“Here they come,” whispered the major. In all that silence and darkness out on the portico whispering was certainly natural, though it never struck me till later how grotesque it was really. I strained my ears, heard the distant roar of high-flying engines. A moment later, three searchlights suddenly swung together toward the west in a vast pyramid, apexing far up in the dark sky and something glimmered in that apex.
“They’ve got one! They’ve got one!” shrieked the major, forgetting all about whispering now, which was probably just as well, for in another instant hell broke loose right under our noses. I hadn’t realized an anti-aircraft battery was that close to us. All the guns in that heavy battery let go simultaneously with a roar, and the battle was on.
Other groups of searchlights swung over eagerly, joining in the search; other batteries of guns, not so near to us, commenced firing. Long streaks of heavy tracer fire streamed skyward at targets, seen and unseen, some batteries probably firing on radar bearings at planes the searchlights hadn’t picked up.
On came the bombers; the throb of engines could be heard more plainly now in spite of the concussions of the rapidly firing guns. Next, a new note entered; it sounded as if it were hailing. That, I supposed, was the shrapnel from shells exploding far above us, coming down on the roof.
Then a shrill whistling, rising to a shriek, suddenly overrode every other sound.
“Here come the bombs!” I thought. I couldn’t help wondering how good the aim of the Nazi bombardiers, sighting downward at the hangars amidst that inferno of shells bursting about them, would be.
It wasn’t so good. In terrific eruptions, the bombs hit and exploded, a dozen of them perhaps, one near a hangar, the rest mainly over the open airfield which was vast in extent. A few may have missed the field altogether, but except for that one near the hangar, none struck very close to us.
The guns and searchlights kept on tracking and firing as the noise of engines faded away; then suddenly all the lights were switched off, the guns quit blazing, and unbelievable silence ensued. Apparently the raid was over. Perhaps night fighter planes, certainly up by now, might track and knock down some of the Nazis on their way home, but we were unlikely to see anything of that.
So far as I could judge, for both sides it was a scoreless tie—unless that bomb exploding near the hangar had done some damage. Certainly the guns had knocked down no planes, though they might have damaged some; we would never know. And as for Heliopolis airport, we could see that no hangars had been squarely hit and probably no parked planes either, as no fires had resulted anywhere after those volcanic blasts. Most likely only a dozen craters had been dug in the open field; a few bulldozers would hastily fill and level them off in the morning and all would be serene again.
“That’s all tonight,” announced the major. “We might as well turn in again. Only one wave; not much of a raid.”
That may have been so. But as regards the half dozen R.A.F. men, six poor devils whom next morning we learned had all been killed by that bomb exploding near the hangar across from us, I imagine the raid was heavy enough.
I saw General Maxwell the following morning, to learn my visit had a double purpose—one was the labor matter he had mentioned, the other was to give me an involuntary vacation from Massawa for at least ten days in the relatively cool Nile Delta. Even though all my conferences might be concluded sooner, I was not to leave until about August 11 or 12. Aside from business, I could spend my time looking over the Suez Canal, the naval base at Alex, the preparations of Generals Alexander and Montgomery (who had taken over from Auchinleck and Ritchie) to smack Rommel, or stay in Cairo, just as suited me best.
General Maxwell was intensely interested in getting maximum results from the Massawa Naval Base, especially now that the worst had happened and Alex was practically shut down, unable to function effectively under continuous bombing. He regretted he had not succeeded in getting me any help, naval or otherwise, from the United States, but the situation with respect to the British, on whom he had also been working, looked better. Admiral Harwood, the British Commander-in-Chief, had manifested a lively interest. The major purpose of my visit was to go to Admiral Harwood personally, since I knew best what Massawa needed and what it could do, and negotiate directly with him. General Maxwell himself would not go to Alex; he would leave the matter wholly in my hands.
