Larrikins in Khaki

by Tim Bowden

  McCulloch recalled: ‘Naturally everyone was a bit edgy, this being our first taste of action. Later, our platoon sergeant George Lush said that obviously our long hours of training had not been wasted after all! Our range-takers then got to work and in a few minutes we had accurate ranges to all the obvious target areas.’

  Kuneitra was quite a substantial town with a tall minaret rising from a mosque in the middle. From their position they could see no troop movements of any significance. During the afternoon, in an effort to get some response from the enemy, Colonel Blackburn took a truck out onto the plain and ‘did a few wheelies’ to see what would happen. The Vichy French were not to be drawn, so he returned to the ridge and they waited for the other troops to arrive.

  A battery of artillery arrived and set up their 25-pounder guns, and finally at 5 pm they were told that a British battalion had joined them and the attack would commence as soon as they were all in position.

  At 7 pm a smoke shell fired by the artillery started the ball rolling on the first of three waves of the British soldiers as they emerged onto the plain to the right of C Company and began their steady advance. The artillery with C Company’s Vickers guns immediately went into action and gave covering fire on the selected targets.

  Because of the extra range of our Mark VIII ammunition we were able to fire on the enemy artillery positions, which must’ve made life rather interesting for them. Twelve Vickers guns each with a firing rate of 600 bullets per minute can put down a fairly impressive volume of fire.

  A few stray shots and the occasional anti-tank shell came our way but most of the enemy fire was concentrated on the infantry. Naturally we all had a few butterflies in the tummy at first, but were soon too busy to worry much.

  In two hours it was all over, as the Vichy troops withdrew and headed for Damascus. As C Company drove into town, there was plenty of evidence to show that a war had been in progress. A tank was still burning fiercely, there were smashed and overturned vehicles of all kinds, dead horses and broken equipment everywhere, but no sign of dead soldiers. They presumed that the Vichy troops had taken them, along with their wounded and the 160 prisoners from the Royal Fusiliers.

  Most of the day was spent sifting through all the abandoned Vichy army equipment to find things which could be of use. C Company had left Palestine still short of some equipment so items like camouflage nets for the trucks, entrenching tools and spare water containers were quickly snapped up. The drivers were delighted to find plenty of quality tools for maintaining their trucks, as all theirs had been stolen from their vehicles in Egypt before they had arrived at Kuneitra.

  The next morning C Company loaded up their trucks once more and headed towards Damascus. A Free French force which had been advancing towards Damascus was held up about 15 miles from the city and C Company were ordered to give them support. When C Company caught up with them, they found the mainly North African Colonial troops were ‘a bit reluctant to press home the attack’. According to McCulloch, ‘A rather strange situation then developed.’

  Contrary to the accepted usage of machine-gunners, they were ordered to dash forward about 300 yards, deploy their guns on either side of the road and lay down covering fire until the infantry caught up. The same process would then be repeated. They received a modest dosage of small arms and artillery fire, but nothing very serious. That continued until dusk, when it was decided to cease the advance, so they moved out to give cover to the right flank.

  At one stage a platoon of Senegalese troops came past us. They were all over six feet tall, but we found it very strange that nearly every man carried his boots slung around his neck. Their feet must’ve been like iron, because the country around us was rocky. One of them had one arm in a sling, while over his other shoulder he carried a heavy antitank rifle.

  These rifles were very accurate, but had a tremendous recoil when fired and if not handled properly could be quite dangerous to fire. It seems this chap had been careless earlier and had had his collarbone broken, so when they reached us he came over and asked if we would like to have the offending rifle. We jumped at the offer and later were able to put it to good use.

  Next morning the Free French troops had moved up and were fighting in the wooded area on the southern side of Damascus. C Company gave them covering fire from a ridge overlooking the city.

  What a marvellous vision it was. Nestled in a beautiful green valley surrounded by lush orchards and vineyards, it was a sight for sore eyes after the bare, stony, desolate country we’d come through earlier.

