Whilst Bob waited for GHQ to digest this, he attended what he found to be a most interesting Combined Operations course at the Combined Training Centre at Kabrit, run by Brigadier M. W. M. MacLeod, a founder member of the Inter Services Training and Development Centre in the UK and one of the early apostles of combined operations. Among his fellow students Bob found, to his pleasure, his two friends from Crete, Brigadiers Vasey and Hargest.
He also caught up with those former members of 8 Commando who had remained in the Middle East. Daly, now a major again, was delighted to have been selected to lead the Middle East Squadron of the GHQ Liaison Regiment, usually known as Phantom and responsible for keeping the commanders in the field in touch with developments during a moving battle.3 He was joined there by Mather. Randolph Churchill and Robin Campbell were running a new propaganda and censorship branch at GHQ.
Bob was summoned to a meeting at GHQ on 11 October, which was attended by staff officers from the various departments concerned. The reaction to his paper was universally hostile:
My original proposals were completely unprecedented and, ipso facto, totally unacceptable to the General Staff, though in all fairness to the officers who turned them down I must admit that I gave them a legitimate excuse for doing so for they argued that, at this stage of the war, they could not provide the equipment for which I asked; though I suspect that, even had they been in a position to do so, they would still have vetoed my ideas on all sorts of other grounds.4
Bob was ordered instead to form what would become the new Middle East Commando, a much less ambitious undertaking, which excluded the LRDG and all mention of the exclusive use of ships and planes. This unit would comprise an HQ and a Depot Troop, the latter responsible for reinforcements under training, No. 2 Troop formed from L Detachment SAS, No. 3 Troop from 11 Commando and former Layforce personnel not on any other establishment, Nos. 4 and 5 Troops from 51 Commando and No. 6 Troop from the Folbot Troop, now called the Special Boat Section. The new unit would be placed directly under GHQ. It was agreed that the reorganization could not be fully implemented until the arrival of 51 Commando from East Africa. As the officer commanding designate, Bob was restored on 15 October to the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel.
It was a far cry not only from Bob’s proposals, but also from Churchill’s. There was no appointment as Director of Combined Operations, let alone promotion to Brigadier. Although Bob almost certainly did not know the contents of the Prime Minister’s memos to Ismay, he was distinctly unhappy, writing to Angie on 18 October that he was very disappointed with his new job and had said so in high places, going on to write two days later that he would probably be sacked for it. He continued:
Incidentally I hear that Dickie MtB is to be made D.C.O in place of Roger Keyes!! If they don’t give me what I have asked for here – for God’s sake tell Dickie to ask for me to help him. On second thoughts he will probably do his damndest to keep me as far away from you as possible??!!!5
Mountbatten was renowned as having an eye for the ladies!
The situation was not helped by a subsequent pitch from G(R) to have control of the Special Boat Section, as it had recently been employed under that department’s auspices, in conjunction with the Royal Navy. The other GHQ departments were opposed to this, but the matter was not resolved and hung in the balance.
Bob’s unhappiness was expressed in a memo to Auchinleck dated 17 October. He reminded the C-in-C of their meeting in September, when Bob had been invited to consult Auchinleck if any difficulties arose. He continued:
I believe that I should be serving you ill if I did not represent to you before the force comes into being that it will have little value if it is to be organised, manned, and equipped as at present envisaged.
I have already raised this question with G (Training) who, though inclined to agree that my fears might be well founded, suggested that it would be better to give the organisation a trial before condemning it.
I believe, however, that it is simply a waste of time and potential to wait for a scheme which is foredoomed to failure to show itself a failure in practice.6
He went on to say that the impression he had received from the Adjutant General’s branch in particular was that the proposed new unit was an unmitigated nuisance. He conceded that L Detachment would, when properly equipped, constitute a unit of considerable potential, but reminded the C-in-C that the Folbot Section was essentially a reconnaissance unit rather than a striking force. The other troops, however, ‘though doubtless containing a number of excellent officers and men, cannot be considered the most effective organisation for carrying out operational tasks which will call for an exceptionally high standard of discipline and training.’7 Finally, he made the point that ‘this heterogeneous collection of soldiers’8 would be entirely reliant on the other services before it could go into action and reiterated his request that they should have their own transport, at least as to landing craft and aircraft, with officers attached from the other services.
