We reached our rendezvous with the Long-Range Desert Group at six on Sunday morning, exactly twenty-four hours late. They had long since given us up and were having breakfast, preparatory to moving off. Hungrily we threw ourselves upon mugs of tea and steaming mess tins of porridge.
Chapter V
Back To Benghazi
OUR journey back across the desert to Siwa was on the whole uneventful. But once in the night we heard a rumble of big guns away to the north and David, who made a detour to visit Eighth Army Headquarters, had his car shot up by marauding enemy fighters at a place called Bir Hakim, soon to become famous for the stand made there by the Free French under General Koenig.
Back at Siwa, the thing that I remember most clearly was the long-awaited plunge into the clear bubbling waters of Cleopatra’s pool, a luxury to which we had looked forward all through the parching days in the desert, when there had been very little water for drinking and none at all for washing. But we were in a hurry to get back to Cairo to report and make plans for the future.
In such a hurry that, half-way between Alexandria and Cairo, the battle-waggon left the road and turned over, and it was not until two or three days later that I regained consciousness, through a haze of morphia, to find that I was in hospital in Alexandria with a fractured collar bone, a broken arm and what seemed to be a fractured skull. The rest of the party were all more or less out of action, except for David, who was hardly hurt at all.
At the beginning of July I left hospital to convalesce, and spent the weeks that followed in enforced, but not disagreeable, idleness, waiting for the plaster to be taken off my limbs. Various people came to see me on their way through Alexandria, where I was staying in great luxury with the Teddy Peels. George Jellicoe, who had just joined the S.A.S., came with Georges Berger of the Free French Squadron. They were just starting by submarine for an operation in Crete, and their visit was a reminder that our ultimate goal lay beyond the Mediterranean, in Europe. While in Crete they were betrayed to the enemy and, though Jellicoe got away, Berger spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp.
Meanwhile, to pass the time, as I lay idle on the beach at Sidi Bish, I started to learn modern Greek from the many fair Greek ladies who adorned it. It might, I felt, come in useful.
Then one day David appeared. He had just come back from the desert and was full of plans for a further large-scale raid on Benghazi. He wanted me to come back to Cairo with him at once and start making preparations. A doctor was found to certify that I was once again medically A.I, and we set out.
One night, while we were in Cairo, we dined at the Embassy. The party was a distinguished one: Mr. Churchill, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Smuts and General Alexander, the latter newly arrived from England. Wondering what they had come out to Egypt to do and little realizing that their visit betokened a complete change in the high command, we took the opportunity to put in a word for the S.A.S. We told the distinguished visitors what we planned to do and asked for some equipment to do it with.
I had not seen the Prime Minister since I had become a Member of the House of Commons. Someone had told him of the stratagem which I had employed to extricate myself from the Foreign Office, and this had amused him. ‘Here,’ he said, dragging me up to General Smuts, ‘is the young man who has used the Mother of Parliaments as a public convenience.’
Meanwhile, the plans for a raid on Benghazi had been greeted with enthusiasm at G.H.Q. With such enthusiasm that, by the time they came back to us they were practically unrecognizable. The latest scheme envisaged a major operation against Benghazi, to be carried out in conjunction with similar large-scale operations elsewhere.
The military situation in the Middle East had deteriorated very sharply since May. The gunfire which we had heard on our way back from Benghazi had heralded Rommel’s attack on the Gazala line, which was followed by a general offensive. This had begun at the end of May. Bitter fighting had followed: Knightsbridge, Bir Hakim, the fall of Tobruk. Finally, Rommel’s advance to El Alamein had brought the Afrika Korps to within eighty or ninety miles of Alexandria. In Cairo the staff at G.H.Q. Middle East were burning their files and the Italian colony were getting out their black shirts and Fascist badges in preparation for Mussolini’s triumphant entry. The Long-Range Desert Group had been forced to leave Siwa in a hurry, and that pleasant oasis was now occupied by a detachment of Fascist Youth, who had been specially sent over from Italy for the forthcoming victory parade. Now, Rommel, having consolidated his position at Alamein, was pouring in supplies through Benghazi and the recently captured port of Tobruk, and at the same time centring all available resources before a knock-out blow against Eighth Army.
