German – a dead one. The relief will come tomorrow, but morning brings the huge yellow tanks of the Afrika Korps grinding towards us under cover of a full-scale bombardment.
The world goes mad and Belhamid is encircled with fire. Above the crash of shells and clatter of machine guns comes the incessant grinding of tanks. Basil coolly and methodically wipes his glasses. An English officer walks nonchalantly by and says, ‘Good morning. We can’t get through with the tanks. Where’s General Freyberg’s Headquarters?’ I give him directions and he walks off – to die legless on the sand.
The black crosses on the tanks are plain now, and the noise deadens all senses, even fear almost, as the hopeless battle of rifle versus tank goes on. A monster rolls over a jeep in front of us, and the great tracks rear up and loom above us. I grovel lower in the shallow trench, clawing the earth. Then suddenly it stops and a Hun officer peeping out cautiously from the turret, waves a revolver and shouts: ‘Oop! Oop lads! Or somebody vill be kilt round here.’
Bob Orr in the next trench shouts, ‘You Deutschland bastard!’ but the German doesn’t understand, and the machine gun peering ominously though the slit persuades us to raise our hands and swallow our indignation. German infantry come rushing through, and a grim little man thrusts a bayonet through my open jacket. But he doesn’t want my life. ‘Chocolate? Cigaretten?’ he asks. And everywhere is carnage. Gunn Leckie dead across his Bren, shy, modest Gunn Leckie, he would not surrender. Gunn playing the pipes way down south in New Zealand on New Year’s Eve. His dad will be busy shearing now up at Mokoreta; he won’t know about this yet. Gilmour the doctor lies slain beside some wounded. Germans are pulling their slumped comrades from smoking tanks. Shells from our own artillery are falling near us now. I look no more at the huddled khaki shapes. A German doctor is calling, ‘Any wounded?’
Geoffrey Cox
The expected German attack at dawn had overrun Belhamid, causing heavy losses among 20th Battalion, forcing the 18th and part of the 19th into Tobruk. The German tanks had made their way right into the gun lines of the 6th Field Regiment, slaughtering the gun crews and destroying the guns. It was in this line, directing fire until the last that Brigadier Miles was taken prisoner, General Freyberg and Colonel Gentry watched from close at hand ... Only when the gunners a hundred and fifty yards away began to put up their hands did the General and Gentry withdraw to the shelter of the 4th Brigade positions. But the Germans did not press their attack further, and during the night the remnants of 4th and 6th Brigades and Divisional Headquarters got away under the cover of darkness and made their way back to the frontier wire. The battle of Sidi Rezegh was over.
E.S. Allison
With a jolt I came back to the present and began walking down the hill. I’d kept Taylor a long time.
‘Sorry to keep you so long,’ I called.
‘You’ve not kept me waiting. You’ve only been ten minutes.’ Ten minutes. I could hardly believe him for I had lived those five days all over again. I saw men I had not seen for years. ‘Kip’ and his whole battalion had passed over Belhamid.
‘Well?’ said Taylor as I got into the jeep.
‘Well–’ I replied, but said no more for there was a lump in my throat. I felt neither sad nor depressed, I just felt terribly alone in that still barren desert where I had known so many men.
Martyn Uren
At last we received the order ‘prepare to move’, the most welcome of all such orders ... At 5.30 we came out of action, hooked in guns and limbers, and lined up ready for the move. Just then a man came up from F Troop and told the driver of the [borrowed] tractor we were in that he had to rejoin his troop. ‘Who the hell are you,’ I said. He was a gunner. ‘Do you think you run this flaming army,’ I snapped. After so long at Sidi Rezegh, I felt it was no time for argument...
Flares were going up upon all sides, and the gap through which we were to break out to safety seemed pitifully small. I had two men up on the roof with me with loaded rifles and, as we moved off over the battle ground we watched the night around us for signs of possible infantry attack. But we were not molested. It was a land of the dead through which we passed. Huddled heaps of blasted humanity could be seen through the gloom and here and there a derelict burnt-out tank.
