Target Tobruk: Yeoman in the Western Desert

by Robert Jackson

  Yeoman felt his blood freeze as the soldier stared directly at him. The man strolled towards him almost casually, then jabbed him painfully in the ribs with the muzzle of his rifle.

  ‘Du!’ he said softly. ‘Wie heisst du?’

  Yeoman, doing his best to look like a terrified fisherman, shook his head dumbly. The soldier jabbed him again with the rifle and the pilot felt the red flames of anger sweep through him, sparking off a wild urge to seize the weapon and ram the butt down the man’s throat.

  Suddenly, he felt Manos’s restraining hand on his arm. Manos grinned, tapped his head significantly, and then pointed at Yeoman. The latter rolled his eyes and slobbered, picking his nose. He had read somewhere that the Germans detested nose-pickers. It seemed to be true, for the soldier looked at him in disgust and contempt and spat at his feet.

  ‘Ach, Scheisse,’ he snarled, turning to his comrades, ‘sie sind wirklich Untermenschen!’

  Give me a go at you without that rifle, thought Yeoman, who had understood every word, and I’ll show you who’s bloody subhuman!

  Without another word, the German NCO turned on his heel and led his men from the beach. Yeoman started breathing again and turned back to his net. ‘What happens now?’ he whispered to Manos.

  Before Manos had a chance to reply they were startled by the sound of a fusillade of rifle shots. A minute later, paratroops emerged from one of the houses, dragging the bodies of two men. One of the Germans seemed to be wounded; he staggered and clutched his shoulder.

  ‘The fools,’ whispered Manos. ‘They were told not to resist. Resistance at this stage is futile and can only lead to reprisals.’

  Retaliation was swift, but it was not as brutal as it might have been. Within half an hour of the incident, the entire population of Ierapetra had been ordered to go indoors and to stay there, on pain of death. The pilots, together with half a dozen fishermen, were herded into one of the waterfront houses at gunpoint and crammed into a small, stifling room. Out of the single tiny window, they could see armed German patrols passing along the street. Craning his neck, Yeoman saw two heavy machine-guns being sited in good positions to sweep the beach with their fire. He had also noticed that the Germans had mortars with them. The enemy seemed to be anticipating trouble, and he wondered why; the town seemed quiet enough. He voiced his thoughts to Kendal, who provided a likely answer.

  ‘A lot of our chaps must still be on the run,’ the squadron leader said, ‘and the Jerries know that the Navy will do their best to pick as many up as possible, so they’re covering all likely embarkation points.’

  ‘Well,’ Yeoman retorted, ‘they’ve certainly got us in a corner. What’s bothering me is if Manos’s boat does turn up, it will sail right into a trap. There must be something we can do, but right at this moment I’m damned if I know what.’

  Another truckload of Germans arrived soon afterwards, and dug themselves into carefully concealed positions along the beach. Penned in their stifling room, the prisoners took it in turns to watch helplessly, moving quickly away from, the window whenever a patrol went by. Night came, and a brilliant moon cast its light over the coast. Nothing, they knew, could move without being seen.

  It was Bright who saw it first, a few minutes before midnight. Nosing round the spit of land, past the old fort, came a schooner, its sails silver and ghostly in the moonlight. Bright beckoned to the others and they crowded at the small window, and Yeoman, although he could not yet be quite certain, thought that he recognized the vessel.

  Unless he was very much mistaken, she was the Contessa Maria. He prayed that he was right, for if anyone could get them out of this mess, it was Pegleg Phillips. Yeoman was convinced that the redoubtable commander would not venture close to potentially hostile territory unless he had a trump card or two up his sleeve.

  The schooner hove to a quarter of a mile offshore and lay there, broadside on to the beach, every detail stark and clear in the silver light. There was no sign of movement on deck.

  For a full ten minutes nothing happened. And then, magically, something pale and spectral appeared over the ship’s stern, fluttering briefly in the light breeze that came off the sea. It was a White Ensign.

