Larrikins in Khaki

by Tim Bowden

  Bob Holt recovered from his wounds to be fit enough to join Australian troops to sail from Egypt in January 1942, bound for Australia.

  After the capture of Damascus, parts of the Australian Sixth Division played a key role in the Allied drive on Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. The final significant action of the campaign took place at Damour for two days in early July. British forces then headed north to Beirut, with the Australians capturing Damour on 9 July.

  On 10 July, with the Australian troops within 6 miles of Beirut, the British 7th Cavalry Brigade closing in on Homs and the Tenth Indian Division advancing into Northern Syria from Iraq, the Vichy French commander, General Henry Denz, sought an armistice. A ceasefire was arranged to begin at one minute after midnight on 12 July 1941. Two days later the armistice was signed at Acre on the shores of the Mediterranean, now in Israel.

  Australian casualties during the fighting were 416 killed and 1136 wounded. Some 1000 Vichy French troops were killed during the Allied invasion in Syria and Lebanon.

  Chapter 10

  THE TIDE TURNS

  When Italy entered the fray in June 1940, the war quickly spread to North Africa where its colony of Libya bordered the British protectorate of Egypt. On 7 September, the Italians began a land offensive. Their commander Marshal Graziani achieved early successes because of the sheer numbers of his invading army. The Italians captured the key port of Sidi Barrani and established a chain of fortified camps. But the British and Allied counterattacks launched in December 1940, led by General Wavell, quickly routed the Italians.

  As the Allied armaments built up and as the Italians’ dwindled, their forces retreated in chaos with so many thousands surrendering that this human tide actually impeded the Allied advance, making the movements of tanks difficult.

  Hitler, enraged by the failure of the Italians, sent in the German Afrika Korps commanded by the formidable and brilliant General Erwin Rommel. The ‘Desert Fox’ quickly adapted his tactics to a desert war fought in the open, with few natural obstacles and a small civilian population. He launched his first blow against the Allies in February 1941, taking the British by surprise, and with an audacious attack on the Sollum–Halfaya line on the Egyptian border. The Germans then captured the key port of Benghazi, moving on to besiege the other major port on the coast of Cyrenaica, Tobruk. So began a protracted struggle for supremacy in North Africa. The Germans were not going to be a pushover like the Italians and this would lead to the Siege of Tobruk, and eventually to the key victory by General Montgomery at El Alamein.

  The Afrika Korps arrived in Tripoli in February 1941. Hitler’s orders were that Rommel was to reinforce the Italians, and block Allied attempts to force them out of Libya. However, the limited extent of the German involvement was of only one Panzer division and later no more than two Panzer and one motorised divisions, as the Italians were expected to do the bulk of the fighting. But the Allied withdrawal of the majority of its most experienced forces in Syria to Greece meant that the relatively inexperienced replacements were ill-equipped to face Rommel’s German armour.

  Although Rommel had been instructed to simply hold the line, an armoured reconnaissance soon became a fully fledged offensive from El Agheila, east of Tripoli, in March 1941. By April the Allied forces had been forced back to the Libyan–Egyptian border and the Ninth Division was ordered to fall back on Tobruk and hold it in order to deny its port facilities to the Germans and to delay their advance—so gaining much needed time for defences on the Egyptian frontier to be prepared.

  Australia’s General Leslie Morshead was given command by the senior British commander General Archibald Wavell and ordered to hold Tobruk until a relief mission could be mounted. Morshead, a tough Great War veteran, was known by his loyal troops as ‘Ming the Merciless’, and later simply as ‘Ming’, after the villain in the Flash Gordon comics. Morshead commanded an Allied force of about 20,000 men, including 14,000 Australians, four regiments of British artillery and some Indian troops, who were besieged from 10 April until the end of November 1941.