The reply came not from the C-in-C, but from Smith. As well as expressing his concern about the impression given by A branch and confirming that Auchinleck was prepared to meet Bob, he came quickly to the crux of the matter:
The real difficulty about S.S. troops is that we simply have not got the men and we are now thousands of men short of our requirements in ordinary infantry battalions in the Middle East.
I have told the Commander-in-Chief that I really cannot recommend calling for volunteers for an S.S. unit in view of this shortage. This does NOT mean that when we get reinforcements we shall not be able to expand the S.S. organisation. 9
Whether or not Bob saw Auchinleck is not recorded. In any event, for the time being the Middle East Commando remained a unit only on paper, pending the arrival of 51 Commando. The other constituent parts remained entirely separate, but in the meantime both L Detachment and the remnants of 11 Commando were put at the disposal of Eighth Army, which had been recently formed under Lieutenant General Sir Alan Cunningham, in order to support Operation CRUSADER, a new offensive to relieve Tobruk and retake Cyrenaica.
L Detachment’s role, in which Bob had no involvement, was to attack the Axis airfields at Tmimi and Gazala, put them out of commission and destroy as many aircraft as could be found. Those selected for the operation were divided into five parties, each of which was to be dropped from a Bristol Bombay aircraft. In the event, the operation, which took place on the night of 16/17 November, was a debacle. None of the parties achieved their objectives. Of the sixty-two men who set out, only twenty-two returned, the rest being killed or captured. However, the efficient way in which the survivors were picked up by the LRDG persuaded Stirling that it would be much better to make the approach to operations overland than by air. This was to be the hallmark of the SAS in the future and, although Lewes was killed shortly thereafter, it grew steadily in strength and reputation.
Meanwhile, 11 Commando had continued to wither away and was now reduced to five officers and 110 men. This, however, was more than sufficient to carry out a plan which Keyes had conceived and which he now put to Bob, prior to it being approved by Cunningham. The plan was for a number of raids to be carried out far to the rear of the Axis front line, the most important and audacious of which was an attack on Rommel’s supposed HQ and living quarters, which intelligence indicated was in the small town of Beda Littoria, situated in the Jebel Akhdar, the hilly and relatively fertile area in the bulge of Cyrenaica. One of the objectives, although it featured nowhere in the subsequent orders, was to kill or capture Rommel himself. The other targets were an Italian HQ and wireless mast at Cyrene, a wireless station and intelligence centre at Apollonia and other communications facilities. The raids were to take place immediately before the launch of CRUSADER. Bob was initially highly sceptical:
When the plan was submitted to me as Comdr. of the M.E. Commandos, I gave it as my considered opinion that the chances of being evacuated after the operation were very slender and that the attack
on Gen. R’s house in particular appeared to be desperate in the extreme. This attack, even if initially successful, meant almost certain death for those who took part in it. I made these comments in the presence of Col. Keyes who begged me not to repeat them lest the operation be cancelled.10
To Cunningham and his staff, however, it represented a very low-cost way of striking a blow which, if successful, would do serious damage to the enemy’s command structure, his communications and his morale.
During October, two reconnaissance missions were mounted, the first by Captain Jock Haselden, a G(R) officer working with the LRDG, who landed from HM Submarine Torbay with an Arab NCO. He surveyed a possible landing beach at Khashm al-Kalb, 18 miles from Beda Littoria, before heading to the town in Arab disguise. After missing a number of designated rendezvous, he was eventually picked up by an LRDG patrol and reported back his findings, which were that the beach would be suitable and that a local Arab agent had confirmed that the house in question had been used by Rommel.
