There were few around him who hadn’t lost family during those terrible months following the invasion of September 11, 1940, and there were many more who had mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, cousins, aunts and uncles still living beneath the shroud of Nazi occupation. False concepts such as class structure or social standing meant little in the face of such cold, hard realities – the colour of a man’s skin meant even less – and the new, evolving British Army now commanded out of Australia by the cabinet and Royal Family in exile, cared far more for a man or woman’s abilities than the details of their background, whatever that might be.
He sometimes wondered if perhaps the new closer and rather direct ties with Australia itself might well have contributed to the more relaxed and egalitarian attitude. They were tough fighters to be sure, but with that hardness in battle came an unruly aversion to authority that had earned a reputation for mischief and misbehaviour when away from the front line. Rumour held that at one stage during the previous year, the British command in North Africa had purportedly sent a long, plaintive communiqué back to Canberra that bemoaned the ANZAC troops as rowdy and troublesome. Rumour also held that the then Prime Minister, Robert Menzies replied quite pointedly that he had it on good authority the Germans and Italians found them a most troublesome lot also.
Long-held old habits of course died hard and there was still the odd occurrence of racial taunting or discrimination here or there, but they were becoming increasingly rare as time wore on, with a victim’s fellow men – black, white or otherwise – far more likely now to jump to their defence rather than simply let such actions continue. Those new-found sentiments were displayed most fervently in frontline combat units, where a man’s life lay directly in the hands of his commanders and the actions of the men around him and feelings of esprit de corps were particularly strong. Davids liked and respected his CO – everyone in his armoured unit did – and all of them would fight that little bit harder as a result.
Known simply as Jimmy to his friends, Davids seemed relatively young for a commander of a tank squadron. The short, stocky son of a coal miner had enlisted into the Royal Armoured Corps at the age of eighteen and in just seven years he’d attained the rank of sergeant and command of his own vehicle – a Matilda II infantry tank named Grosvenor, assigned to what at that time had been the 7th Royal Tank Regiment. But the invasion had come toward the end of 1940 and the Germans had swarmed across The English Channel in hordes, sweeping all before them. An 88mm armour-piercing shell had torn his tank apart on that first day and he’d lost two men close to him in the process. There’d been more losses of friends and colleagues since, but that first experience of battle had left its mark and there wasn’t a day passed that Jimmy Davids didn’t think of Gerry Gawler or Steven Hodges, or of those last images of their shattered bodies as he’d been forced to abandon that ruined tank.
Davids sighed softly and hefted his shovel once more, jamming it down into the dry earth. Dozens of men were working all around him with shovels, picks and mattocks, their faded, khaki uniforms in various states of undress in deference to the midday heat with their battered slouch hats the only shade and upper-body protection for many as they struggled on ceaselessly against a desperate deadline to have their defences finished.
Orders from Canberra had set the Australian Army commanders working hard over the last few months to push a new initiative of wearing protection against the sun. A few heeded the call but most simply ignored it, both within the Australian ranks and without. Everyone ‘knew’ that a tan was good for you, and with real enemies like the Nazis so close to hand, few gave much heed to such unlikely dangers as ‘Skin Cancer’ or a strange, ‘other-worldly’ evil called ‘melanoma’.
“Contact…! Contact…!” The bellowed alert from the nearby command post (CP) a dozen metres or so behind the lines got everyone’s attention as an air raid siren split the air with its unearthly wail.
“Battle stations, chaps!” Knowles shouted over the howl of the siren. “Tally-ho…!”
Everyone knew their duties and their posts. Digging tools fell to the ground, instantly forgotten as hundreds of men along their section of the line either took up their weapons and headed for their positions in the trenches or turned and bolted back toward the thin line of tanks dug-in a few metres behind them.