  The sight of the Royal Navy’s colours was the signal the enemy had been waiting for. Both machine-guns on the beach opened up simultaneously, sending lances of tracer towards the ship. From the other positions, spread out over an arc of two hundred yards, the paratroops joined in with rapid rifle fire.

  For an instant, Yeoman could hardly believe his eyes. The schooner’s superstructure seemed to be melting and crumbling; the visual effect was strange, supernatural and almost frightening, but there was a bigger shock to come. Abruptly, the ship’s deck exploded into twinkling, flickering fire, and a split second later the beach erupted as a storm of bullets and shells ripped into it.

  Even as he threw himself to the floor, yelling to the others to follow suit, Yeoman’s brain provided the answer. Q-ships. That was what Russ Kemp had told him about Phillips’s career during the last war; he had commanded Q-ships, innocent-looking merchantmen with dummy structures on deck that concealed an arsenal of weapons. There was no doubt that the schooner was the Contessa Maria, and, judging by the volume of fire that was coming from her, she must be stiff with quick-firing cannon and heavy machine-guns.

  They hugged the dirt floor of the house as the firing continued for several minutes. Ricochets and shrapnel whined over the rooftops or struck the walls of the houses with a noise like hail.

  The hammering of the schooner’s quick-firers ceased abruptly, although her machine-guns continued to fire in short, staccato bursts, and Yeoman decided to risk a peek over the windowsill. Smoke and drifting sand hung in clouds over the beach, and through it Yeoman saw that the Germans were pulling back towards the town. Both machine-guns appeared to have been knocked out by the raking cannon-fire and the surviving paratroops were moving up the beach in short dashes, dodging the schooner’s accurate bullets.

  They reached the waterfront street, and at that moment, rending the air with blood-curdling screams, the entire fishing population of Ierapetra — men, women and even children — burst from their houses like a flood-tide and fell upon them with axes, kitchen knives and clubs. The enemy, already confused by the volume of fire the schooner had poured at them, had no time to organize themselves and died where they stood. Yeoman saw the NCO who had threatened him on the beach pinned to the door of a house by a billhook through his throat and hang there for long moments, wriggling and choking in his blood. Sickened, the pilot turned away. In less than two minutes, the only Germans left in Ierapetra were corpses.

  Two boats left the schooner and came ashore, carrying parties of armed seamen. The townspeople streamed down to meet them, cheering and waving, sweeping Yeoman and his friends along like driftwood.

  Yeoman forced his way through the crowd and made for the burly figure who climbed out of the first boat. Despite the blackened face and the Italian machine-pistol slung over his shoulder, there was no mistaking Lieutenant-Commander Alistair Phillips. He peered at Yeoman and addressed him in Greek.

  ‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying, sir,’ the pilot grinned. ‘Actually, we’ve met before, in Tobruk. Flying Officer Yeoman.’

  ‘Good God!’ Phillips exclaimed, stepping back in astonishment. ‘You certainly get around. Listen, maybe you can help. We were picking up stragglers along the coast when we got a signal to divert here. There wasn’t any other information. What’s going on?’

  Briefly, Yeoman explained the situation. Catching sight of Manos in the throng, he waved him over and introduced him, together with Kendal and the others. Christos appeared, smiling broadly, and through Manos Yeoman asked if the old man was worried about enemy reprisals because of what had happened. After a few words, Manos turned back to the pilot and said:

  ‘There is no need to worry. Christos says that by dawn the Germans and their lorries will have disappeared. There are many places in the mountains
where the people can dispose of them. They will simply vanish without trace, and the people will deny all knowledge of them.’

  ‘Look,’ Phillips interrupted, ‘I think we ought to get moving. We’ve got about four hours of darkness left, and we’re ready to sail. We’ve picked up all the chaps we can, and there’s nothing more we can do.’

  Watched by the now silent townspeople, they.climbed into the boats. As they pushed off, Manos stood upright, set down his precious haversack, raised his arms and called out something. Out of curiosity, Yeoman asked him what he had said.