Our task was to cause a diversion, thereby interfering with this process. Altogether four operations were planned. We were to attack Benghazi, but this time with a force numbering some two hundred men. At the same time a similar raid was to be made on Tobruk with naval and air support. Two patrols of the Long-Range Desert Group were to raid the airfield at Barce, 50 miles east of Benghazi along the coast. Finally the Sudan Defence Force were to take and hold the oasis of Jalo, which was situated in the desert 300 miles due south of Benghazi. Now that Siwa was in enemy hands, the base for these operations would have to be Kufra, an oasis 800 miles south of Benghazi, which had been captured from the Italians in 1941.
Very considerable preparations and much detailed planning were needed for an operation on this scale. Clearly it was no easy task to transport several dozen vehicles and a couple of hundred men across 800 miles of waterless desert without attracting the attention of the enemy.
While David was busy attending conferences, collecting new recruits, begging, buying or stealing additional transport and equipment, I went down to Faiyum, where the L.R.D.G. had made their home after leaving Siwa, to look at maps with Bill Shaw. I also went down to Alexandria to see the Naval Intelligence Division and have a look at the model of Benghazi which had now been brought up to date and was kept in a closely guarded room, together with an equally handsome model of Tobruk.
For obvious reasons, secrecy was vital, and only a very small number of those taking part in the operations were told what their destination was to be. But long before we were ready to start there were signs that too many people knew too much. At Alexandria a drunken marine was heard boasting in a canteen that he was off to Tobruk; a Free French officer picked up some startling information at Beirut; one of the barmen at the hotel, who was generally thought to be an enemy agent, seemed much too well informed. Worse still, there were indications that the enemy was expecting the raids and was taking counter-measures.
Eventually the plan was completed and David and I left for Kufra in a Hudson bomber. We first flew due south down the Nile to Wadi Haifa; then westwards across the desert. It was an unpleasant flight. The hot air rising from the scorching surface of the desert made air pockets through which the aircraft fell like a stone. Looking down, we could see beneath us strange red sandstone conformations. We were glad when we finally jolted to a standstill on the airfield at Kufra.
Up to 1931 Kufra, like Siwa, a stronghold of the Senussi, had been visited by only half a dozen Europeans, the first being the German explorer Rohlfs who reached it by camel in 1879 and narrowly escaped with his life. His exploit was repeated by explorers once or twice in the intervening years, while an occasional unwilling European visitor was taken there as a prisoner of the Arabs. Then in 1931 the Italians, determined to consolidate their North African Empire, launched a motorized expedition against Kufra from the north, and once there, easily reduced it with the help of aircraft and artillery, thus mopping up the last pocket of active resistance in Libya.
Ten years later, almost to a day, a Free French column under General Leclerc arrived unexpectedly from Lake Chad, disposed of the Italian garrison without difficulty, and established an Allied base, which was to serve as a jumping-off place for the L.R.D.G. until the end of the Libyan campaign.
The Italians
had erected a fort on a hill dominating the oasis. In the middle of the courtyard a Fascist emblem, made of cement and bearing a pompous Latin inscription which no one had bothered to deface, still celebrated the establishment of this outpost of an empire which even then was already beginning to crumble. From the fort one had a good view of the oasis and the surrounding desert. In many ways Kufra resembled Siwa; the same bright green date palms, the same clusters of Arab huts, built of wattles or mud, the same patches of cultivation. Amongst the palms there were two lakes of brilliant turquoise-blue, so salt that you could float sitting upright in the water as though in an armchair with half your body above the surface. The fort was occupied by a garrison of French and British troops. Our own forces, together with the L.R.D.G., Sudan Defence Force and the party which was to attack Tobruk, were already encamped under the palms, and there we joined them. All the original members of the unit were there and with them a hundred or more new recruits, thrown in to swell our numbers for the largest operation undertaken hitherto.
