Crusader (A Novel of WWII Tank Warfare)

by Jack Murray

  ‘Gather round,’ said the grinning head of Manfred’s battalion. Manfred and Kohler strolled over towards the group. Basler, their troop leader, seemed ill at ease. He was a serious man doing serious work. He was not renowned for having much of a sense of humour. He never joined in any joking. For this reason he was treated with some suspicion by the others. However, his fighting qualities were not in question. This was about to be made manifest if Manfred’s suspicions were realised.

  ‘This regiment,’ began Fenski, ‘has proven itself time and time again over the last few months. The enemy was sent scurrying back to Egypt.’

  This brought cheers from the men. Fenski put his arms up and grinned broadly.

  ‘Soon we’ll send them back to England, to Australia, to South Africa.’

  A loud cheer erupted at as Fenski’s voice rose to its conclusion.

  ‘If I had my way, you would all receive medals for your heroism, for your sacrifice, for the way you’ve shown what our country is made of, for showing how we, with better leaders, would have won the last War.’

  Stretching things a little bit, thought Manfred, but he found himself emotionally charged all the same.

  ‘Today we honour Lieutenant Gunther Basler, and not just because we share a name.’

  Perhaps not the strongest joke but even Manfred laughed good-naturedly. Fenksi removed from his pocket a box. He showed the contents of the box to everyone. A cheer went up at the sight of the honour; Fenski took out an Iron Cross and attached it to the collar of Basler whose face had a fixed grin that said, ‘end this, please’.

  Immediately a round of applause broke out from the ranks. A few shouts from the men called for Basler to make a speech. This made Manfred laugh as everything about the lieutenant’s face suggested this was the last thing he wanted to do.

  ‘Will you say a few words?’ suggested Fenski, stepping back to give Basler the limelight.

  Basler gazed at the faces in front of them. Despite his reservations about the supposed background of Basler, Manfred had to admire the sudden composure he was displaying following the obvious initial discomfort.

  ‘Thank you for this great honour, Major Fenski.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, it is we who are thanking you, lieutenant,’ replied Fenski, nobly.

  This was greeted with amusement by the crowd.

  Basler nodded in acknowledgement before continuing.

  ‘There are many men who deserve this more than I do. I, in fact all of us, are here because of what they have forfeited. If I cannot thank you for this great honour, then I shall thank them. Now get back to work.’

  There was a mixture of clapping and laughter from the soldiers looking on.

  ‘I think that’s an order,’ added Fenski with an amused twinkle in his eye. He led the soldiers in a final round of applause before the crowd dispersed back to where they’d come from. Fenski stayed with Basler.

  ‘You’ll never make senior ranks until you learn to accept praise without shame and take credit for things you’ve never done, Gunther,’ said Fenski with a wry look at the lieutenant.

  ‘I just want to make it out of here in one piece, sir.’

  Fenski grinned and clapped the lieutenant on the back.

  ‘You and me, both, my friend.’

  11

  El Alamein, Egypt, September 1941

  The tent flap rippled in the light wind that wafted through the camp. Lister raised his eyes from the letter on the table and looked at the movement. He hoped it was not a portent of a sandstorm. There’d been no warning, not that there ever was. He got up from the table and called over Sergeant Graves. He gave some instructions and returned to his tent.

  A few minutes later Captain Aston walked in followed by Majors Warren, Miller and Laing. Other officers followed. Captains Longworth, Cuttwell, Gjemre and Ainsley, Lieutenants Turner, Crickmay, Delson and Hutton. There were not enough seats in his tent, so Lister stood up. He briefly summarised the contents of the communication which was lying open on his table.

  ‘Any questions?’

  Major Miller spoke first. Lister noted the troubled look on Miller’s face.

  ‘Cunningham? Am I right in thinking he’s new to desert warfare?’ The question was diplomatic even if the implication was clear.