Parachute Flares
Martyn Uren
Interminable seemed the time we spent in stealing quietly through this valley of death ... It is another of the unanswerable questions about desert warfare that we were allowed to get away from the Axis trap ... it seems incredible that only 200 yards on either side of us was the enemy.
Good time was made and we were safely bedded down by the small hours of the morning with the remnants of two brigades [4 and 6] of the Division. At 11a.m. next day we continued on our way and passed through the wire at the original gap through which we had entered Libya just two weeks before. The Fifth Brigade meanwhile joined the forces which pressed on past Tobruk.
In easy stages we retired from the Libyan border to our former position at Bagush. Actually the Regiment occupied the same stretch of beach, although our troop changed its living quarters to the side of a deep wadi. Here we built little dugouts in the firm ground and looked for all the world like a collection of rabbit warrens ... It was here that we spent a happy Christmas. A splendid dinner was provided on Christmas Day, and the officers and sergeants waited on the men in traditional style.
The Tale of the Christmas Duff
The Division suffered a battering in Libya: 671 killed in action, 209 died of wounds, 1699 wounded, 2042 prisoners of war. The next main action was some months away, following considerable rebuilding and training, first in Egypt and then Syria, from where the Div hastily returned to Egypt to reinforce the Alamein Line. Rommel’s aggression was again threatening Cairo.
Garfield (J.G.) Johnson
H. Murray Reid
The Germans had broken through the British defensive line between Gazala and Bir Hacheim; Tobruk had fallen, and the enemy forces were pursuing the Eighth Army in its retreat to Egypt. Rommel was ‘on his way to Cairo’. ‘We were to move to the Western Desert again with all speed’. The news was received with enthusiasm. This was the position when 4th New Zealand Infantry Brigade, forerunners of the New Zealand Division arrived in Mersa Matruh on June 21st 1942. To assist in checking the enemy’s advance, the Brigade had made a forced march of 900 miles in five days from Syria. My unit, 6th Field Company of Engineers, travelled as part of the convoy.
The convoy stretched for miles along the road, each vehicle travelling approximately 100 yards behind the one in front. A ten-minute halt was made every two hours, with a longer one for lunch. The halts were very welcome, as after two hours sitting on a hard seat in a confined space one became very cramped and numb. Although many of the trucks had special seating in the rear there was so much equipment on board that these seats could not be used. The sappers had to get on and hang on where they could; many rode on top of the loads in very uncomfortable positions. It was a beautiful midsummer’s day, and those fortunate enough to ride in the cabs of the trucks soon became aware of the heat.
‘Gee, that’s better. My behind’s quite numb, and my right leg’s gone to sleep;’ this from my driver as he stumbled about loosening up his muscles at a halt.
The sappers were off all the trucks, stretching their limbs and wiping perspiration and caked dust from their faces.
‘I’d like to meet the chap who designed these trucks.’
‘So would I, and I’d soon let him know what I thought about them.’
‘Yes, he ought to be made to ride in them every day, and all day, too, and then we might get some comfort,’ interrupted a sergeant, who had been sitting in the cab.
‘You ought to talk, sitting up there like an officer.’
‘That’s all you know about it. You get a bit of breeze up there, but there’s not a breath of wind in the cab, and the engine’s as hot as blazes.’
‘Well, I’ll swap you seats, sarg.’
‘No you won’t.’
Garfield (J.G.) Johnson
Andrew Geer
Making my way through the sandbagged entrance to the hut I reported to the major: ‘You’re second in command of the American Field Service?’ [American Volunteer Field Ambulance Service – AFS]
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Would you show your papers?’ I handed over my identification papers.
‘Thank you.’ He studied them under the light. He handed them back and went to a door at his right. ‘Brigadier Kenrick [Director Medical Services 2NZEF], Lieutenant Geer of the Field Service is reporting.’
The Brigadier was a tall, slender man. His speech was slow – if I had not known him to be a New Zealander I should have thought his drawl placed him as from the Carolinas. He offered his hand. ‘I met you in Syria, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, sir – Baalbeek.’