  The British traitor Lord Haw Haw did them a favour by contemptuously referring to them as the ‘poor desert rats … in a trap’ commanded by ‘Ali Baba Morshead, and his 20,000 thieves’ in one of his Berlin-based broadcasts. With their usual dry sense of humour, the Australians immediately claimed the name as a badge of honour—even striking unofficial medals bearing the image of a rat. The metal used to make the medals came from a German bomber that the ‘Rats’ had shot down with captured Italian guns!

  The siege was far from passive. The Australians attacked their besiegers whenever they could, gathering weapons and equipment from the briefly occupied Axis territory, often taking back prisoners for intelligence interrogation. The Rats also dug extensive tunnel networks and shelters to supplement their trenches for use when they were being shelled or bombed, which was most of the time. These tactics were personally orchestrated by Morshead, with the Ninth Division, 18th Infantry Brigade and supporting forces from various Allied nations. In so doing, Morshead decisively defeated Rommel’s powerful early assaults. His tactics for the defence of Tobruk were later studied in officer training colleges all over the world as an example of how to arrange and conduct in-depth defences against a superior armoured force. An important element of this strategy was to conduct aggressive offensive operations whenever possible. It is said that when Morshead’s attention was drawn to a British propaganda article titled ‘TOBRUK CAN TAKE IT’, he said, ‘We are not here to take it—we are here to give it.’

  One of the most notable single offensive actions by the Rats was a fighting patrol led by Lieutenant William Noyes, which stalked and destroyed three German light tanks, and killed or wounded the crews of seven machine-gun and eleven anti-tank gun positions and their protective infantry. As well they damaged a German heavy tank and killed and wounded 130 as they took a whole German outpost—mostly in their initial bayonet charge. Even more remarkably, the Rats suffered not a single casualty!

  By July 1941 Morshead was convinced that his troops were becoming tired and their health was deteriorating—and in spite of his efforts, their morale and discipline were slipping. His view eventually prevailed, and in October, Morshead and most of the Ninth Division were replaced by the British Fourth Division. The Ninth Division moved to Syria to serve as an occupation force, as well as resting, re-equipping and training reinforcements.

  The Siege of Tobruk marked a rare defeat for German forces at this stage of the war. For his role in the battle, Morshead was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His success at Tobruk was followed by promotion to lieutenant general and command of the entire AIF in the Middle East. Morshead, at the risk of alienating his British superiors, argued to keep the Ninth Division together in the face of British demands to detach individual brigades. He commanded the division through the Battle of El Alamein, where the Ninth Division’s contribution was considered vital to the victory. During the battles, he regularly visited both the front and the wounded behind the lines.

  El Alamein is 150 miles west of Cairo. By the summer of 1942, the Allies were in trouble throughout Europe. The attack on Russia—Operation Barbarossa—had pushed the Russians back, U-boats were having a major effect in the Battle of the Atlantic and western Europe was fully under German control.

  Three major battles were fought around El Alamein between July and November 1942 and were the turning point in the war in North Africa. The Australian Ninth Division, led by Leslie Morshead, played a key role in two of these battles, further bolstering its reputation earned defending Tobruk during 1941.

  The battles around El Alamein were critical. If the Afrika Korps got to the Suez Canal, the ability of the Allies to supply themselves would be severely dented. Their only supply route would be via South Africa—which was not only longer but a lot more dangerous due to the vagaries of the weather. The psychological blow of losing the Suez Canal and defeat in North Africa would have been incalculable.

>   The Allies pinned all their hopes on their new defensive position near the tiny railway stop of El Alamein. Here, the battlefield narrowed between the coast and the impassable Quattara Depression. Rommel, wanting to keep up the pressure, made his first attack on 1 July, hoping to dislodge the Eighth Army from the Alamein position and open the way to Cairo and Suez. But Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief of the British forces in North Africa, resisted, and managed some counterattacks of his own. In early July, the fate of the whole campaign hung in the balance. Both sides, exhausted and somewhat disorganised, missed out on opportunities for decisive victories. Both drew back to re-organise.

