It was obvious the battle was not going according to plan, and it struck me that somehow or another it looked as if we were the ‘suckers’ … Just then the Major appeared at my window. ‘Hello David,’ he said. ‘Well Sir,’ I said by way of conversation, ‘I take a pretty serious view of this.’ ‘Yes,’ said Terence, ‘sometimes things become so serious that they are just laughable,’ and we both laughed, but it was pretty forced.
Up until this time I had not been in the least worried about the possibilities of death, but now that it seemed almost probable I suddenly discovered that I did not want to die at all, and as I sat in my truck I found myself saying a few short prayers.
David spent the remainder of his period on guard on high alert, experiencing several false alarms, partly due to a curious feature of the North African desert at night:
The desert around us was strewn with large white snail shells, each nearly the size of a hen’s egg. Whenever vehicles moved near us in the dark these shells were squashed making a loud crunching noise. Several times I thought I heard noises of approaching enemy, and wandered out with one hand on my revolver and covered by a couple of sentries, but the Germans never attacked.
Better news reached David’s battery shortly before dawn; the 4th Brigade and 5th South African Brigade were reported to be drawing near, and that by 10 a.m. the battery would be relieved. In the event neither brigade turned up at the appointed time, but David’s regiment was spared the expected attack and instead managed to regroup and take part in another attempt to retake the airstrip at Sidi Rezegh later that day, during which David experienced a particularly narrow escape. In the afternoon he was sent to relieve a fellow officer, Hugh Barrow, at an observation post overlooking both the airstrip and nearby road, along which enemy vehicles were moving back and forth. Whilst Hugh was grabbing a bite to eat in the gully below, David watched as seventy German tanks refuelled and moved slowly out of sight westwards; David duly reported this back to headquarters on Hugh’s wireless. What happened some twenty minutes later took him completely by surprise:
A terrific noise started on my left, and several anti-tank portées* and other vehicles rushed past me firing behind them. The tanks had moved round in a wide arc and were attacking the aerodrome behind me from the west. I ran quickly back to the gully, winding in the wire of the remote control as I went, and Hugh and I drove out of the gully and over the next ridge with bullets and shells whizzing past us … Then I discovered that the Fourth Brigade had arrived, were coming onto the aerodrome from the east, and beginning to engage the Germans. Realising that I was on the wrong side of a tank battle, and being of no use to the troop without a wireless set, I decided to make my own way back across the aerodrome. We [i.e. David and his driver] drove as fast as we could straight through the middle of a tank battle, which was by then well under way, and thought ourselves very fortunate to arrive at the troop position undamaged.
David’s fellow officer Hugh Barrow remained behind enemy lines, dodging from gully to gully with his wireless set, reporting valuable information about the enemy’s movements, for which he was later awarded a Military Cross. This was also the well-documented engagement in which their Brigadier, Jock Campbell, was awarded the Victoria Cross. for outstanding bravery, as David’s memoir goes on to explain:
He led the tanks into action in an open staff car; then finding a troop of the Sixtieth Field regiment, who were having a hard time on the east of the aerodrome, he fired a gun, whose crew had been wiped out, continuing after he was wounded until he was carried out of the action on the back of a tank.
For David, these first few days of battle preceded a further three weeks of skirmishes and at times heavy fighting. On the one hand he clearly experienced the adrenalin rush of battle: ‘Then followed the most hectic and exciting days of my life.’ On the other hand, however, he quickly discovered the disadvantages of being in the artillery – as opposed to being in a more rapidly mobile unit of a regiment – in a desert environment:
I had always imagined that when the artillery went into action, they would choose some nice quiet spot, protected from the sight of the enemy by a good big wood or hill, and would fire over the heads of the infantry with nothing much to fear except the shells from retaliating batteries. During the following days I was very disillusioned. In the desert there were no friendly hills or woods, and being members of the Seventh Armoured Brigade there was usually no infantry in front. In battle we seemed to be the least protected and mobile of all. Tank battles in the desert were like naval battles. As in naval battles there was a great advantage in catching the enemy silhouetted against the rising or setting sun, where you could shoot them easily and they could hardly see you. Consequently there was much manoeuvring and you never knew from which direction the next attack was coming. The tank crews were protected by a certain amount of armour and could quickly advance or retire or change direction according to the tide of battle; we had no protecting armour, and if we wanted to advance or retire we must first bring up the gun-towers and limber up, packing up all the shells, charges and paraphernalia lying round the guns. If we were in a line facing, say, north, and the enemy attacked from the south, we had to turn the guns round and quickly bring up all our ‘soft stuff’, gun-towers, ammunition lorries etc which were dispersed behind the guns through the guns and disperse them on the opposite side. If the enemy attacked from the west we could not just turn our guns to the right as each would find itself pointing straight at its neighbour, but we would have to manhandle them round in wide arcs so that the whole troop could fire to the west unobstructed. During the following days although the troop remained in the same position we were made to spin round like a circus.
By now David must have appreciated the relevance of his training in the English West Country almost a year previously, much of which consisted of moving his troop’s guns – frequently at night – from one muddy field to another.