‘May we be alone, Major?’ he addressed the commander of the area. When the door closed, the Brigadier waved me to a chair. He took a seat on the opposite side of a rough table. ‘The battle is not going well, Geer. Matruh is to be evacuated; the New Zealand Division has been rushed down from Syria.’
‘Yes, sir – I’ve seen them going by today.’
‘We are moving out of Matruh tomorrow night. We are going south around Minqar Qaim – it will be a night move.’ He pointed on a map. ‘We shall be in contact with the enemy within twenty-four hours of the move. It is Rommel’s intent to by-pass Matruh to gain time. It would take too much time for him to work through the mine fields. If the enemy is allowed to sweep around unmolested, he will capture much of the army in the pocket east of Daba. Most important, however, is to hold Rommel until a line can be formed at Alamein.’ He stood up and lighted a cigarette after handing me one. ‘We have to hold until that line is formed.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It will be a bitter battle.’ He continued to speak slowly. His words were heavy as though he was concentrating on each one. ‘We shall need twenty of your ambulances.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You are certain to suffer losses.’
‘When shall we report?’
‘At noon tomorrow in Matruh. Report to Colonel Ardagh. He will give you assignments and orders. Have every vehicle carry all the spare gasoline it can handle safely. Have them stocked with at least six days’ battle rations, four stretchers each, and blankets.’
H. Murray Reid
I was called to Brigade H.Q. two hours before dawn on the 27th June and was informed: ‘The enemy is to the north, cutting us off from Matruh and the coastal road, and is expected to attack at daybreak with tanks.’ Minefields were wanted urgently to protect our northern and eastern fronts.
The trip back to my own H.Q. was made with all speed; it involved a journey of a mile through a mass of transport and sleeping men. There were slit trenches everywhere ... having to travel in the desert without lights made these journeys a nightmare. Just when I was beginning to think that I had missed my bivvy a voice shouted: ‘Is that you sir?’ It was my batman. He had recognised ‘Mary’s’ peculiar engine note and had called out.
The Company was soon aroused and the officers reported...
‘We have to lay a minefield ... there will be eight rows 10 yards apart with five yards between rows. Mines will be laid from the trucks direct...’ By 7.30a.m. the minefield, one mile long, had been completed, and while the sappers got breakfast under way I reported to the Brigade Major [Brian Bassett]: ‘The field is finished, sir.’
‘No, it’s not,’ was the reply.
‘Well I ought to know, seeing I’ve just left the job.’
‘You have another 2000 yards to do, and the sooner the better, as Jerry is expected at any time now.’
During the last few hours the enemy had closed in; the poor sappers were unlucky with their breakfast after all and had to go hungry. We were soon on the job again, and in three and a-half hours that morning laid a total of 2600 anti-tank mines. The fields were not fenced, but the boundaries marked by small cairns of stones. We had difficulty in keeping stray trucks away, and had to post guards to warn approaching vehicles. Just as the work was finished a 3-ton truck belonging to a British regiment came tearing along in a cloud of dust, 100 yards or so from the track on which we were standing.
‘Look at that silly blighter,’ someone cried, ‘He’s going straight for the minefield. Hey! Look out’
‘Stop!’
We all waved frantically, but all we got was an answering wave. He did not realise the position, and evidently thought we were just being neighbourly.
‘Bang!’ Now he knew why we had been waving...
Andrew Geer
The convoy of twenty ambulances left at eight and was in Matruh three and a half hours later. Thomas and his section were assigned to the Fifth New Zealand Field Ambulance; Hume went with the Fourth, and Tevis’s and Belshaw’s sections were assigned to the supply depot as temporary reserves. The digging in of the Kiwis at Minqar Qaim, south of Matruh, began about two-thirty in the morning. The expected German attack developed that morning but was thrown back in confusion. It was Rommel’s first intimation that he was again meeting the deadly fighter from New Zealand. Once again the Kiwis were pitted against the 90th Light Infantry. They were old and bitter enemies. Months before, the New Zealand Division had made the 90th Light cry quits at Sidi Rezegh. Among the Kiwis rose the cry ‘Make it heavy for the 90th Light.’
