Tobruk 1941

by Chester Wilmot

  This experience drew a pointed comment from one Digger who had joined the battalion as a reinforcement after Bardia and had been regaled by the ‘old hands’ with stories (based on fact) of the fighting the 2/6th had had there in taking certain posts. After two days’ almost unopposed foot-slogging at Tobruk this Digger turned to some of the yarn-spinners and said, ‘Fightin’? Call this fightin’? Gawd . . . the police in Tel-Aviv give us a better fight than this.’

  The 17th Brigade, however, was spared hard fighting because of the excellence of Mackay’s plan and the admirable way in which the troops chosen for the spearheads carried it out. The net result was that Tobruk yielded a haul of prisoners and war material which would have been considered colossal if it had not followed on the mass captures of Sidi Barrani and Bardia. A comparison of the prisoners, guns and tanks, taken in the four major battles of the campaign is illuminating. The figures were:3

  (No accurate figures are available for A.A. or anti-tank guns for all these actions, but more than fifty of each were captured at Sidi Barrani, Bardia and at Tobruk. Figures are given only for medium tanks, for the Italian light tank was useless in action except when dug-in as a pillbox. As to the prisoners, more than 7000 of the Italians captured at both Bardia and Tobruk were A.A. or coast defence troops. At Tobruk another 3000 were naval personnel. Altogether in the campaign Mussolini lost eight Italian infantry divisions, the nucleus of one armoured division and two native Libyan divisions – virtually eleven in all. General O’Connor’s 13th Corps on the other hand never included much more than two divisions, for when the 6th Australian Division joined the 7th Armoured Division, the 4th Indian Division went to Eritrea.)

  The main factor, I believe, in achieving the victory at Tobruk so quickly and with so few casualties, was the superb work of the British and Australian gunners. Thanks primarily to the fearless reconnaissance pilots of the R.A.F., the Italian batteries were accurately pin-pointed, but even the most confident gunner could hardly have expected his shelling to be as accurate and effective as it proved to be. The evidence of the shell-scarred ground proved that at seventeen out of the twenty principal battery positions, the enemy could not have got near his guns during our bombardment.

  In spite of this, the Italian artillery fought better than their infantry; but it was thwarted by the speed of the attack. Those gunners who could observe the advancing infantry were generally over-run before they had recovered from our shelling. Those who had no direct observation did not know where to fire. As a rule, by the time the Italians switched their guns to deal with any particular threat, our infantry had advanced so far that the enemy shells landed well behind them.

  Enemy attempts to deal with our guns were similarly ineffective because they did not find our new positions. Most of our batteries that fired from their old positions were heavily shelled for a while, but some guns of the 2/3rd Field Regiment, which had expected trouble, got none. Later, a captured map showed that the Italian battery detailed to shell this position had been knocked out by our guns before it could do any damage.

  The way he solved the artillery problems at Tobruk and Bardia marked Herring as an outstanding commander, and it was no surprise that he later succeeded to the command of the 6th Division, when Mackay became C-in-C., Home Forces in Australia. In 1942, taking command in the Northern Territory when Australia was in danger of invasion, Herring rallied the inexperienced Darwin garrison into a strong fighting force chiefly by the strength of his own personality. In New Guinea, as Corps Commander during the Buna campaign, he proved himself a leader whose patience, thoroughness and capacity to take the long and broad view would carry him far. After conducting two strenuous and successful campaigns in New Guinea, however, he retired from active service on receiving the appointment of Chief Justice of Victoria early in 1944.

  Because of the artillery’s excellent work the ‘I’ tanks did not play such an important part at Tobruk as they had done at Sidi Barrani and Bardia. The difficult and daring advance by the 19th Brigade – unsupported by ‘I’ tanks – could not have been so successful if Herring’s guns had not dealt so effectively with enemy batteries. Nevertheless, the moral effect of the tanks was substantial. The enemy knew by this time that his anti-tank shells bounced off the heavy armour of the ‘I’ tank and that only a chance hit in some vulnerable part could even disable one. By the first afternoon the appearance of an ‘I’ tank was often sufficient to crack the opposition.