  About just before noon, 11 Platoon was in position beside the road when a convoy of cars came out from Kuneitra carrying a large white flag. This was the Mayor and other city officials coming to say that the Vichy troops had declared it an open city and therefore we were welcome to enter. Colonel Blackburn and a Free French brigadier general met the delegation and our commanding officer called out to my section, which was the closest, to mount our guns on our truck and follow him. The rest of 11 Platoon and two anti-tank gun crews who were nearby also joined the party, and in a few minutes we were following the official party down the road leading to the city. We were not yet certain it was not a trick so we were ready for anything. Colonel Blackburn and General Casseau received the keys of the city and all was recorded for posterity by a Cinesound camera crew who happened to be in the vicinity!

  The main Vichy forces in the area had taken up positions on the rocky hills to the north and west of Kuneitra. They had plenty of artillery and tanks to back them up and showed no signs of giving up the struggle. Their troops had been in Syria for years, knew the terrain perfectly and proceeded to make life very uncomfortable for the advancing Australians.

  By mid-June 1941 it was apparent that the pro-German Vichy French forces were going to be no pushover. The Allied advance into Syria was not going as well as had been expected. A decision was made to bolster the ranks with some of those Australians who had returned from the rout of the ill-judged Allied push into Greece. Private Bob ‘Hooker’ Holt, from the 2/3rd Infantry Battalion, was one of those called again to arms.

  Some of the men in the 2/3rd had fought in Crete in the 16th Brigade Composite Battalion. When Crete was evacuated these men returned to the battalion with a trickle of ex-prisoners of war who had escaped the island by barge, boat and submarine. Some doubtless had hair-raising stories to tell but had been sworn to secrecy, and some of them were given the opportunity of transferring from the battalion to a non-combatant unit.

  The Seventh Division had been battling with the Vichy French in Syria since early in the campaign and judging by the newspaper reports and rumours, things were not going all their own way. There were rumours in camp about a move for the battalion. Holt recalled, ‘One of our companies had already gone to Syria to act as a Town Garrison, when the news broke.’

  The 2/1st Infantry Battalion had had a rough time on Crete and only a handful of men had returned to Egypt. Holt was told that 100 veterans from both the 2/2nd and the 2/3rd Battalions were to be transferred to build up the numbers of the 2/1st. This caused a great deal of heart burning as long-serving mates were split up and transferred.

  On 18 June the 400 men selected from the battalion left Julis and entrained at Majdal into cattle trucks. They stopped at Haifa for a short time and managed to talk to some Afrika Korps prisoners of war. They had been captured at Tobruk, but as Holt said, ‘They were still an arrogant lot.’

  Travelling in atrocious heat and packed like sardines on the bottom of a cattle truck was not a good start. Halfway to Deraa, the worn-out engine would not take the train up a steep incline. It took half the carriages up the mountain and was returning for the next batch of troops when its brakes failed and it crashed into Holt’s train. ‘This caused a number of injuries and an awful lot of swearing as we sorted ourselves out. We eventually reached Deraa which was the scene of an Australian victory over the Turks in 1918.’

  At Deraa (which had a picturesque Foreign Legion–style for
t on its outskirts) Holt and his comrades were told they would be going into action the following day. They boarded civilian Palestinian buses and travelled through the night. Holt spent hours with a rock chipping the plaster off the cast on his hand, broken in a fist fight a few weeks before. At daybreak they transferred into their own battalion transport and finished up on the open plain in front of Damascus.

  It was quiet, peaceful and pleasant, looking at the cool white buildings in the distance, even though I was suffering some discomfort with my injured hand. Our undermanned sections didn’t worry too much about digging in—that is until the first shell came whistling over and then we must’ve looked like a company of beavers. We had very few tools but if the incentive is there it is surprising just how quickly you can get under cover, even if you only have a tin hat and bayonet to dig a hole with.

  The first of the incoming shells landed slap bang amongst the men around Company Headquarters, causing a number of casualties. Instead of hitting the deck and burrowing like a rabbit, one new reinforcement panicked and ran around squealing till someone knocked him down and sat on him. The shelling continued and this character was left to his own devices. He took off into the open desert and we never heard of him again. I often wondered what became of him.