  ‘Well both he and General Auchinleck will be new to this sort of theatre. We all were. If he’s not already here, then he’ll be here soon. I know Claude Auchinleck. He’s a logistics man. He won’t move until he he’s ready whatever the politicos might want. This is good. You don’t need me to tell you we’re facing superior equipment, firepower and air power. He’s the right man to even things up and give us a fighting chance.’

  ‘But as the major says, neither knows anything about desert warfare,’ pointed out Aston. The cheroot was fixed to the side of his mouth. It only just masked the supercilious look that accompanied the remark.

  Lister looked at his captain and felt like pointing out that if Cunningham knew little about desert warfare then it was twice as much as Aston. He smiled instead. However, Aston was warming to his theme sensing that the other officers were agreeing with him even if they felt uncomfortable about his tone.

  ‘And he knows nothing about the men around him. Their strengths or, more likely, weaknesses.’

  ‘Changing horses mid race is never ideal, I agree,’ responded Lister, ‘but we have to work with this. Now, I propose we let the men know that they won’t see much of a change initially but, trust me, once Auchinleck is good and ready we’ll be on the road to Tobruk. He’s indicated as much. Consider this gentlemen, by early winter we’ll have over one hundred thousand men, eight hundred tanks and close to one thousand aircraft. Rommel may match us for men and tanks but not for planes. The balance is tilting again.’

  The officers nodded towards Lister and then turned to leave the tent.

  -

  ‘What’s going on over there,’ asked Arthur glancing towards a large tent in the centre of the leaguer.

  Danny turned in the direction Arthur was gazing. He saw Colonel Lister with his senior officers as well as the lieutenants emerging from the tent in a group. The colonel was holding a piece of paper. Danny turned to Arthur and shrugged.

  ‘No one seems too excited. I don’t think it means we’re attacking Jerry tomorrow. We’d have had more advance warning than this.’

  ‘You think?’ said Arthur sceptically. Danny smiled, well used to his friend’s amused cynicism. The two men had long since given up wondering if tomorrow would be the day that they finally shipped out to engage the enemy. They were into the third month in North Africa. The most dangerous enemy they’d faced was flies.

  ‘What do you reckon, then?’ asked Arthur.

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ suggested Danny, as he saw the men heading in their direction. Lieutenant Turner whispered something to Sergeant Reed. Seconds later the order went out asking the regiment to congregate in the centre of the leaguer.

  Danny and Arthur strolled forward until they were with Phil Lawrence. Arthur’s raised eyebrows were met with a shrug by Lawrence. He’d no idea either.

  ‘Hope they don’t cancel my holiday in the South of France,’ said Arthur to Danny. ‘I was looking forward to that.’

  ‘So were the ladies of Monte Carlo.’

  ‘I’m a happily married man, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘My point exactly,’ replied Danny.

  Colonel Lister waited a couple of minutes. Then, after deciding everyone was there, he started to speak.

  ‘We’ve had some communication from Cairo, and I suspect it means the wait may soon be over.’

  There was a loud cheer at this, and Lister waited a few moments for order to be restored.

  ‘There are a number of items to communicate. The army in North Africa will now be known as the Eighth Army. I suspect our enemy will still think of you as I do, the Desert Rats.’

  This brought another cheer from the assembled men.

  ‘General Wavell, a
fter performing the remarkable feat of kicking the Italians out of Libya, will move role to Commander-in-Chief in India. Replacing him is General Sir Claude Auchinleck who will be ably assisted, I know, by General Sir Alan Cunningham.’

  ‘Missed out again, Sir Daniel,’ whispered Arthur.

  ‘It’s all political, these days,’ replied Danny. ‘you have to know the right people.’

  ‘We will have more men, more tanks, more artillery. This can mean only one thing,’ continued Lister. ‘I can tell you that General Auchinleck has already instructed his staff to finish the plan for relieving our comrades at Tobruk and clearing Rommel and his army out of Cyrenaica.’

  Amidst the cheers Arthur glanced at Danny and Phil Lawrence and asked ‘Where?’

  Lawrence shrugged. Danny whispered back, ‘Eastern Libya.’