Jim MacGill and Manny Field with Evan Thomas, operating within view of the enemy, worked between the various regimental aid posts and the 5th Advanced Dressing Station. MacGill went to the 21st Regimental Aid Post and was cut off, unable to return ... Dick Tevis and his unit were sent forward to the Fifth Field Ambulance but could not get through. Mort Belshaw and his unit of four cars were able to contact the Fifth at noon, and after loading the four ambulances and two three-ton lorries this convoy of six vehicles started east. They returned in a few minutes to report no way out – the New Zealand Division was surrounded.
All ambulances were filled with wounded and the advanced dressing station was loaded, ready to move when possible ... Under heavy and constant shelling no man left his patients, all the while passing out small talk and cigarettes. Three of the ambulances were hit with shrapnel. Belshaw and Thomas constantly circulated from one machine to another. Unanimously, Captain Waller’s advice to seek cover was disregarded. From that day on the AFS has been in solid with the Kiwis.
H. Murray Reid
By the time the minefields were linked up shells were falling in every direction and the Division had withdrawn to the top of the escarpment, where it was out of sight from the enemy. We rejoined the infantry and guns on the escarpment, near Brigade H.Q., where we had a combined breakfast-lunch. All afternoon shells dropped among our trucks, but only two were damaged ... Several attacks, including tanks, were repulsed by our Divisional guns and infantry, the Maoris taking some prisoners. Our hastily laid minefields had served their purpose, and no enemy tanks entered our defences.
Andrew Geer
Sunday afternoon, General Sir Bernard ‘Tiny’ Freyberg, VC, called a general meeting of officers. The outlook was bleak. The entire New Zealand expeditionary force was surrounded. They had withstood on Saturday five overwhelming tank attacks; they had been sent out to hold the enemy twenty-four hours and had stopped him in his tracks for more than thirty-six. Rommel knew only too well what the delay meant to him. He was attempting to sweep south of Matruh and cut off the 50th Division and get to the main body of the Eighth Army before it could form. Ruthlessly he threw his troops against the Kiwis. And it was not the German 90th Light Infantry alone that the New Zealanders were holding off – the 21st Panzer Division was there with two brigades of the Italian Trento Division.
Garfield (J.G.) Johnson
Andrew Geer
The meeting was held in a crude shelter, half dugout, half trench, in the center of the box. Brigade and battalion commanders came from their posts on the line. They came tired, dusty, sweat-stained. Since the desperate message had reached them in Syria five days before, no man in the division had slept more than three hours at a stretch. The fighting had been most bitter; losses had been incurred; the only supplies the division had were those brought with them from Matruh – there was no hope of more.
General Freyberg, the battle-wise hero of Antwerp, Beaucourt, and Gallipoli, sat on a gasoline tin with a map case across his knees. Square-jawed, his lips a hard straight line, he listened to each officer’s report. The 21st and 25th were heavily engaged—as if to echo the reports, mortar and artillery fire increased in fury. The 26th and 28th were holding tough, but the pressure was increasing. The wind was from the south – building into a khamsin – and dust drifted in clouds across the desert.
At no time did the expression change on Freyberg’s face. When he did begin to speak, his voice was full-throated, confident. ‘We have ten thousand men and ten thousand bayonets. The Jerries don’t like steel – believe me, I know.’ His voice lifted. ‘We were sent out here to hold Rommel for twenty-four hours; we’ve held him thirty-six and we’ve hurt him, but we’re not through, gentlemen – we’ll get out of this. We shall live as a division to march into Tripoli.’ Quickly he outlined the plan of break-through. When night came, each unit on the sides of the line of escape were to advance on the guns – with bayonets and grenades they were to open the line of retreat. ‘I have a feeling Herr Rommel thinks we are done for. He is waiting for the sun to run over us.’