Davids ran for his own vehicle, quickly flanked by the rest of his crew, who’d been digging just as he had: Lance-Corporal Nick Ingalls (gunner), Private Alvin Toms (loader) and finally Corporal Angus Connolly, the tank’s driver and Davids’ longest-known friend in the army; a man he’d served with since he’d first been posted to the tank corps. All clambered up the hull of their tank, ‘Centurion’, before diving in through their respective hatches and going about the process of quickly bringing the vehicle to a state of combat readiness. Centurion was the lead vehicle of Squadron C, 3rd Royal Tank Regiment, and was part of a ‘mixed bag’ collection of various types that formed the armoured component of the 8th Army’s western defence lines near Agruda.
Most of the armoured fighting vehicles defending the line that day were all derived from the same, single base model… an American design known as the M4 Sherman. The greater proportion of the tanks present were the common M4A1 model that was currently pouring from assembly lines all over the United States, intended to fill a massive demand both within the ranks of the US Army and overseas with Commonwealth Forces as part of US President Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease deal.
Davids’ particular tank was an improved variant known simply as a ‘Firefly’. Centurion took the Sherman hull/powerplant combination and topped it with a larger, substantially redesigned turret that mounted the powerful British OQF 17-pounder anti-tank gun. With hitting power and muzzle velocity far greater than the 76mm weapon fitted to the standard M4A1, tanks such as the Firefly were highly sought-after as they were one of the few weapons the Allies possessed capable of defeating the thick frontal armour of the Wehrmacht’s P-4A tank. The P-4 Panther was the first of a new type of tank concept altogether that the Germans called the ‘allgemeinpanzer’, or ‘universal panzer’: something the Allied armies would come to know as the MBT, or Main Battle Tank.
The Firefly’s Cummins diesel came to life almost instantly, the turbo-charged six-cylinder engine common to almost all of the armoured fighting vehicles belonging to 3RTR. Far more powerful and economical than any previously fitted to older types used by the British and Commonwealth forces, they’d earned a reputation for reliability that was second-to-none within the armoured corps.
With his systems all now supplied with hydraulic and electrical power, Davids seated himself comfortably into his commander’s chair and slipped an intercom headset over his ears, adjusting its small, flexible microphone stalk to the correct position by the side of his mouth.
“Centurion reporting in, Handshake. Status update please… over…” ‘Handshake’ was the coded title of their CP communications officer, who would currently be receiving reports from the local Air Command HQ at Suez regarding their situation.
“Low-level aircraft detected on approach, Centurion,” the reply came through from their CP instantly. “Small numbers only so far, but advanced scouts report some ground activity to the west also… no confirmed details, but believed to be squad strength only – possibly Littorio recon units or probing attack. ETA on aerial units approximately two minutes and closing… Kibrit is on alert but nearest BARCAP aircraft are ten minutes away and won’t reach us in time to intercept…”
“Typical…!” Davids muttered under his breath at the news, echoing the sentiments of all within his tank, and that of most of the crews of the other tanks around his who were also listening in on the open-channel broadcast.
“Formidable is also scrambling additional air units to assist – same approximate ETA… will advise more details as they come to hand… Handshake over and out...”
Davids peered through his commander’s periscopes as he scanned the Cairo-Suez Roa
d ahead, the single strip of weathered bitumen disappearing into the distance westward across a broad expanse of open desert. Even at his optics’ higher magnification settings, there was nothing to be seen as yet. That would change soon enough: somewhere in the distance, beyond the heat mirage floating hazily across the horizon before them, enemy forces were approaching. In what strength was the important question to which as yet they had no real answer.
“Keep your eyes open, boyos,” he warned, well aware his men already knew their duties. “There may be some bloody ‘Eye-ties’ headed our way, and we’re gonna give ‘em a bloody nose…!”
“…Assuming those fookin’ ack-ack crews keep the bloody Sandflies off our backs long enough,” Connolly observed sourly, again echoing the thoughts of the rest of the tank crew, including Davids.