  ‘I told them we would be back,’ Manos said quietly. ‘No matter how long it takes, we’ll be back one day.’

  Yeoman looked back at the silvery beach, with its dark cloud of watchers, and made a silent promise to himself. Some time in the years ahead, he too would return to Crete. The Cretans had given him his freedom, and somewhere along the line he had a debt to pay.

  Chapter Ten

  Yeoman returned to Tobruk in the third week of November, 1941, accompanied this time by the other Hurricanes of No. 493 Squadron. They arrived in the midst of a three-day period of torrential rain, low cloud and dust-storms which immediately glued them to the ground and rendered two of the Hurricanes unserviceable.

  In the five and a half months since Yeoman’s exodus from Crete, the course of the war had undergone dramatic changes. On 22 June the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union, and suddenly Britain was no longer alone in her desperate fight. In the Mediterranean, the courageous garrison and people of Malta continued to defy the day and night attacks of the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica, Mussolini’s air force, while the RAF bombers on the island took an increasing toll of Rommel’s supply lines to North Africa.

  In the desert, a new spirit was growing among the Commonwealth air and ground crews. To all outward appearances, they composed a ragged, ill-washed band, the like of which had never been seen before. Most of the crews dressed in a manner that would have given a disciplinarian warrant officer back home an immediate apoplectic fit, scrounging items of clothing from every conceivable source. A lot of it came from the abandoned supply dumps of the Afrika Korps and the Italian Army, for Rommel’s romp towards Cairo had been firmly halted. The Allies were once more on the offensive, and it was not unusual to see a British pilot wearing an Australian bush hat, German Army jackboots, shorts held up by an Italian belt, and a khaki pullover purloined from some Eighth Army quartermaster.

  Together, they constituted the nucleus of the most formidable, effective and battle-eager air combat team in the world. In years to come, those who survived would speak proudly of the title that was soon to be bestowed on them: the Desert Air Force.

  For Yeoman and the others who had escaped with him from Crete, there had been leave in Palestine. There had been sight-seeing trips he would remember all his life, and a couple of girls he had forgotten almost immediately. There had been mail, too, from his father and a few friends, notably Jim Callender, alongside whom he had fought in the Battles of France and Britain, and who now commanded a flight of an American Eagle squadron. His unit, composed mainly of young American pilots who had rejected their country’s neutrality and had crossed the Atlantic to fight Britain’s war, flew Spitfires and was apparently having a successful time carrying out fighter ‘sweeps’ deep into occupied France and Belgium.

  Jim’s letter contained news, too, of another former colleague, Simon Wynne-Williams, who had been shot down during the Battle of Britain and terribly burned. He was in some sort of special hospital at East Grinstead, where a surgeon named Mclndoe seemed to be performing miracles on him.

  It was good to know that Jim was in good health and that Simon was recovering from his fearful injuries, but the news did little to assuage the hurt that Yeoman felt, deep down inside. There was still no word from Julia. Maybe, he thought, she wanted nothing more to do with him; if that was the case, it would have been better if she had written and told him so, straight out. No matter how hard he tried, he could not put her completely from his mind.

  Following their leave, Warrant Officer Fraser had departed for No. 1 Personnel Despatch Centre at Almaza, just outside Cairo. Kendal and the other surviving pilots of 493 Squadron had gone to the Palestinian airfield of Aqir for a spell of non-operational duty. Their ‘rest’ had involved the conversion of a newly-formed Royal Hellenic Air Force Squadron to Hurricanes; many of the pilots had already fought in Greece, flying Gloster Gladiators. After two and a half months of intensive training the Greeks had flown their fighters to the Canal Zone, where they were to undertake air defence duties before leaving for a frontline airstrip, while Kendal and his men had travelled to Edku, a coastal airfield situated some twenty-five miles east of Alexandria.