Dan Davin
It was lucky the General was too shrewd a bird to let them coop him up in Mersa. The Jerries must be all round it now. Well, they were round the Div for that matter here. But here you did have a chance. It was open desert. And the boys were on top of their form ... On the way up the coast road it had been embarrassing to watch a beaten army come helter skelter back but at the same time you couldn’t help feeling proud going the other way. The Div had never looked so splendid as it sped westward, the weatherbeaten, desert-worn trucks in beautifully regular formation, the hard leathery faces of the men, their confidence that they would succeed where others had failed. They would stop Rommel if anyone could.
This battle was their first chance to show their mettle in the new campaign. And they’d shown it. The KO’d tanks, the burnt-out transport, the attacks thrown back all showed it. So had the engineer party this morning; driving just in front of the oncoming enemy and throwing mines out of their trucks onto the open sand behind.
H. Murray Reid
General Freyberg was wounded in the neck by shrapnel and Brigadier Inglis, of 4th Brigade assumed command in his stead, Lieutenant-colonel Burrows taking over the Brigade. By dark the enemy had surrounded our defensive area and we were in a bad position; the guns were short of ammunition and we were in no case to continue the conflict next day. Enemy anti-tank shells were tearing through our lines from all directions, and after dark made a pretty spectacle ricocheting from the desert numerous times, like stones skipping on water...
Soon after dark a conference was held at Brigade H.Q. and plans made for a break through the enemy’s lines. An officer and a small party of sappers made a recce to find out if the enemy had mined our proposed route, and stayed there to guide the Brigade transport through. It was decided to make an infantry attack, the Maoris leading the way with 19th and 20th battalions on the flanks to keep the gap open.
Dan Davin
‘I’ll just repeat that, then, without the detail,’ said the Major. ‘The Div’s surrounded. 21 Panzer is here, we know. And 15 Panzer may be here as well. We’ve got to imshi out of it before first light and get back to Alamein. 4 Brigade is going to lead the breakthrough under our CO [Lt. Col Burrows]. 5 Brigade, Div Reserve and Div HQ are going to follow through the gap we make.
‘4 Brigade battalions RV at 1100 hours behind the escarpment, just below the OP. 19 Battalion will lead off from there and we and 28 Battalion will follow. The plan is to pit as many infantry into as small a gap as possible. It’s going to be a bayonet job and 19 will have to bear the brunt of it. But I dare say there’ll be some left over for us and the Horis. The transport and guns will have an anti-tank screen and they’ll follow the infantry into the gap. Then they’ll pass through the infantry and once they’re across the wadi the infantry will come through, embuss and crack off east.
‘And for Christ’s sake, remember, till the time we get to the wadi and get stuck in, absolute silence. Without surprise we’re stuffed. There’s no moon and he can’t see us coming. If everyone sticks to the times I’ve given we’ve got at least a 50 per cent chance of making it.’
H. Murray Reid
While the infantry were preparing for the attack the transport was formed up in nine vehicles abreast, and waited in the forming up area for the success signal. All trucks on the front and each side of the formation were empty, in readiness to embus the infantry after the break through.
Soon after midnight the infantry, led by Brigadier J.T. Burrows and his brigade Major, opened the attack...
Dan Davin
There was a shuffling in the sand. Someone dropped down beside him.
‘You, sir?’ the CSM murmured.
‘Yes.’
‘The transport’s all jacked up in the wadi behind us and ready to follow.’
‘Good. What’s the hold-up, do you know?’
‘The Horis didn’t get their orders till after they’d sent out a patrol to finish off some Jerry trucks. They’ve been waiting for it to come in. That’s them coming now, by the sound of it.’ You could hear a faint shuffling across the sand.
‘Won’t be long now, then.’
The word came back: Get ready to move. Tom roused Bluey and began to move round the platoons. Men stood up and began to buckle on their equipment there were none of the usual grunted curses, no matches seamed the darkness for a final cigarette. In a matter of minutes the company was moving slowly and steadily towards the lip of the wadi.
J.T. Burrows
We finally crossed the start line an hour and a quarter late. It was a still night with, by then, a bright moon overhead. Our objective was perhaps a mile away, possibly less, but though the visibility was quite good and sound carried well we could neither hear nor see any movement on our front. It was too much to expect that we would get far before the enemy both heard and saw us. Our attacking force probably numbered anything from 2000 to 2500 men. To a man they knew the situation we were in and their determination and courage was somehow reflected in the way they moved. At that moment I knew with absolute certainty that we could not fail and that tonight no troops in the world would stop the advance of these magnificent men.