  ‘Why didn’t he bloody say that, then?’

  Lister seemed to have finished his announcement. He turned and went back to his tent followed by his officers.

  ‘Did you see the look on Aston’s face?’ said Lawrence.

  ‘Didn’t look happy,’ agreed Arthur. Looking more serious he turned to Danny, ‘Watch out for him. He’s a bad ‘un. He’s your troop commander?’

  Danny nodded, but he added that he didn’t agree with their assessment of the captain.

  ‘His brother is connected to my village. He was a war hero from the last lot. I don’t know why everyone has such a grudge against him. Give him a chance, I say.’

  ‘Remember what Lieutenant Turner said about him, or didn’t say? I’m just telling you Danny, watch out for him. You should hear what Captain Longworth thinks about him when he’s out of ear shot. I don’t think the others much like him.’

  Danny had heard such rumours. He’d chosen to disregard hearsay until he could see with his own eyes what type of man the captain was. However, for all his defence of Aston, Danny also had the impression that Sergeant Reed was not keen on their squadron leader either. If this were the case, then it was something to be concerned about. Reed was someone that Danny trusted implicitly.

  The late afternoon sky was beginning to turn from blue into a greyish purple. It was still hot but noticeably less vicious than it had been a few weeks previously. The flies didn’t care. They tortured the men on a continuous basis.

  ‘I hope Auchinleck and Cunningham know what they’re doing,’ said Lawrence. He didn’t want to raise the spectre of Rommel. It was there, though, hanging over their thoughts whenever any conversation about the leadership of the Allies arose.

  Such though were banished in an instant when Arthur was around.

  ‘They can put Tommy Trinder in charge for all I care. Doubt he could be any worse than the jokers we had before.’

  12

  Gambut (50 kilometres east of Tobruk), Libya, October 1941

  ‘That’s…’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Overath clanking up at Manfred. ‘It is.’

  Erwin Rommel had just stepped out of a high-sided armoured vehicle accompanied by a number of other senior officers. Greeting Rommel was the tall slender figure of Neumann-Silkov the commander of the 15th Panzer Division. Neumann-Silkov was around fifty years of age with a prominent nose and skin stretched tightly over his face. He saluted Rommel and two other accompanying officers. One of the officers seemed familiar.

  Lieutenant General Crüwell looked like a bank manager. That was until you stared into his eyes. The hard intensity spoke of a man who knew war. Like Rommel he’d fought in the Great War. Like Rommel he’d been decorated and promoted. He was now in charge of the Afrika Korps, second in command only to Rommel.

  ‘You know Crüwell?’ asked Overath.

  ‘I haven’t had him round for dinner,’ replied Manfred with a grin, for which he was rewarded with a dig in the ribs. By the time Manfred and Overath had finished this exchange the officers had already moved towards Neumann-Silkov’s tent.

  All around this scene, Panzer crews pretended to be working on their tanks. In fact they were all watching the spectacle of the most senior commanders in North Africa, together in one place.

  Manfred had met Neumann-Silkov briefly on a couple of occasions. Seeing all of these men together was thrilling for Manfred and a reminder that the business of war was conducted not just on the battlefield. It could be won or lost long before the enemy was ever engaged.

  With something approaching embarrassment, Manfred realised he knew little of the men he would soon face in battle, even less about their generals. The quality of Allied leadership had often been discussed in the tank. However, this seemed abstract now. Manfred absorbed everything he could about the tactics of the enemy, the quality of their armour and the character of their soldiers.

  What of the men plotting the Axis defeat? Their names, their strengths, their weaknesses were unknown to him. One thing was clear though: tactically they had been bested by the men standing not thirty metres from him now.

  Manfred felt a shiver of pride. To be on the same side as men like Rommel and Crüwell was to have an undeniable advantage. They were professionals. Their knowledge of war was not just a function of experience. It was as if they understood its capricious nature, its undulating rhythm and its brutal sense of justice.