  Fortunately Holt had no more trouble with his hand and completely forgot the injury until he was asked about it months later at a Medical Board.

  They were shelled on and off all day until they were pleased to see planes with red, white and blue markings fly over. Pleased, that is, until they started bombing them. They were Vichy French.

  After the Druze rebellion in the 1920s, the French had built stone forts (each named after French commanders) around Damascus.

  We were told we were to attack Goybet [a fort named after a French officer] that evening. When we started to move from the flat ground into the hills we were held up by a French machine gun firing from a post on the high ground beside us. Someone had deepened a shell hole for cover and Andy Anderson and I hopped into it. We shared it with three or four Indians and one massive, very dead Senegalese soldier with a mouthful of gold teeth. Andy and I had a Boys anti-tank rifle with us and we placed it on top of the hole. The Vichy machine gunner had the hole right in his sights and when we raised our hands above ground to shift the rifle, he’d spray bullets all around us. We would duck back under cover, while the Punjabis sat and giggled at us. These Indians were really strange and they spent their time sitting on the body of the Senegalese smoking and giggling amongst themselves. Thinking about it years later, I feel sure this was my first experience of pot smokers.

  A clean, dapper English soldier came meandering down the hill, looking as if he was going to attend a parade someplace. We called out to him to get his head down before the machine gunner opened up again and knocked it off. He came over to the hole and we saw he was an officer and a very cool customer he was too. In a cultured accent, he told us chaps ‘he had a job of work to do’ and was in the process of doing it, ‘doncha know old boy’. With a ‘cheerio chaps’ and the swish or two of his swagger stick on his leg, he went about his business, whatever it was.

  Shortly after the British officer had departed, the battalion mortars came up and put the Frenchmen and their machine guns out of business in short order.

  The company then assembled and, after a steep climb, lined up outside Goybet at dusk. The enemy weren’t aware they were so close but when they were, they scurried and bustled about as the Foreign Legionnaires tried to close the gates of the fort. The barbed wire fence surrounding them must have been under construction, but although it was wide, it was neither high nor thick and had gateways through it.

  ‘Wee’ McGregor, Holt’s company commander (who later in the campaign became second in command of the 2/3rd Machine Gun Battalion), gave the word and the company began to pick its way through the wire. The French held their fire until they were in the middle of the entanglement and then they blasted all hell out of them with everything they had, including rifles, machine guns and mortars.

  I had just crossed the wire when someone bashed me on the thigh with the butt of his rifle. I turned to swear at the fellow for carelessness, then took another step forward and my leg collapsed beneath me. It was then I realised I’d been wounded. I just lay and waited for the stretcher bearers. These fellows were the unsung heroes of the war. They were dedicated men who would never let their mates down when the call went up for the stretcher bearers. They carried no weapons in the Middle East campaigns and were armed with an SB armband and Red Crosses on their haversacks. They saw the agony of their mates as they did their best at patching up some fearful stomach or shrapnel wounds on the spot. They were front-line soldiers without weapons. They were due to be hit sooner or later, yet they carried on in a welter of gore, knowing full well that their own turn was coming. They have my greatest admiration.

  Two of them, ‘General’ Potts and Keith Boyd, came up. They were leaning over bandaging me, when there was a red flash and a roar and the three of us finished up in a tangled heap. A French mortar bomb had exploded underneath us and had blown all hands head over tip. Both the stretcher bearers were shaken but unhurt. However, I was hit for the second time with shrapnel in the left of my chest, and this wound was really painful.

  Darkness had fallen and owing to the heavy French fire, the Allied attack had fizzled out. Jackie Searle, Tich Parker and a newly arrived reinforcement, who had been promoted to corporal, were the only men to reach the fort. They were alongside the wall of the fort with the Foreign Legionnaires chattering above their heads. ‘What will we do?’ asked the corporal. ‘Shut your mouth, keep quiet and don’t fire that bloody Tommy gun,’ he was told. ‘Okay,’ replied the corporal and immediately let go a burst from his Thompson sub-machine gun. The startled Legionnaires threw grenades over the wall and fired furiously, but the three Diggers scampered away and remarkably none of them was hit.