  On 10 July, before dawn, the Ninth Division launched an attack on the northern flank and managed to capture the vital high ground around Tel el Eisa. Rommel was caught off guard, as he had massed his main forces for his planned offensive in the south.

  Tasmanian Gunner Ivan ‘Ivo’ Blazely was about to be in the thick of the savage, protracted and pivotal battles for Allied supremacy in North Africa.

  His unit, the 2/8th Field Regiment, detrained at Kantara and some of the infantry were also there, with a few New Zealanders who told them what they knew. They said things up front were a shambles, ‘which turned out to be the understatement of the year’, according to Blazely. They had had to fight their way out of Mersa Matruh where the 2/8th Battalion had been for some time the previous year. ‘It was supposed to be a pretty good fortress. The Germans ran over it in 24 hours!’

  After a meal they once more climbed into their trucks, destination unknown, stopping somewhere in the desert about 15 miles west of Alexandria to await the arrival of the rest of the regiment. The coast road, a narrow strip of bitumen, was choked with vehicles of all descriptions, heading east.

  In the late afternoon Ivo and a couple of mates wandered over to where a few British trucks had stopped for the night—they were a workshop unit. They were so pleased to see Australians their cook said, ‘Go and get your dixies chooms, and have some of the rice pudding.’ Which they did. Then they asked the Brits what was going on, and a sergeant said, ‘Fooked if I know. We got the order to retreat up near the border and we have been retreating ever since.’ The Egyptian border was about 300 miles away. As night fell, the rumours were rife. (In fact, British, Indian and South African troops held the Afrika Korps at Alamein, but Auchinleck’s Fourth Army had been badly mauled and demoralised. By the time the Ninth Division arrived, the Allied retreat had ended.)

  ‘The enemy was supposed to be 30 miles up the road, over the next ridge, or behind us—whichever you thought was a fair thing,’ Blazely recalled. ‘We were however prepared and heavily armed with a rifle to about every sixth man, so we settled for the 30-mile story and bedded down for the night, which happily proved uneventful.’

  After a couple of days a company of the 2/43rd Battalion, with some engineers, raided the enemy. They inflicted casualties and took prisoners just to let them know the Aussies were back in business. This was acknowledged by Lord Haw Haw, who broadcast from Germany that, ‘Ali Baba Morshead and his 20,000 thieves had left Syria and moved to the desert.’

  In August 1942, Winston Churchill was desperate for a victory as he believed that morale was being sapped in Britain. Churchill, despite his status, faced the prospect of a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons if there was no forthcoming victory anywhere. Churchill grasped the bull by the horns. He dismissed Auchinleck unfairly, and replaced him with Bernard Montgomery—who, like Auchinleck, stubbornly prepared for a counterattack his predecessor had planned. The men in the Allied forces respected ‘Monty’. He was described as being ‘as quick as a ferret and about as likeable’. Montgomery put a great deal of emphasis on organisation and morale. He said he spoke to his troops and attempted to restore confidence in them. But above all else, he knew that he needed to hold El Alamein in any way possible.

  Rommel planned to hit the Allies in the south. Montgomery guessed that this would be his plan, as he had done it before. However, Monty was also helped by the people who worked at the top-secret code-breaking unit at Bletchley Park in England, who had got hold of Rommel’s battle plan and had deciphered it. So Monty knew not only Rommel’s plan but also the route of his supply lines. By August 1942, only 33 per cent of what Rommel needed was getting through to him. The Desert Fox was also acutely aware that while he was being starved of supplies, the Allies were getting vast amounts through, as they still controlled the Suez Canal and were predominant in the Mediterranean. To resolve what could only become a more difficult situation, Rommel decided to attack quickly even if he was not as well-equipped as he would have liked.

  Meanwhile, Ivo Blazely’s 2/8th Field Regiment gradually moved closer to the battle zone.

  A couple of days before we finally went into action on July 10, there were a few changes made in personnel. A couple of sergeants left us to go to officer school and a couple of bombardiers were promoted to gun sergeants.