  They’d already put the enemy to flight within a matter of months of their arrival. The combination of armour and men, no, the integration of better-trained men and superior armour with better strategy had proved irresistible. Would the enemy learn the lessons of the summer’s bitter failure?

  ‘I’m surprised Cramer is here,’ commented Overath to Kastner. Manfred listened in, as he usually did, to their conversations.

  ‘He doesn’t look well,’ agreed Kastner. Manfred recognised the craggy face of the regiment’s commander, Colonel Cramer. He’d been wounded during the summer when the Germans had taken Sollum, a coastal town just inside the Egypt’s border with Libya.

  ‘They’re planning something,’ said Overath. He handed Kastner a cigarette and the two men smoked while they considered what was afoot.

  ‘It can’t be Egypt,’ said Kastner after a minute or two.

  Manfred certainly didn’t think so but did not feel confident enough to express his opinion. Moments later he regretted this as Overath confirmed Manfred’s instincts.

  ‘Not while the Tommies hold Tobruk. We can’t have them attacking our supply lines from inside Libya. Tobruk first then Egypt is my guess.’

  This would have been Manfred’s assessment, too, and he felt frustrated with himself that he’d said nothing. But this had always been his way, hadn’t it? If Erich had been here, he’d have offered an opinion whether informed or not. Manfred thought about the paradox of the German character and its army. He’d been brought up in almost military fashion. Obedience was demanded and beaten into you. Yet the army, while expecting obedience and respect for senior officers, encouraged individual self-reliance, autonomous thought as long as it was not to the detriment of the whole.

  Within the command structure there was an implicit acceptance that plans needed to evolve from the ground up, not the top down. Officers in the midst of battle had to be prepared to adapt the plan to the situation they faced. Manfred was certain that much of the Afrika Korp’s success had come not just from superior equipment and strategy but also from more tactically astute officers taking advantage of changing events.

  Manfred resolved at that moment to speak up more. In training he’d felt more comfortable in leadership because he was with his peers. Since arriving in North Africa this had largely disappeared; replaced by a feeling of inferiority, not just with older men like Overath and Kastner but also with Fischer who was his age. He glanced at Fischer who was now seated, drinking coffee. The Bavarian was treated by the two senior tank crew members as an equal. Kohler was disregarded somewhat. They rarely sought his opinion on anything that was not mechanical.

  Rommel and the other officers disappeared into a tent. As they did so, Manfred heard Lieutenant Basler barking orders at the men who had s
topped what they were doing to stare like football fans at their heroes on the pitch.

  ‘Get back to work,’ roared the lieutenant angrily.

  -

  Manfred joined Gerhardt at the other side of the camp where his friend’s battalion had leaguered. Gerhardt had missed the arrival of the senior command and listened avidly to the news. They agreed they would soon be required to attack and take Tobruk. It was untenable that the enemy should have a bridge head in the country, particularly one which was a harbour that could constantly resupply the enemy with men and equipment.

  The perimeter established by the Allies with mine fields and barbed wire put the city out of range of the Afrika Korp’s eighty-eights and, furthermore, made infantry and tank attack dangerous. The regular bombing attacks by the Luftwaffe were proving costly. Too many losses. At some point they would have to go in. With the end of summer they now had a window to attack.

  ‘I think we’ll strike soon. Within a few weeks,’ said Gerhardt with all of the experience and understanding that only a young man can provide when so spectacularly devoid of any evidence to support his view.

  ‘I agree,’ said Manfred, adding an additional consideration that the army couldn’t just sit on its backside day after day while the Allies bolstered their defences at the target. Before long, the two friends had single-handedly won the war in North Africa and were invading Russia from the Caucasus.

  They collapsed laughing after ten minutes when they had defeated the combined might of Britain and Russia with The United States signalling that they would abstain from any involvement in Europe.

  ‘It’s all so easy,’ said Manfred ironically.

  ‘I know. Quite why our leaders haven’t called upon us to direct the strategy is a mystery to me.’