‘Sandfly’ was a derogatory term coined by British military units in North Africa in reference to the Regia Aeronautica Italia – the Italian Royal Air Force. Italian land forces, although strong in number and well-equipped, had generally proven to be inferior in combat ability and training by comparison to those of the Commonwealth, and had only managed to push the Allies eastward through sheer weight of numbers and with substantial assistance from elite units of the Afrika Korps.
In complete contrast, the RAI had shown itself to be extremely capable, committed and well-trained, with its only weakness being a lack of modern aircraft and equipment that had prevented it from making the most of its opportunities. Obsolescent fighter and bomber types – either native Italian designs or older, ex-Luftwaffe types – had made it difficult for the RAI to have any significant effect on the battles fought throughout the Western Desert campaigns so far. As a result, the force had been accorded the somewhat derisive nickname of ‘Sandflies’: creatures that could deliver a nasty bite on occasion but overall were little more than a minor irritation or distraction.
The term had become somewhat less appropriate over the last few months as current-model German aircraft and new, indigenous Italian types had finally begun to appear within their ranks, but it had already stuck all the same and had become part of the vernacular of the British soldier serving in North Africa. Whereas there’d been a time not all that long ago when the nickname would’ve been used with some derision, there was no such sentiment now: although never the equal of the mighty Luftwaffe, the RAI with modern equipment was nevertheless an opponent to now be feared if used in sufficient force.
“Bogies… incoming… bearing zero-four-one…!” The alert call came across the radio from Caesar, another of the tanks in their squadron, and tankers and infantry alike turned their eyes to the north-west in search of danger. Lifting his head momentarily out through the open hatch above him, Davids peered off into the distance and suddenly caught sight of six dark specks on the horizon, indeed coming in low and at what appeared to be great speed.
“Button up, gents,” Davids called his own warning across the troop radio channel, “they’re coming in…!”
A pair of heavy anti-aircraft guns opened up a few seconds later from their positions at the rear of the defences near the outskirts of Agruda itself. Guided by powerful tracking radar, its traverse and elevation were controlled automatically by a Bell Labs gun data computer. Like the gun itself (and Davids’ tank) the computer and radar unit were all American-made designs that had only made it to the front line within the last three to four months, instantly making a huge impact with their significant improvements in accuracy and effectiveness.
Still no more than black spots against the blue horizon, one of the approaching aircraft was downed almost immediately as proximity-fused 90mm shells began exploding around the flight. Each projectile carried a miniature radar set in its nose that triggered detonation the moment it passed within lethal range of an aircraft. Now well aware they’d been detected, the others came on hard, weaving and slewing about the sky to throw out the aim of the defenders’ radar-controlled gunfire. A trio of static, medium AA guns closer to the lines joined in as the enemy aircraft drew ever closer, streaks of 40mm tracer sizzling across the sky in shallow ballistic arcs as their gunners used radar ranging as an aide to drawing a bead on their targets visually. Another aircraft was hit within seconds, this one only damaged but forced out of formation as it banked upward and away, trailing a thin streamer of grey smoke.
The roar of heavy machine guns nearby gave them all a start moments later as a dug-in M7A1 ‘Sweeper’ mobile flak vehicle opened fire, a cascade of red tracer adding to the multiple streams of varying calibres now rising from all along the lines as the remaining aircraft drew within effective range. Based on a fully-tracked, armoured personnel carrier known as the M101A, the Sweeper carried a large turret above its rear hull that mounted a pair of four-barrelled 15mm ‘Gatling’ guns, the weapons fed from an ammunition store carried in the vehicle’s long turret bustle. Mounted side-by-side in the centre of the turret face, the weapons were aimed using optical sights while a small, circular radar dish mounted atop the vehicle provided accurate range and elevation data to the gunner inside.
The whole ‘raid’ was all over within a few more seconds. The moment that torrent of anti-aircraft fire rose to meet the aircraft, they instantly broke ranks and turned away, speeding off to the west once more at high speed as they hugged the ground, seeking safety. Davids himself almost let out a sigh of relief and elation before the realisation struck him that something about that immediate withdrawal seemed very wrong.