  The stretcher bearers were staggering along with Holt in pitch darkness as they headed back to one of the forts already held by the battalion. There was no blackout in Damascus and it was curious to see the brilliant city lights on the flats below while men of a dozen different nationalities battled it out in the hills.

  I could hear someone following us and told the stretcher bearers. They couldn’t hear anything and said I was imagining things. We started up again but I could hear stones being dislodged behind us and said so. We started up again and I cried suddenly, ‘Stop!’ They did and we heard the fellow following us take a couple more steps. They put me down and General Potts threw a rock in the direction of our follower and bellowed like a bull. The Frenchman or Senegalese, or whoever he was, must’ve thought it was a grenade and screamed and took off down the mountain. We could hear him for quite a while, yelling in some incomprehensible language while he was scrambling amongst the rocks.

  After wandering round lost for quite a while, the stretcher bearers eventually found the fort they were looking for and everyone was pleased to get some sleep. The following morning the French started to mortar the fort and everyone barring the sentries went into an underground shelter. Keith Boyd and General Potts, the stretcher bearers, had gone out at daylight to try to find their company and while the mortaring was going on Bob Holt was lying, forgotten, in an outhouse with plaster coming down from the ceiling.

  French cavalry were lined up outside to attack the fort and arrangements were made to take me into Damascus and hopefully to a French hospital. The stretcher bearers carried me out under a white flag, past the Spahis with their flash uniforms and undersized horses. We made our way down the mountain and into the city, through a fair amount of shelling and past groups of soldiers of every colour and hue in a wide variety of uniforms. Some were Vichy French and some Free French, but just which side they were on was anybody’s guess. In all probability they didn’t know themselves.

  The position in Damascus was very confused and until the surrender of the city parties of men were fighting bitte
rly, battling it out against each other without ever knowing what the overall picture was, even what was going on half a mile away.

  While B Company was attacking Goybet, another company had walked unopposed into another nearby fort, Sarrail, but at daybreak the French swarmed back in, causing a number of casualties and capturing the colonel and a group of Australians. A number of men who had been taken prisoner in the hills were brought into Sarrail and among them was ‘Snowy’ Parkinson and Sergeant Jika McVicar. An excited Vichy French sergeant punched McVicar to the ground and proceeded to kick him savagely. The French then took the other Australians out of the fort as prisoners under guard. Shortly afterwards the party ran into an Indian Bren gun carrier which sprayed the column indiscriminately, killing and wounding a number of both French and Australians. In the confusion, the men of the battalion disarmed their captors and returned with them to the fort.

  Jika McVicar was very concerned about the welfare of the French sergeant who had used him as a football. He was delighted to find the Frenchman among the prisoners, alive and well. After Jika had a discussion with him he was still alive, but not so well anymore.

  French armoured cars had been having things their own way in the streets of the city until they ran into some Indian artillery. Someone brought a couple of survivors into the aid post. They were in a mess with multiple wounds and what with their moaning and groaning and the French officer still spitting at me, I was more than pleased to be loaded into an ambulance and taken to the French Hospital in Damascus.

  When the door of the military ambulance opened at the front steps of the hospital, Bob Holt was met by a beautiful nurse in a starched white uniform. She seemed enthusiastic about greeting an Australian soldier, had a look at his wounds and walked alongside the stretcher into the building. He was more than pleased and looked forward to a pleasant day. Once inside the front door that scene changed dramatically. Wounded were lying three deep around the corridors as Holt was carried straight to the operating theatre. ‘They say a coward dies a thousand deaths and a brave man only once. I died about 999 times, as I lay beside the door of the operating theatre, watching the doctors dig shrapnel out of a groaning Senegalese without the aid of anaesthetic. I believe the hospital was very short of anaesthetics and were only giving them to Europeans.’