I thanked the general for all he had already done for Massawa, and incidentally for his glowing recommendation which had got me promoted so promptly to captain. But did he know I was facing considerable underground opposition to my program of Naval Base operations—more specifically that I was shortly going to be booted out of Massawa because I was spending Government money illegally? There wasn’t one of my salvage or repair gang afloat that hadn’t had that whispered in his ear—that I was taking American funds which otherwise could be used ashore to increase the wages and the overtime pay of all the American civilians in Eritrea, contractor’s construction force and everybody, and using them to pay Eritreans, Eyties, all the flotsam and jetsam of the Middle East I could lay my hands on, to repair British ships. Who was responsible for setting that rumor afloat, I couldn’t state positively, but with my men, as well as the contractor’s men whom I had to deal with, believing that any minute I was going to be removed, my authority was definitely being undermined. I had troubles enough in Massawa without that one. Apparently my order to Cairo had brought that rumor to a head; those interested in tying my hands afloat were bragging I wasn’t coming back. Where did I stand?
“Rot!” stated General Maxwell incisively. “You’re doing exactly what I want you to do! What’s the Naval Base for except to keep British ships going? What other ships are there around here to fight this war? You’ll be relieved only for failing to carry out my orders, not for obeying them. Don’t concern yourself any more over that. Now make your own appointments in Alex to try to get some British workmen.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” I acknowledged, somewhat relieved at hearing it stated so definitely, though I had never had any fears about being backed up by the general. I left to go to Admiralty House in Cairo to arrange the meeting in Alex with Admiral Harwood.
There, after some telephoning to Alex, the meeting was set for the third morning following. It appeared that Admiral Harwood’s staff, especially some of the dockyard civilian superintendents, were considerably scattered now from Suez to Alex; it would take that long to get all those together in Alex he wanted there for the conferences.
So aside from that day, I had two free days myself in between. I decided to spend them looking over the salvage situation along the Suez Canal, which I had heard over the Axis radio the Nazis had blocked with mines.
Colonel Chickering, Chief of Staff for the North African Mission, fitted me out with an Army car, an enlisted man for a driver, and orders wide enough in their terms to take me anywhere in the Delta and the Canal zone, where of course there were innumerable military road blocks and all ordinary traffic was barred.
Early next morning, bidding my Army hosts alongside the airfield farewell for a few days, with the further hope that on my return that house would still be there to accommodate me, I started by car for Suez. It wasn’t a long ride, eighty to ninety miles perhaps over fairly flat country, but between showing our papers at every road block and passing interminable convoys of loaded military trucks headed towards Cairo from Suez, we didn’t get along very rapidly.
Meanwhile, as we drove, the whole desert on both sides of the road seemed covered with British tank squadrons, motorized infantry, and infantry on foot, all maneuvering endlessly in battle exercises on terrain similar to that over which they would fight. Apparently Montgomery was holding secret practice on a huge scale behind the lines, preparing a few trick plays of his own to spring on Rommel.
We reached Suez in the early afternoon. Suez as a city, whether a sink of iniquity or not, didn’t interest me at all. I had eyes only for its harbor—the terminus of the long sea route around Africa into w
hich America was pouring weapons and supplies to crush Rommel. My eyes opened wide—Suez harbor and the water front, including a considerable part of the wide canal stretching north, was jammed with ships unloading tanks, guns, ammunition, trucks, packing cases—all in tremendous quantities.
I didn’t stop in Suez. Instead I ordered the driver to head north along the west side of the Canal for Ismailia, and Port Said where we would spend the night. Mile after mile we passed huge piles of war supplies stacked along the bank—the whole area was one vast open warehouse packed with fighting equipment and supplies for Montgomery at El Alamein.
At Ismailia, halfway up the Isthmus above the Bitter Lakes, the Canal really started, with steep straight banks cut through sand and rock. From then on, I kept a sharp eye out for all the wrecks, sunk by mines dropped from heavy Nazi bombers in the Canal, which over the Axis broadcasts from Berlin and Rome, I had heard were blocking the Canal completely. We got to Port Said; I hadn’t seen a single wreck. The Canal was as open to traffic as in the quietest days of peace, though for other reasons, partly to save heavy Canal tolls, all ships were being unloaded at Suez, and only warships were transiting the Canal.