The second mission consisted of Keyes’s adjutant, Captain Tommy Macpherson, a corporal from 11 Commando and two officers from the Special Boat Section, who landed from HM Submarine Talisman to check out an alternative beach at Ras Hillal on the night of 24/25 October. Although they landed satisfactorily, they failed to make contact with the submarine on their return, attempted to get back overland and were all captured. Ras Hillal was ruled out as having been compromised, and Khashm al-Kalb was designated as the preferred beach.
The order for Operation FLIPPER was issued on 9 November and, on the afternoon of the following day, six officers and 50 other ranks embarked in Torbay and Talisman in Alexandria. The party was drawn substantially from 11 Commando, with Robin Campbell, transferred from his propaganda work at GHQ , a late addition due to his fluency in German. Keyes led the detachment on Torbay with two other officers, Campbell and Lieutenant Roy Cooke, a relatively new recruit. Bob himself was the senior officer on Talisman, with Lieutenant David Sutherland, who had recently joined 11 Commando from the remnants of 8 Commando, and Lieutenant H. G. Chevalier, an Arabic-speaking Frenchman who had been working for G(R) in Cyrenaica.
With two lieutenant colonels the structure of the party was top-heavy, and questions have been asked as to why Bob thought it necessary to go along. Some have suggested that this was because a successful outcome would help to expunge a blot on his copybook from Crete. This seems improbable, for two reasons. Firstly, there is no evidence of any criticism at the time, official or otherwise, of his actions on Crete. Secondly, Bob was only too aware of the low probability of success. More likely, in the knowledge that the full deployment of the new Middle East Commando was to be delayed until the end of the year, he was keen to be personally involved in at least one of its interim operations; indeed, he was later to claim that it was difficult to command without some experience of what was going on in the field. Furthermore, Keyes was only twenty-four, with a mere four and a half years of military service to his name, and was widely thought to have been over-promoted. Bob had recommended his confirmation as CO of 11 Commando and therefore possibly felt accountable: his own presence might help to ensure that all went to plan. In any event, he was effectively in charge of the whole operation, with Keyes specifically responsible for the raid on Rommel’s supposed HQ.
The two submarines arrived off Khashm al-Kalb on 14 November and both carried out a daylight periscope reconnaissance, which revealed no movement. That night, a folbot was sent ashore from Torbay, making contact with Haselden. On its return, Torbay prepared to disembark Keyes and his party. Attempts to launch the rubber boats by trimming down the submarine to float them off went wrong time and again, and the exercise took five hours instead of one, but the party eventually managed to get ashore by about midnight. Talisman, which had no idea of the difficulties being experienced, was at last signalled to carry out its own launchings, but the swell had increased materially and, time and again, the boats capsized and were swept away. One man was drowned, and in the end only Bob and seven other ranks were able to paddle to the beach.
Cold and wet, the men who had landed waited until it was clear that no more would be coming that night from Talisman and then moved about a mile inland to a pre-selected wadi, where they lay up for the whole of the next day. The folbot officer, Lieutenant John Pryor, and his crewman, Bombardier Brittlebank, remained behind on the beach.
The loss of nearly half the full party meant that the objectives had to be reconsidered. The raid on Rommel’s house was clearly the most important of these, so Keyes, with a detachment consisting of Campbell and seventeen other ranks, the most senior of whom was Sergeant Jack Terry, was ordered to carry this out. Cooke and six other ranks were to accompany him on the approach march and, if Keyes felt that he could manage without them, would then carry out the demolition work on the communications mast near Cyrene. Haselden, who would be leaving to rejoin the LRDG, undertook to cut other communications. Before going he told Keyes that the house now believed to be occupied by Rommel was a different one to that previously identified, and the plan of attack was modified accordingly. Bob and six men, including the two folbotists, were to stay behind to secure the approaches to the beach and to await the arrival of the remainder of the party from Talisman, which in the event never happened.
That night, Keyes and his men left to carry out their tasks, feeling their way across very difficult country in steadily worsening weather, cold and wet. They lay up for all of the next day, helped by local Arabs, one of whom then guided them on the second night to a cave in which to rest for the following day. On the evening of 17 November they approached Beda Littoria, where they were stopped by Italian Arab carabinieri, whom Campbell managed to persuade that the party was a German patrol. After a brief reconnaissance of their target, Keyes decided that he had no need of Cooke’s party, which was sent off to carry out its demolitions.