“Too easy… too easy by half…!” He muttered softly, shaking his head before opening the transmit channel on his radio once more. “Keep your wits about you, mates… they buggered off the moment they got a good look at exactly where our defences are… I’ve a nasty feeling the danger’s not over yet!”
The first of the artillery rounds arrived a few minutes later, initially landing short along the road ahead of them before quickly ‘walking’ the fire forward and down upon the dug in defenders. Clouds of earth and smoke filled the air all about as each deafening blast added to those before it and created a cacophony that made it impossible to hear even the loudest shouted words.
Inside the closed-down tank, Davids watched through his periscopes as the moving barrage drew ever nearer. Even as he was about to call out a final warning to his crew, the entire vehicle was slammed forward in its pit with massive force. The unexpected jolt cracked David’s head against the edge of his commanders’ hatch, the blow sending him reeling and causing sparks to flicker across his vision as he struggled to retain full consciousness. For a second he almost disappeared into a waking dream – a sudden fleeting and incredibly vivid memory of a moment from the past when he’d been knocked unconscious in battle and awoken to find his tank destroyed and most of his crew dead.
He clutched at his head, ignoring the sensation of blood seeping through his fingers, and fought against the blackness that threatened to engulf his mind, clenching his teeth as he released a low, guttural grunt of pain and frustration. The grogginess and terrible flashback receded as quickly as they’d come and he opened his eyes once more to find that, much to his heartfelt relief, his tank and his crew did appear to still be in one piece.
“Damage reports…! Is everyone all right? Sound off!” He tried to operate his intercom but could get no response, and as his eyes regained focus he realised that power appeared to be completely out inside the tank.
“Hydraulics are down,” Ingalls howled from the right beside him as the gunner fought futilely with his equipment. “I’ve got nothing at all… manual traverse and elevation only…”
“Engine’s out too…!” Connolly called from ahead of him in the forward hull. “Come on, you useless piece of shite… we’re a fookin’ sitting duck here…!” The sentiments were bellowed at his own instruments and controls as he desperately tried over and over to restart a stalled engine that refused to even kick over, let alone run.
“Calm down, Angus… calm down…!” Davids heard himself shout back, beginning to feel a little deta
ched from everything, as if he were somehow slipping back into his vision from moments earlier. “We need to keep our wits about us if we’re to...” Davids was cut off mid-sentence as the hatch above him flew open and he jumped in fright as he looked up to stare directly into the concerned face of his commanding officer.
“What the bloody hell are you chaps playing at?” Knowles demanded, visibly shaken and more worried than actually angry. “We thought you lot had bought it.”
“Just trying to get her running, sir,” Davids attempted to explain, finding it a little difficult to think clearly and not recognising how unusual it was that his CO was out of his own tank. “Power’s out and we need to get the old girl started again so we can be ready for Jerry…”
“Good Gods, man… you’re not going anywhere in this crate anymore,” Knowles shot back, almost managing a wry smile. “The barrage is over… get your chaps out here and have a look…!”
Standing on the forward deck of his tank a moment later with his head clear now in the fresh air, Davids finally understood why Angus hadn’t been able to restart the engine. Centurion had been half buried already in its dug-in defensive position, and the space where the rear of the tank had been (and the engine along with it) was now little more than a pile of twisted metal. Directly behind the vehicle’s shattered rear end was a huge crater obviously left by the impact of one of the enemy artillery shells from the barrage. The blast had been close enough and strong enough to completely shred the armour protecting the rear hull and destroy the diesel engine inside. That it hadn’t been a direct hit was something of a minor miracle all things considered, and it was a sober sight indeed to see how close they’d all come to being blown to pieces.
“That’s one for the scrap book, Jimmy,” Knowles observed from right beside him, well aware of the man’s history and making a sincere effort to soften the mental impact such a near-miss was bound to have.
Winds of Change (Empires Lost Book 2) Page 5