Other divisions, however, were not so well trained. After the arrival of the 5th South African Brigade, David was ordered to obtain from them a quantity of much-needed ammunition. It quickly became apparent to him that the South Africans were woefully ill-prepared for the ensuing fighting. Even at the height of battle, bureaucracy was one of the problems; once David had – with great difficulty – tracked down the troop Sergeant-Major in charge of supplies, he was obliged to sign a great many forms before two ammunition trucks were released into his care. Worse was to come, however, as his memoir describes:
The lorries were driven by negroes, who were deep down in slit trenches, and it was quite a job to get them both out at the same time. I discovered that the ammunition in the lorries was buried beneath a mass of water tanks, cooking apparatus and spare clothes. I told the drivers to pull it all out, and I led them off to our troop … On unloading I discovered that a great many of the cartridges were used. When I asked one of the drivers if he knew about it, he rolled his eyes and said, ‘Yus, Sah, dey bin like dat since Abyssinie; we don know why we lug dem round’ … After I had taken the black men back to their own troop, I told Pip Crane [a fellow officer] that they would all be wiped off the face of the desert, which prophecy was fulfilled later that day.
Indeed, that afternoon the South Africans were taken by surprise by Rommel’s column, which attacked their poorly guarded ‘B’ echelon. Although nearby, David’s troop could only watch helplessly as the Germans took prisoners and looted vehicles, for fear of hitting the South African troops, who now came streaming back through the British guns. Once those able to make their escape had done so, David’s troop opened fire, David taking over from another gunner who was unable to distinguish between German and South African tanks in the smoke and dust. David reported having the satisfaction of seeing two tanks, at which he had been firing, burst into flames. Meanwhile the Germans launched a secondary attack under the cover of some abandoned South African ambulances, of which David’s regiment’s ‘C’ troop bore the brunt, with heavy casualties.
Once again the outcome of the fi
ghting was inconclusive, with David’s unit being obliged to withdraw. The following day they received orders to come to the aid of the Allies’ advanced divisional headquarters, which were being threatened by Rommel’s column some 20 miles to the south. They set off, with David positioned at the rear with instructions to pick up any ‘stragglers’. At one point the Major radioed back to him to bring in an abandoned lorry which looked in good condition. Whilst obeying orders and roping the lorry in question onto another lorry, David got left some distance behind; to make matters worse his own truck then developed a petrol stoppage. Whilst his driver was cleaning out the petrol filters, they came under friendly fire from two Hurricanes who fortunately missed them. This, however, alerted David to the fact that there were enemy troops in the vicinity.
Once David and his driver got under way again they came across another ‘straggler’, a young Rifle Brigade officer and three men whose truck had lost a wheel. The young officer waved frantically for David to come to their rescue; David’s car was already carrying four men, but somehow he and the others managed to cram them on board and they set off once more to catch up with their troop. At that moment, David became aware of a huge enemy column advancing in the same direction on their right. Despite David’s driver’s best efforts to bear left with all possible speed, they were too weighed down to put any distance between themselves and the enemy column, who had by now noticed them. Two German cars detached themselves from the column and raced over, opening fire. What occurred next was another of David’s lucky escapes, as his memoir describes:
Unfortunately I was prevented from returning fire by the young R.B. officer, who had been sitting on the roof behind me with his legs hanging over my shoulders, and who, when the shooting started, evidently decided that the top of the car was a bad place to be, and clambered over my head onto the left mudguard. His feet slipped and he was left clutching onto the mudguard with his legs bumping along the ground, and yelling frantically to me to rescue him. I leaned over the door and managed to catch hold of the bottom of one of his trouser legs, and we proceeded thus until we drew out of range and I was able to order a halt and pull him in again. We were barely on the move again before the motor started to choke and splutter and once again the car stopped. At this moment a Bren carrier, which had apparently also been left behind our column, appeared like a saving angel. I waved frantically at it, and when it drew alongside us I asked the officer in charge if he would take all eight of us on board. He replied that we could but try, and there didn’t seem to be any alternative, so the twelve of us limped along in the Bren carrier and managed to rejoin our column.
David made use of a temporary lull in the fighting the following morning to take some wounded men to the first-aid post, where he took the opportunity to have the desert sores on his hands dressed. That afternoon David was granted a temporary reprieve from front-line action and an opportunity to use his initiative. The major told him that the regiment was preparing to seek out and destroy a German column to the north, but that there was little point in taking along the severely depleted ‘C’ troop. Instead David was instructed to stay behind to look after them, collect any missing men and try and bring in some abandoned trucks. The following day, having got food and water for the thirty men in his charge, David was on the point of setting off to find the abandoned vehicles, when he received a chance visit from Brigadier Jock Campbell. The brigadier advised David that the direction in which he was heading was too risky, and that if he was supposed to be re-organising a troop, he probably had more pressing things to do.