I suppose we had gone nearly 1000 yards before the enemy made a move. In my own report to Division I state what happened next: ‘Any delay at this stage must have been fatal, but a most amazing and thrilling thing happened. To a man the whole brigade surged forward. No orders were given, no urging by officers or NCOs, with shouting, cheering and war cries every man broke into a run as if he knew exactly what was expected of him.
Dan Davin
They were still a little distance from [the lip of the wadi] when the first shots were fired. 19 Battalion were in contact. The pace of the advance quickened. The pace of life, of time itself. The men rushed forward. The broken ground dislocated the neat groupings. Control on a company scale was out of the question. Everything now depended on the training and the savvy of the men and their section commanders, the simplicity of the plan and the fact that they all understood it. The darkness and the silence were all torn down like a screen. The night became infernal.
Tom was down in the wadi. The attack was all around him like a great scrum. Tracer flashed by everywhere, mostly too high. The enemy must be afraid of hitting his own people. But he’d opened up with everything he had, Spandaus, Schmeissers, anti-tank even, and mortars. The noise was as solid and incessant as silence. High in the air above them flares hung, throwing foreshortened shadows.
But in the gap itself where the enemy climbed out of his trenches or crouched beside his vehicles the New Zealanders were everywhere, grim, wide awake and desperate. The savage grunt behind the bayonets shoved home, the inhuman high-pitched scream of the enemy. The flash from the muzzles of weapons fired at close range, the roar and singe of a burning vehicle close by. Furious red balls of anti-tank tearing by overhead to some target on the level ground above the wadi. On Tom’s left three of his men were throwing grenades further up the wadi to stop the enemy bunching. He stumbled into a trench as its occupants rose from it. He caught his chin on the edge as he fell, belly downwards. The Jerry jumped on top of him. Tom tried to wiggle round, a sickening smack and the body above him slumped and was pulled off. Bluey’s voice. ‘Spotted the bastard in the flare and caught him with my rifle butt.’ Up again. On. More figures. A bayonet thrust and one of them was down ... reorganise. More flares going up. Platoons miraculously more or less in formation and where they should be. One bloke carrying a wounded cobber. Get him over to the centre where the trucks should be. He went to each platoon in turn. They held the flank.
Kenneth Sandford
With the 20th rushed Charles Upham. Those who saw him at the start noticed the huge load of grenades he carried ... Charging into the wadi in the very front of his men, he left the bayoneting to the others, concentrated on the trucks and other vehicles with his arsenal of grenades ... While through all the noise the men of C Company could hear Upham’s voice, shouting and calling as he led them on, his voice a beacon and rallying point for the whole company.
The Germans were desperately trying to get their vehicles moving, to escape from the terror that had so unexpectedly been loosed upon them. Time and again Upham leapt upon their trucks as they were getting under way, bombing them into wrecks and setting them on fire. There were German staff cars too ... as he ran alongside one laden car he wrenched the door open, flung in a grenade, and slammed the door shut on its hapless passengers.
J.T. Burrows
My rugby minded NCO said afterwards, ‘We went straight down the field through everything and everybody, like a pack of All Black forwards.’ The Germans broke and, if they could, they ran. Some tried to escape in trucks ... On my left on the lower ground there were still sounds of close combat but the sounds were getting further away, so I told Brian Bassett to fire the success signal.
H. Murray Reid
‘There it is!’ The coloured lights everyone in the rear had been waiting for soared up in the air, the success signal fired from a Verey light pistol. Now was our chance to get the transport through before the enemy closed the gap again. Our recce party had had little time to search properly for mines and in the end had to risk them and lead the column through with their few vehicles. Fortunately no mines were encountered, as no doubt the enemy did not think for a moment that we would be so foolhardy as to attempt to break out.