There was a lot to be done in a short time. The fitters were hard at work on the trucks, some of which had suffered considerably on the long journey down. Some trucks had got lost in the desert between Wadi Halfa and Kufra, and an aircraft was out looking for them. Bill Cumper’s sappers were making bombs, and navigators were busy with their maps. All were cleaning up their weapons. Finally, now that we had the party isolated from outside contacts, all those going on the operation had to be briefed.
Everyone was collected and we unfolded the full plan; we were to rush Benghazi, taking the garrison by surprise, and, once inside, to destroy everything we could lay hands on. If the situation developed favourably, we might even manage to hold out until relief arrived. In any case, we could make it useless to the enemy for quite a time. This news was enthusiastically received by the assembled troops. Now they knew what the little party of sailors was for: they were to take any available ships to the mouth of the harbour and sink them there. They also knew that the purpose of the two light tanks, borrowed from the Tenth Hussars, was to blast their way into Benghazi at the head of our column. (In the event, they stuck in the sand a short distance from Kufra and had to be abandoned.) Altogether, they thought, it sounded a promising plan.
Everywhere little scattered groups sat round the camp fires under the palm trees until late at night talking. Some were coming with us. Others were taking part in the simultaneous and equally ambitious attack on Tobruk, in which a leading part was to be played by a party of German Jews in enemy uniform, who were to bluff their way past the sentries, as the spearhead of a larger force. Nearby, the black troops of the Sudan Defence Force were preparing for their attack on Jalo, the success of which was vital to us, for we would pass within a few miles of Jalo on our way back from Benghazi, and if it was not by then in Allied hands, our retreat would be cut off. On all sides there was a buzz of anticipation.
Next day our advance party, under Paddy Mayne, started for the Gebel and I went with it. We had a formidable array of vehicles. Of these the greater part were our own, for, although we had a patrol of the L.R.D.G. with us and relied on them to a great extent for navigation, we now owned our own transport. This consisted chiefly of Ford three-tonners, carrying petrol, water and supplies, and a fleet of jeeps, mounted with Vickers-K machine guns, which had been found were invaluable for desert raiding. David came to see us off. He himself would follow with the rest of the party in three or four days’ time. Everyone was in high spirits, and we gave him a cheer as we drove by.
For the first part of the journey we travelled by day and slept at night. North of Kufra the desert was pinkish in colour and full of fantastic rock formations.
On the second day out, I was awakened before dawn by screams of pain. One of the cooks getting breakfast had carelessly thrown petrol on the fire from a bottle. The flame had shot back up the stream of petrol into the bottle which had burst in his face. He was terribly burnt and in agony. We dressed his burns as best we could and, giving him some morphia, sent him back to Kufra in one of the jeeps. It was lucky for him that we were not further out.
For a convoy as big as ours there was only one practicable route from Kufra to the Gebel. Between us and our destination lay the Sand Sea. This was an expanse of deep, soft, fine sand the size of Ireland, ribbed with long parallel dunes several hundred feet high, following each other in monotonous succession like the waves of the sea. The L.R.D.G. had long ago proved that it was not impassable if you knew how to tackle it, but it was bad going for heavy trucks. Accordingly we aimed for Zighen, a point where the Sand Sea narrows down to a bottleneck not more than twenty miles wide. Here we would cross it and then drive northwards, skirting along its western fringe, and passing through the narrow gap which separates it from the oasis of Jalo, then in enemy hands.
Our crossing of the Sand Sea was something of an ordeal. With increasing frequency the leading truck would suddenly plunge and flounder and then come to an ominous standstill, sinking up to its axles in the soft white sand. Once you were stuck it was no good racing the engine. The wheels only spun round aimlessly and buried themselves deeper than ever. There was nothing for it but to dig yourself out with a spade and then, with the help of sand mats — long strips of canvas with wooden stiffening — back precariously on to the firm ground you had so unwisely left. Then the whole convoy would wait while someone went cautiously on ahead to prospect for a safe way out of our difficulties.