  The 6th Divisional Cavalry’s enterprising experiment with the captured tanks was not a great success. In spite of the crews’ hard work, most of these tanks broke down before they reached the real fighting. The cavalry’s ingenuity also produced several dummy tanks by building wooden frames over light trucks. Two of these ‘tanks’ at one stage found themselves heading straight into an Italian gun position. It was too late to turn back; they kept going and discovered that the Italian guns were also made of wood.

  The daring work of Macarthur Onslow’s carriers did much to compensate for the shortage of tanks. He is probably the ablest of the young commanders produced by the 2nd A.I.F. and made his mark from the very first days of this campaign. Throughout the battles of Bardia and Tobruk, he moved all day in his carrier within a few hundred yards of the barrage. He was the eyes of the attackers, searching out enemy strongpoints and battery positions, warning the tanks or calling up his own carriers to deal with them. Major R. K. Anderson,4 Robertson’s Brigade Major, said to me after Tobruk, ‘Macarthur Onslow himself is worth a squadron of cavalry.’ And this was hardly an over-statement.

  Standing high in his carrier – scorning a steel helmet even after a bullet had drilled a hole in the lobe of his black beret at Bardia – he could be seen by the forward troops moving in and out of the dust-clouds ahead, pausing sometimes to use his field-glasses, sometimes his camera.

  Macarthur Onslow brought originality and ingenuity to mechanized cavalry problems and he evolved in Libya some strikingly successful tactics for his carriers. First he gave them greatly increased fire-power. Almost every one mounted a Vickers gun, an anti-tank rifle and either a Bren or a tommy gun. For better cooling, the water jacket of each Vickers was connected to the radiator system of its carrier and thus could maintain exceptionally long bursts of fire.

  In telling me of the Tobruk fighting afterwards, Macarthur Onslow said: ‘The fact that the carriers could maintain such a volume of fire while moving was largely responsible for minimizing our infantry casualties. Right through the advance the Vickers guns were kept firing at any and every object that remotely resembled enemy defences. With all this lead zipping about the Italians were in no frame of mind to put their heads up and see what was going on.

  ‘Mills’s squadron,’ he continued, ‘was very successful in dealing with enemy strongpoints. He had three troops – each of four carriers. Two troops would open fire with streamlined ammunition on their objective from a range of 1800 to 2000 yards, while the third troop moved in some 500 or 600 yards and opened fire from the enemy’s flank. As soon as it was in action one of the other troops would follow in and take up a position at about the same range. Then the third would leap-frog through to within 1000 yards of the enemy. In this way the tremendous fire of eight Vickers guns was kept on the objective at all times and from different angles. Almost invariably the enemy found their gun positions untenable and either retired or surrendered.’

  At Tobruk, by these and similar tactics, Macarthur Onslow’s carriers captured fourteen enemy battery positions and strongpoints. The key to their success was his leadership. An infectious enthusiasm is the secret of his power of command, but the quality above all others that wins the loyalty and affection of his men is his complete freedom from pretence.

  By their speed and stamina the infantry clinched the advantages won by the guns, tanks and carriers. In the 19th Brigade’s attack, for example, the Diggers kept up with a barrage which lifted 100 yards a minute. They made their own task easier because they could maintain a pace that bewildered
the enemy.

  Basically, however, Tobruk was a victory for planning and perfect co-ordination of land, naval and air forces and of British and Australian troops. It was as much a British as it was an Australian victory, for neither could have achieved success without the other. But in planning the actual assault General Mackay and his two chief staff officers, Colonel F. H. Berryman and Colonel G. A. Vasey, bore the chief responsibility.

  Anyone casually meeting quiet-mannered Iven Gifford Mackay might not at first recognize in him the man whom the official historian of the 1st A.I.F. (Dr C. E. W. Bean) ranked among its first half dozen ‘fighting generals par excellence’. He was never a fiery leader but rather a man impelled by a high sense of duty. Twenty years as a University lecturer and school headmaster have made this characteristic even more marked than it was when he first led men into battle on Gallipoli. There he gained special distinction as a company commander in the attack on Lone Pine, and, as Bean says, ‘fought for a night and a day in front of his men’. Courageous and conscientious leadership gained him the D.S.O. at Pozières, command of the 4th Battalion at the age of thirty-four and of the 1st Brigade at thirty-six.