Kenneth Sandford
The 20th emerged from the battle all fiercely excited and stimulated. They saw Upham, his voice still high with tension. Fraser the C.Q.M.S. looked at him in amazement. ‘What’s happened to you?’ he asked.
For Upham was covered in blood ... From the grenades he had been distributing on the enemy he had at the same time peppered himself with grenade fragments.
All he said was: ‘This show tonight will make bloody history.’
H. Murray Reid
The trucks were travelling nose to tail, and although a slow speed had been ordered, it was not long before everyone was going helter skelter for the gap. The dust was terrific, and one could hardly see the neighbouring trucks. We were fired on from each side and straight ahead by every weapon the enemy could bring to bear. Fortunately nearly all the missiles were too high, and we had very few casualties from direct fire. The sky was criss-crossed with tracer bullets and shells and the noise was appalling. We were engaged by tanks on each flank, and I saw a pretty piece of shooting by one of our two-pounder portees, which got a direct hit on a tank, while the portee was travelling at about 15m.p.h. Nice work.
To be in that convoy was like being in Bedlam. We now understood how the Light Brigade must have felt at Balaclava. Numerous accidents were unavoidable as we drove forward blindly in darkness and dense clouds of dust. A few vehicles were hit by shells, and before long the glare of burning tracks added to the holocaust ... To be on foot in that vicinity was to court instant death under the wheels of the careering trucks and guns. Men from knocked out vehicles watched their chance and jumped aboard the first available truck. Many trucks were damaged by running into the ones in front when any slackening of speed was necessary.
‘Any room Kiwi?’ yelled a voice in the darkness.
‘Yes, but I can’t stop. Hop up and hold tight.’
‘My truck is kaloss,’ said the stranger standing on the running board. ‘Hit the rear of the truck ahead of me and when he stopped suddenly, stove in the radiator and all the front end.’
‘Couldn’t you see, George?’
‘See? Who the hell can see anything in this fog.’
J.T. Burrows
Then our vehicles came out of the night like a great herd of bison. The powerful throb of their engines was the most welcome sound I have ever heard. Quickly men moved in from the front and the flanks, some carrying wounded comrades, and quickly they embussed.
Dan Davin
A runner. ‘Transport’s through but too far south. Companies to make their way independently and embuss.’
‘But what about 5 Brigade?’
‘CO thinks that’s them away to the south-east. They must have changed plans.’ Sure enough a mile or so south another battle lit up the sky.
Platoon commanders. ‘Collect any wounded you can. We’re moving to transport. Five minutes.’
The enemy was gathering himself again. He’d located them. His MGs were crossfiring. But they were too far down in the wadi ... All set. Out into the desert to dodge getting silhouetted against the rim of the wadi. Then south-east to the transport. It couldn’t wait long. There it was. Already Jerry had got some fire onto it, two trucks ablaze.
Good, the sergeant-major was already helping direct the blokes to their trucks. They climbed aboard. He ran down the side of the column. All OK. Back and aboard his own truck, the engine was already running. The driver grinned at him and slipped her into gear.
J.T. Burrows
I held the column for as long as I dared; then hoping all our wounded were on board, I moved to the front where Iles, my driver, and Holmes were waiting for me, and slowly, very slowly, we moved off into the desert.
Garfield (J.G.) Johnson
J.T. Burrows
When daylight came we shook out into desert formation with all-round protection. We were intact, our casualties did not appear to be too heavy and we had hit the Germans hard, very hard indeed.
At 9p.m. that night we reached Kaponga Box, due south of El Alamein. In Infantry Brigadier, Kip, ever generous, said: ‘I ran out a few miles to the west and met a big mass of trucks moving in perfect formation, Jim Burrows and 4 Brigade coming proudly in after their great exploit. It was sheer happiness to see him and Brian Bassett, both graver and quieter than usual, with the Brigade and my beloved Twentieth in such soldierly order. I felt envious but very proud.’
Andrew Geer
Rommel arrived at the line panting and tired, though still strong and confident, but he arrived too late by twenty-four hours. The hours he had been held up, frustrated and battered by the Kiwis, had cost him the battle of Egypt.