The accounts of what happened next, provided initially by Terry and used for Bob’s subsequent report, then by Campbell and some of the other survivors, and finally by the Germans, are seriously inconsistent. Their common ground is that one group was sent to hold off any attempts to relieve the Germans, whilst another was placed to the rear of the house, with instructions to shoot anyone who emerged without giving the agreed password. Two men were left on guard by the front entrance, whilst Keyes, Campbell, Terry and one other entered the house. Surprise was achieved and Keyes burst into a room occupied by some Germans, a number of whom were killed or wounded. Keyes, however, was killed himself, whilst Campbell was seriously wounded in the leg. As to detail, the accounts differ in material respects, and the full truth will never be known. However, it can be said with some certainty that Campbell was shot by one of his own men when he left the house in the darkness but forgot to give the password. As the German report, which is likely to be one of the more reliable ones, states that only one shot was fired by them, it is likely that Keyes was also shot by his own side in the confusion, possibly even by Campbell.
In the knowledge that Keyes was dead, and realizing that he himself was unable to move and would be a burden to others, Campbell gave orders to Terry to withdraw the whole party. This Terry did, deciding not to lie up but to march all day, eventually reaching the rendezvous agreed with Bob at 17.00. As darkness fell, Torbay was spotted lying off the bay. The rubber boats, which had earlier been removed by some Arabs, were located, but a line was needed to pull them out to the submarine. Bob was the only person present with any knowledge of Morse code and he signalled for a folbot to be sent with one. His signalling skills were not, however, particularly good and he was handicapped by his torch having no Morse button, meaning that he had constantly to turn it on and off. His signals and Torbay’s were both misunderstood and the submarine disappeared, with the intention of returning the next night.
In the meantime, Cooke’s party, which had achieved only partial success in demolishing the communications mast, had been surrounded as it tried to make its way back to the
rendezvous and was forced to surrender.
At about midday on 19 November shots were heard from the outlying sentries and a sizeable force of carabinieri could be seen approaching. Bob sent men to outflank it, but it soon became apparent that the enemy was in such strength that they would be overcome. He then gave the order to scatter in groups of not more than three men, with the intention of either reaching another beach, off which Talisman would be lying on the nights of 21 and 22 November, trying to make contact with the LRDG or waiting for British forces to arrive, in the event that their offensive had been successful. Pryor had been wounded and was left behind, but the others made off into the scrub.
Bob teamed up with Jack Terry and, having evaded the enemy cordon, the two men headed south into the Jebel Akhdar. The country, whilst difficult to cross in the dark, provided plenty of cover by way of rocks, bushes, wadis and caves, so that the fugitives could lie up in the daytime and, with Bob’s binoculars, spot any pursuers from some distance away. They adopted a practice of determining which area had been searched during the day and then moving there by night, confident in the knowledge that it would not be revisited. When they found a cave they were able to light a fire for warmth on the cold winter nights.
The only rations which they were able to bring with them, a few tins and a packet of sweets, were exhausted before very long, and for a time they survived on berries. Although the weather had dried up, initially they were able to drink from puddles and, after the first week or so, there was sufficient rain to satisfy their thirst. They sheltered in caves as often as possible, but on one occasion, contrary to their habit, neither man was on guard and they woke to hear a noise at the entrance, where Bob had left his revolver and binoculars. They lay very still, but in due course a man entered the cave. His surprise was as great as theirs, but happily he turned out to be a member of the local Senussi tribe, who were hostile to the Italians and, on the whole, favourably disposed to the British. Bob later said that they would not have survived if it had not been for the Senussi, who brought them unleavened bread and, on one occasion, a whole cooked goat which, by eating everything except the hooves, they managed to make last for days. Terry had been a butcher’s boy before joining up, which came in handy.
Commando General Page 17