  As the 6th Division’s commander his strength lay in the thoroughness he demanded both in training and planning operations. Typical of this was his refusal to launch the attack on Tobruk until his artillery had available 500 rounds per gun, and until he was completely satisfied with the reconnaissance of the Italian defences. He left nothing to chance when the lives of his men were at stake.

  His natural reticence prevented him from being a popular figure among the troops, but they respected him for the high personal standards he set himself and demanded of his officers. He was widely known as ‘Mr Chips’, primarily because he brought traces of the headmaster’s manner with him into the A.I.F. But this rather didactic approach was valuable for the division in its formative days, for every general must have in him something of the headmaster. His brigade commanders and senior staff officers were men of strong personality and such personalities frequently clash. Not the least of Mackay’s achievements was the way he welded them into a team, and used the abilities of each to the best advantage. He certainly commanded the division himself but he was wise in making full use of his right- and left-hand men – Berryman and Vasey.5

  If it had not been for the rule preventing Duntroon graduates from rising above the rank of major in the 1st A.I.F., both Berryman and Vasey would no doubt have then gained greater distinction than they did. In the 2nd A.I.F., however, they soon stood out as brilliant staff officers and later as fine commanders. In many ways they are alike, though they are very different in temperament. Both are highly efficient themselves and intolerant of inefficiency in others. Both are bold, hard-working, hard-driving. In Syria Berryman, then a Brigadier, seeing some of his troops hesitating in an attack on an enemy position, led them in himself. In Greece, Vasey, then also a Brigadier, being advised by one of his forward battalions that German tanks had broken through its front replied, ‘All the better, now you can shoot ’em up the backside. That’s their weak spot.’

  The most noticeable difference between them is in build and manner. Berryman is short, spare, wiry; Vasey is tall, lithe and well built. In speech, Berryman is incisive, and sometimes terse. Vasey, blunt, colourful and hard-swearing, is widely known as ‘Bloody George’, because of his propensity for lurid language without consideration of time, place or person. Famous, too, is the operational order he gave to his brigade when it took up what was thought to be a ‘do-or-die’ position in Greece. ‘Here we bloody-well are; and here we bloody-well stay’ – an order which his Brigade Major redrafted to read: ‘The 19th Aust. Inf. Bde. will hold its present positions, come what may.’

  At Bardia and Tobruk, Berryman and Vasey made a first class team. Berryman gave point and substance to Mackay’s broad plan. The audacity of the tactics sprang mainly from Berryman and his efficient staff work was a prime factor in their smooth working. Supply problems, which – as ever – limited the cloth from which the tactical pattern had to be cut, were admirably handled by Vasey. In the face of a plan so well conceived, organized and carried out, the Italians in Tobruk did not stand much chance.

  Now with the Tobruk harbour and water supply at its back O’Connor’s 13th Corps could press on to the destruction of the last remnants of Graziani’s fleeing forces. Tobruk had not been as long or as hard a fight as the battles of Sidi Barrani and Bardia, but for a force bent on conquering Cyrenaica and destroying an enemy army, it was just as important. With the fall of Tobruk nothing could save Derna and Bengazi. The current of war swept on from Tobruk, but it was soon to sweep back.

  _____________

  1 The Australian casualties were: Killed or died of wounds – 41; wounded – 205; missing – 2; total – 248.

  2 Brigadier Savige – in civil life a Melbourne business man – was awarded the D.S.O. and the M.C. for his gallantry in the Great War. He served with the A.I.F. in the 24th Battalion and on the staff of the 6th Brigade before he went to Mesopotamia and Persia as one of the hand-picked officers sent to ‘Dunsterforce’ in 1917. In this war after serving in Libya, Greece and Syria, Savige returned to Australia, was promoted Major-General and led the 3rd Division with distinction in New Guinea.

  3 Beda Fomm was the brilliant action, in which the British 7th Armoured Division cut off and captured the remnants of Graziani’s army south of Bengazi easily in February 1941.