The British, though the Nazis didn’t know of it, had developed a remarkable detection system to spot all mines dropped into the Canal. No sooner was a mine dropped into the Canal waters than the British had the exact spot where it had splashed downward marked, traffic stopped temporarily, and mine-sweeping crews and divers working on that exact spot to explode or remove the mine. In a few hours, all mines would be cleared, and ships moving again. The Nazis had dropped plenty of mines, all right, but with no results; there were no wrecks in the Canal. And the British were saying nothing to contradict the Axis claims; if the Nazis wanted to keep on wasting bombers on planting harmless mines in the Canal instead of using the bombers elsewhere where they might do real damage, it was all right with the British. Smart people, I thought.
It was evening when I got to Port Said. In Port Said I was taken to the largest hotel there for the night as the guest of Captain G. C. C. Damant, C.B.E., Royal Navy, Principal Salvage Officer for the Mediterranean Forces. Captain Damant, now over seventy-five and long since retired, was of course too old to direct salvage operations afloat personally. A much younger man, Commander Rithon of the British Navy, was doing that at Port Said, with Commander Wheeler, an associate, directing operations at Alex. Captain Damant, whom I looked on as the grand old man of diving, since thirty-five years before he had personally done the experimental diving work on which the science of deep diving rested, simply advised from shore on knotty problems when they came up.
Next morning, I accompanied Captain Damant, who really was in remarkable physical shape considering his age, along the Port Said water front to where Commander Rithon, the officer actually in charge of salvage there, was going to stage an experiment on underwater electric welding for my benefit. As my eyes swept the harbor, dotted here and there with the destroyers, cruisers, and submarines which could no longer safely be based on Alexandria, they fell to my astonishment on a British battleship, a huge superdreadnought swinging placidly at anchor not a quarter of a mile off the quay, standing out like a goose amidst a brood of goslings!
“Captain!” I exclaimed. “What battleship is that? I understood you didn’t have a single battleship left in the Mediterranean, and there’s one of the old Iron Dukes that fought at Jutland along with the Barham and the Valiant that used to be around here! What’s her name?”
Captain Damant didn’t even bother to turn his head to look at her as he replied,
“She’s not a battleship; she’s just a dummy. She’s the old Centurion.”
A dummy? I looked again. That battleship was close to me and broadside on, easy to scan. If ever I was looking at 13.5-inch naval guns, heavily armored turrets, a powerful battleship stripped for action, I was seeing one then close aboard me under conditions where she couldn’t be another mirage—it wasn’t hot enough in Port Said for that. Besides, the Centurion was a battleship; her tremendous 13.5-inch guns had done heavy execution on Admiral von Scheer’s German fleet at Jutland in 1916.
“Quit trying to fool me, Captain,” I protested. “Why try to kid your Allies you haven’t got a battleship? I know a battleship when I see one!”
“That’s what our Eytie friends think, too,” answered Captain Damant. “We’re pulling their leg just the way we’re pulling yours. Good job, isn’t she? All those heavy guns you’re looking at are made of wood! So’s all the armor on what you think are turrets! The Centurion had all her real guns and gun turrets taken off years ago to change her into a target ship, though her machinery is still all there. So when the war came along and Admiral Harwood found himself on this station with every battleship knocked out, the Admiralty in a hurry fitted out the old Centurion with wooden guns and armor, mounted a good set of real A.A. guns on her topsides, and sent her down here. She does fine. Fooled you, didn’t she? Well, she’s fooling the whole Italian battle fleet, too, that’s afraid to come out and meet what they think is one old British dreadnought. Any little Eytie gunboat that had the nerve to get close enough, could sink her easily, but she’s keeping off at least four modern Eytie superdreadnoughts! She steams out occasionally, escorted by a few destroyers, to show the flag in the eastern Mediterranean and keep the big Eyties holed up in home ports. She gets strafed plenty on her cruises by everything the Nazis and the Eyties have got in the way of bombers, but she has a grand set of A.A. guns, including four “Chicago pianos,” and she keeps ’em off. She hasn’t been hit yet. Blessed lot of bombs she’s cost the Axis! Quite a show the old girl’s putting on, don’t you think, Captain Ellsberg?”