David decided to get more guns, a tall order for a lowly Second-Lieutenant, but one in which he was ultimately successful. First he made contact with advance army headquarters, and requested guns and vehicles for an entire troop. On David’s assurance that he had the requisite number of drivers, arrangements were made for four guns to be sent to the railhead and for David to be granted the necessary support vehicles. Having selected fourteen drivers, David set off immediately in the salvaged lorry, leaving the other men in the charge of the Sergeant-Major. The following morning they reached the army headquarters just inside the Egyptian border near Fort Madalena, where David reported to the authorities and met the generals, who seemed pleased with the progress of the advance. Then began a few days of feverish activity, which David described thus:
During the next few days I worked harder than I have probably ever worked in my life. I was up at dawn and busy till after dark, never finding time to have a proper meal or even a shave. I was afraid that I might have perhaps overstepped myself by ordering equipment for a whole troop without consulting anyone … At rear army headquarters I learned that there were only four ‘pick-ups’ (8cwt* vehicles equipped with wirelesses) in reserve for the army, and that I was not important enough to have two of them. This meant that I had to collect vehicles in one place, wirelesses in another, and have them fitted in yet another, and there didn’t seem to be any batteries or head-phones available. The guns duly arrived up from Matruh, but had no sights or gun tools … All the new vehicles which I collected had to be equipped with three days’ reserve food and water for the number of crew which they would eventually contain. The officers in charge of food and water points were very reluctant to grant me this, and I had great trouble in obtaining sufficient water cans.
Worse was to come; whilst collecting rations one evening in semi-darkness, David drove over some barbed wire which wound itself round his car’s rear axle and ripped open the petrol tank. He managed, with great difficulty, to have it repaired the following morning; however his driver had by this time developed an extremely painful poisoned thumb, and David was obliged to leave him at a field hospital and take over the driving himself.
David had one stroke of luck in the midst of these frenetic three days. Whilst driving through a desert transit camp en route to the railhead, he came across a further fifteen men from his regiment who had been on leave when the battle started and had been unable to rejoin their troop. David divided these extra hands between his new vehicles and, finally, with justifiable pride, was ready to lead them back into action:
By the end of the third day I had gathered together everything obtainable, and set off as night fell with my fine new troop laden up with petrol, water, rations and ammunition. On the following afternoon I was once again with the sergeant-major and fifteen men who I had left behind.
I now had forty-five men and was able to form them temporarily into sections to make a fighting troop. I was able to collect a few more gun sights and tools, some old clothes in lieu of cleaning materials for the guns, some German spades from an abandoned lorry, and pick-helves* to be used in place of ramrods. Next day we drove the last lap of twenty miles across deserted desert to report to Brigadier Campbell, and then accompanied the ‘B’ echelon in the dark to rejoin the battery, where I was welcomed very enthusiastically by Terence [Major O’Brien-Butler], who immediately inspected the new guns and vehicles.
Almost inevitably, pride came before a fall. The following day David discovered his new wireless did not work because the batteries were flat, nor could he start his car for the same reason. As luck would have it, the colonel drove over to find David having his car pushed round in circles by a lorry behind the guns in an effort to start it. David admitted in his memoir:
I was secretly expecting him [the colonel] to give me a pat on the back for producing a renovated troop at such short notice, but instead he gave me a good dressing down for allowing my guns to be in too straight a line, thereby making a fine target for a strafing enemy plane.
Happily this reprimand failed to dent David’s pride entirely, for despite their various technical shortcomings, his new munitions evidently added to the regiment’s fire-power, as his memoir goes on to explain: ‘During the next three days the troop averaged eight hundred rounds a day, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that these rounds would not have fallen among the enemy but for my efforts.’
It would not be long, however, befor
e David’s luck ran out.
Notes
* Trucks carrying anti-tank guns.
* hundredweight.
* ‘helve’ means ‘handle’.
Nine
Capture
(December 1941)
On 7 December 1941, an event took place that was to change the course of the war. Over the past few decades Japan had become the dominant force in South-East Asia, with an increasingly aggressive expansionist policy. Tensions between Japan and the USA had been building steadily, and by December 1941 relations between the two countries had reached an all time low. Though Japan was not yet technically at war with the USA, Japanese attacks on the colonies of the Western Powers in the Far East were feared. Nevertheless the Japanese bombing of the US Pacific Fleet at its main base on Oahu Island in Hawaii, within US territory, came as a complete surprise to the forces stationed there, and shocked the world. However calamitous, this proved a pivotal point in the fortunes of the war. Up until then the USA, whilst offering aid to the Allies in the form of convoys and munitions, had yet to declare war on the Axis forces; now its hand was forced, and within a matter of days America formally joined what had now become a global conflict. On this side of the Atlantic, Britain no longer stood alone, as Prime Minister Winston Churchill made clear in his broadcast to the British public on 8 December. The tide had finally turned in the Allies’ favour.
* * *
Meanwhile, David’s regiment continued to fight inconclusively in North Africa until, in his own words, came ‘the dreadful night when I was captured’. The official history of DD Battery records the event briefly as follows:
Farming, Fighting and Family Page 17