  A troop meeting was held for gun sergeants to put them in the picture. While there, Sergeant Fisheyes intimated that he could do without me. One of the newly minted sergeants, a Tasmanian, said ‘Well I’ll have him.’ When he left the meeting he came to me and asked, ‘How would you like to come on to my gun?’ I said, ‘Anything to get away from that bastard,’ and couldn’t pick up my gear quickly enough.

  On 9 June 1942 they moved over to the coastal section held by the South Africans, where A Troop spent the night near a British medium regiment’s gun position.

  On the morning of 10 July the 26th Brigade went on the attack, taking two ridges called Points 26 and 33 on the map. A heavy barrage preceded the attack. The 2/8th Field Regiment’s role was to follow up the infantry to give them close support.

  Blazely’s A Troop moved through the wire at first light. There were a few shells landing away to their left but not close enough to worry them. A Troop took up their first position just north of the Quattara Road, which was a track running southwards for about 30 miles to the Quattara Depression. There were a couple of Italians near the site, one wounded, with his friend taking care of him. They were later picked up and taken to the rear.

  After about half an hour or so we fired our first rounds, then the gun sergeants were called to the command post to be put in the picture as it were. My new gun sergeant Freddie came back with great news. ‘Don’t bother to put up camouflage nets or dig gun pits, only slit trenches—we had already started these—we won’t be here long. Mersa Matruh in 48 hours’, and more in similar vein.

  This was the stuff to give the troops—the mobile warfare that we put in all that arduous training in the Syrian desert for. We were going to roll these Dagoes up like a blanket. On the strength of this information someone lit a primus to brew a billy of tea.

  Rommel, however, had different ideas for the next five months. As a result A Troop changed position sideways, frontwards and backwards, but did not advance one yard through the Allies’ own forward defence line.

  Stukas dive-bombed the ridge in front about half a mile away, just far enough to give A Troop a grandstand view without any real danger to them. But that proved to be only a sighter, for in about half an hour the dive bombers came for them. This was Blazely’s first baptism of fire. When the noise and dust settled down, he climbed out of his hole and reached for the shovel, having decided he could do with a little more depth. Up till then they had received no artillery fire.

  About mid-morning an infantry bloke came down the ridge in front, escorting a German prisoner. I asked him where he got him and he said, ‘Out of a tank.’ Anyway he was a fine looking specimen, tall and blond wearing the little Afrika Korps cap. The gun on the left of ours had a brew on, so they gave the pair of them a mug of tea. Meanwhile Freddie and a couple of others wandered over to find out how things were going up front. While they’re engaged in discussing the situation we got our first taste of enemy shelling. About four rounds arrived together, wounding Freddie, and a young bloke from South Australia who hadn�
�t been with us long. The prisoner showed a bit of judgement and took off at a gallop for the rear with the infantry man right on his hammer. Almost immediately the Luftwaffe put on a Stuka parade and we also got the command ‘to take post’, that is, man the guns, so for a time things got very hectic.

  The wounded were put into slit trenches until they could be evacuated. Freddie always gives credit to an officer we called ‘The Beast’ for sheltering him with his body while the raid was on. My theory was that he was shoved in a slit trench, and the officer jumped in on top of him because there was nowhere else to go, but I might be doing The Beast an injustice.

  Blazely recalled that one of the first casualties in the morning was ‘Hampsa’, a little dog belonging to one of the battery officers. The dog took cover under a truck during an air raid, but unfortunately for him the truck was loaded with mines. ‘When it went up so did Hampsa. It was rumoured that the essential parts of his reproductive system landed just outside the forward defence line, where the infantry—thinking it was an anti-personnel bomb—tried to explode it with small arms fire.’

  As the day wore on, A Troop gave up the idea of mobile warfare, so camouflage nets went up in between firing at counterattacks, and they started to dig gun pits. The gun crew found the quickest way to get a bit of depth was to stack the empty ammunition and shell case boxes on top of one another and fill them with sand.