  4 Major Anderson died of wounds received while commanding 2/32nd Battalion during the siege of Tobruk.

  5 Berryman was Mackay’s “G.1.” (General Staff Officer Grade 1, i.e., chief-of-staff); Vasey was assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster-General.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE TOWN WE TOOK

  THE morning after the battle ended, smoke from smouldering dumps and ships still drifted over the town and harbour of Tobruk, though the front had already jumped a hundred miles westward to the heights above Derna. Before continuing their advance the Australian and British troops who had stormed Tobruk could rest, swim and look around. Only a few were supposed to have access to the town, but several hundred spirited themselves inside.

  Driving in that morning, we turned up Via Mussolini, already renamed ‘Pitt Street’, and past ‘Albergo Tobruch’, which now bore the sign ‘Young and Jackson’s’. Down the road swaggered a party of Diggers, Italian national and regimental pennants flying from their bayonets, gay Fascist badges, cockades and ribbons stuck in their hats or pinned to their jackets. Their pockets bulged with miscellaneous souvenirs – monogrammed ashtrays and cutlery from ‘Albergo Tobruch’, knick-knacks from officers’ houses, revolvers, Fascist badges, sashes, swords, whistles and knives from Italian ordnance stores. They reminded me of an incident that occurred earlier in the campaign. A Digger who was escorting some prisoners had acquired an Italian captain’s insignia and badges of rank. I asked him how he got them and he said, ‘I swapped ’em – for a coupla fags; for ’arf a bloody packet, I coulda been a blasted general.’

  Further down the road I saw some Australians with a pile of Italian paper money and it soon became fashionable to light a cigarette with 50 or 100 lire or to post an autographed note back to Australia. Useless in Tobruk, these same notes were real money in Bengazi as the troops ruefully discovered a few weeks later. Through the streets troops were driving anything that moved – little Fiats, big Lancias, captured motor-cycles and Diesel trucks. Some of these and a number of British trucks were drawn up in front of the Italian Navy and Army stores, where there was all the food the troops wanted – and they lost no time in supplementing their rations.

  The comparatively few military police on hand had an unenviable task keeping high spirits in check. I saw no riotous looting, but there was some thoughtless damaging of property and much pointless souveniring of things that the troops threw away as soon as they were on the move again. Unfortunately some military equipment, transport in particular, was heedlessly destroyed or damaged. But so far as
I saw, the men mainly responsible for this did not come from the fighting units. They were part of the irresponsible element, which has always been found in the A.I.F. It would be idle to pretend that it does not exist, but it is small and it is regrettable that a section of the Australian press has tended to glorify this element and to represent it as typical of the A.I.F. This misrepresentation has adversely affected the reputation of the force overseas and its fighting efficiency. While this is so, it should be remembered that the adventurous spirit, which leads to exuberance such as we saw in Tobruk this day, is the very quality which gives the best Australian troops their initiative and dash in battle.

  In Tobruk that morning one man who had seen something of the 6th Division’s Provosts in action was Edward Ward, the B.B.C. observer. He and I had spent the previous day chasing from one airfield to another between Tobruk and Sollum trying to find a plane to take our recordings of the first day’s battle back to Cairo. At last we caught one, but it was dark before we got back to H.Q., 6th Division. Ward, however, decided to hitch-hike into Tobruk town.

  He had no trouble in getting a lift from two Diggers in a passing car, but he soon found that they regarded him with some suspicion. They examined his papers and then began cross-examining him as to his recent movements. Ward asked them what the game was and one Digger who was sitting behind him replied: ‘We happen to be military police and I’ve got a Smith and Wesson .45 two inches behind your back. We don’t know who you are and those papers of yours don’t mean a thing to us.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Ward, ‘this’ll make a fine story for me.’

  ‘It’ll make a fine story if you’re dinkum, but if you aren’t it’ll be just too bad. Anyway we’re taking you to H.Q.’

  When they finally reached Tobruk the two provosts turned Ward over to the O.C. of the company garrisoning the town. His identity was soon established and the two M.Ps went off apparently satisfied. Ward was more than satisfied for the incident provided an amusing story for his next broadcast. A sensitive censor in Cairo, however, did not see the funny side. He banned the broadcast because, he said, it ridiculed the provosts who had made ‘an honest mistake’.