I had to agree. So the battleship I saw before me was nothing but another Middle East mirage! Very bright of my British friends, I thought. I took a last look at the Centurion, not to meet her again till two years later on the Omaha Beach in Normandy right after D-day, where once more our paths were to cross and I was to tread her decks myself, both of us then engaged in outsmarting Rommel and his Nazis, far away from Africa.
Half a mile further along the quay, we came to the spot where Commander Rithon, actual British Chief Salvage Officer for the Port Said area, had a diver waiting for us with his underwater welding experiment. The experiment was of no great importance and interested me very little, but Rithon interested me a lot. Rithon, who seemed a very decent chap, blushed in considerable embarrassment when Captain Damant introduced him to me. For Rithon knew (and knew I knew it also) that his associate in Alex, Commander Wheeler, had made a considerable bet with another British engineer (the latter the source of my information) that I wouldn’t raise the sunken Italian dry dock in Massawa—it was impossible. And then to Wheeler’s great confusion, the dock had come up in only nine days! Wheeler, of course, had paid up, as the other party to the bet who had come to Massawa to see for himself had gleefully assured me, adding that the Italian dry dock was a sore subject in British salvage circles, best not to be mentioned to any British salvage officer.
I didn’t mention the dock; neither did Rithon. Our discussion centered wholly on the salvage troubles Rithon was having around Port Said, generally with waterlogged ships ready to sink at one end or the other from actual or near miss bomb damage. The poor devil was being run ragged keeping his derelicts from sinking altogether before he could get them beached. He had my sincere sympathy.
The three of us went back to the hotel for lunch, with Captain Damant as host. It was a beautiful day, pleasantly cool, with the usual cloudless sky and azure blue of the Mediterranean spread out before us.
About half through lunch, with no warning at all, a battery of very heavy A.A. shore guns opened up near by. I jumped from my seat, but nobody else even quit eating.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Isn’t this another air raid on Port Said?”
“No, nothing to bother about this time of day,” replied Commander Rithon. “There’ll be no bombs. It’s just another high-flying
Nazi snooper with a camera, with the sky guns keeping him a respectable distance up. They can’t reach him; he’s got no bombs, so nobody worries on either side. The bombs’ll come tonight, after he’s got home and they’ve developed his pictures to show them what ships are in the harbor. Better sit down, Captain; your lunch will get cold.”
However, I was much more interested in Nazi air tactics than in lunch, so I got out from under the veranda to where in the garden I could get a good look upwards. Sure enough, so far up in the heavens that the plane itself was completely invisible, was the snooper, his presence marked only by a lengthening trail of white in the stratosphere streaming from his plane—the vapors from his engine exhaust congealing instantly into a frosty plume in the cold and rarefied air up where that very specially designed high-flying camera plane was. The ack-ack was tracking him, futilely it knew as well as he. For the guns could reach only 30,000 feet up, where in lazy puffs opening like flowers well below him and his trailing cloud, the heavy shells were exploding. But at least they were keeping him from 35,000 to 40,000 feet up, from which altitude his pictures would be none too good.
The trail of vapor made a complete circle over Port Said and then headed back westward, presumably to a field in Rommel’s rear beyond El Alamein. The guns ceased firing. No one but me had bothered in the slightest. I sat down again, asked,
“What can you do about that?”
“Nothing at all, around here,” replied Damant. “Even if we had a specially fitted out fighter that could get that high, before he ever got altitude enough to fire a gun, that snooper would be halfway back toward El Alamein. But we’re discouraging ’em. The news of this has already gone to Alex, which is a hundred and twenty-five miles west of here, right on the path of that plane homeward bound. There’ll be a special fighter up from Alex when he gets there, high enough to give him a fight. They’ve already knocked down about half of Rommel’s Port Said snoopers on their way back over Alex; I imagine what’s left of ’em will get discouraged soon and let us alone.”
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