Or else we would find our way barred by a sand dune, or succession of sand dunes. These were best negotiated by rush tactics. If you could only keep moving you were less likely to stick. The jeeps, making full use of their extra range of gears, would lead the way, with the three-tonners thundering along after them like stampeding elephants. Very rarely we all got through safely. Generally someone hesitated half way up and immediately went in up to the running boards in sand. Then out came the spades, sand mats and towing ropes, and the whole dreary business of ‘un-sticking’ would start again.
But too much dash had its penalties. Many of the sand dunes fell away sharply on the far side and if you arrived at the top at full speed, you were likely to plunge headlong over the precipice on the far side before you could stop yourself, and end up with your truck upside down on top of you forty or fifty feet below.
The tracks we left gave a vivid picture of our progress. Sometimes, when the going was good, they ran straight and even like railway lines; at others when things were going less well, they wavered and branched off; where disaster had overtaken us, they ended in a confused tangle of footprints, tyre marks and holes in the sand.
But ours were not the only tracks which scarred the face of the desert and, fortunately, from the air fresh tracks are not easily distinguishable from old ones. Otherwise it would not have been difficult for enemy aircraft to track us down from the air. Even so, a party as large as ours, trundling across the open desert in broad daylight and throwing up a great cloud of dust, could not hope to be as unobtrusive as a single patrol, and we knew that, once spotted, we should offer a splendid target. Above all, it was important that we should not attract the attention of the Italian garrison, while passing Jalo, for they were known to be in wireless touch with Benghazi, and a message from them at this stage of the proceedings announcing our approach would have deprived us of any hope of success.
Accordingly we timed our journey so as to pass the Jalo gap at midday, when the heat haze made visibility poor. When the navigators reckoned we were abreast of the oasis, we halted and I climbed to the top of a little conical hill to have a look round. There was nothing to be seen except a few depressed-looking camels chewing at the almost non-existent scrub, and westwards on the horizon, some black specks, jumping up and down in the haze, which, by a stretch of imagination might have been the palm trees of Jalo. On the top of my hill I found a chianti flask. I wished that it had been full. Then we had a hurried meal of tinned salmon and biscuits, washed down with half a mug of tepid water, and hurried on.
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br /> Now that we were nearing the coast, where we were more likely to encounter patrolling aircraft, we only moved by night, lying up by day and camouflaging the trucks. Once again we picked our way cautiously across the Trigh-el-Abd, keeping a sharp look out for thermos bombs.
But not sharp enough. As we were half way across, I heard an explosion immediately behind me, and looking round, saw that the three-tonner which had been following in my tracks had had a wheel blown off by a thermos bomb, which my own jeep had gone over but had been too light to explode. Fortunately the height of the three-tonner from the ground had protected the occupants and no one was hurt. The three-tonner’s load was distributed among the other trucks and we continued on our way.
Two or three days later we reached the welcome cover of the Gebel. So far as we could tell, our convoy had completed its journey across 800 miles of open desert, to a destination 600 miles behind the enemy’s front line, without being spotted either from the air or from the ground. This was encouraging.
Our first care on reaching the Gebel was to get into touch with Bob Melot. Melot was a middle-aged Belgian cotton merchant who lived in Alexandria. Before the war he and his wife had for their own amusement taken some trips into the desert in their Ford car; he also spoke some Arabic. When the desert campaign started he offered his services to the British Army, and was commissioned as a subaltern. Thereafter he only paid occasional visits to his home in Alexandria. The rest of his time was spent in the desert, hundreds of miles behind the enemy lines. He lived on his own or with the Beduins for months on end, picking up information which he sent back by wireless. For food, he depended on dumps of rations left for him by the Long-Range Desert Group and on what he could get from the Arabs. He was obliged to keep moving from hiding-place to hiding-place, in order to avoid the search parties which the enemy sent out after him. It would have been an arduous life even for a much younger man.
Eastern Approaches Page 26