  Here, in October 1941, No. 493 Squadron was reformed with new Hurricane Mk. 11s, flown in from Tako-radi. The unit was now at full squadron strength with twelve aircraft, and Yeoman was appointed to command ‘A’ Flight. They shared Edku with their old friends, Commandant Combette’s Free French Blenheim Squadron, and the South African Air Force fighter squadron under van den Heever, now a major. The South Africans had learned a great deal over the past few months and were now among the most battle-hardened units in the desert, having exchanged their early P-40 Tomahawks for later model P-40E Kittyhawks.

  Together, the three units formed No. 260 Wing. After two weeks at Edku — fascinating, to Yeoman at least, because of the shimmering mirage of a city, with rose-pink walls, minarets and battlements that could sometimes be seen at the western end of the runway — they moved forward to Landing Ground 122, east of Maddalena, from where they carried out intensive low-level attacks on Axis supply columns. In two weeks of operations, during which Yeoman personally never saw an enemy aircraft, the enemy had been forced firmly on to the defensive. The desert west of the Egyptian frontier was littered with the wreckage of German and Italian transport, mute testimony to the effectiveness of the Allied air strikes. And when, in November, Yeoman was selected to lead six Hurricanes of 493 Squadron to the airstrip within the Tobruk perimeter for offensive operations, he had an inkling of what was in the wind: a big counter-offensive designed to hurl Rommel out of Cyrenaica and relieve the Tobruk garrison.

  Yeoman found vast changes in Tobruk. The Australians, together with the formidable General Morshead, had been evacuated to Palestine, their place in the Tobruk garrison taken by the British 70th Division, the Polish Carpathian Brigade and the 32nd Army Tank Brigade. To his surprise and pleasure, Yeoman discovered that the 2nd Battalion the Black Watch, which had been among the defenders of Heraklion, was now in Tobruk, and on the first night following his arrival he and his fellow pilots were royally entertained by their officers.

  They called the Allied counter-offensive Operation Crusader, and it was launched at dawn on 18 November in torrential rain. The rainstorm swept over Tobruk, and as soon as it had cleared Yeoman and his pilots were airborne, roving deep inside enemy territory and shooting up anything that moved.

  For the first two days all went well for the Eighth Army and the Tobruk garrison stood poised to break through the enemy lines and link up with two Allied divisions which were advancing north and east towards the fortress. The order to break out finally came in the early hours of the 21st, and at first light the Black Watch stormed into battle against enemy strongpoints facing the eastern sector of the perimeter, their pipes skirling under the lowering clouds.

  At seven-fifteen Yeoman, together with a sergeant pilot named Sloane, took off to carry out a reconnaissance towards El Duda, the point where the garrison was supposed to join up with the advancing Eighth Army forces. They reached El Duda and saw nothing but Axis transport, rolling south-eastwards, and as they flew on towards Sidi Rezegh, a remote spot in the desert that derived its name from the burial place of some long-forgotten sheikh, Yeoman felt an increasing sense of foreboding.

  Ahead of the speeding Hurricanes, dense columns of smoke rose from the desert, partially obscuring the rising sun. As they
drew closer, the full realization of what had happened struck Yeoman like a physical blow. The desert floor was strewn with the burning remains of tanks, almost all of them British. The two pilots were looking down on all that was left of the British 7th Armoured Brigade, wiped out by Rommel’s Panzers and the deadly 88-mm anti-tank guns. Beyond the devastation, the Axis armour was sweeping on towards the Egyptian frontier, throwing the divisions that were to have relieved Tobruk into disorganized retreat.

  Yeoman and Sloane, their hearts leaden, flew back to Tobruk and made their reports to Garrison HQ. On Yeoman’s initiative, Sloane was ordered to fly to Fort Maddalena, where the Eighth Army had established its headquarters, with a first-hand account of what had happened at Sidi Rezegh. Only then did the Eighth Army staff begin to realize the full extent of the disaster that had overwhelmed the British Armour, with all its implications.

  The British offensive almost foundered in the wreckage of Sidi Rezegh; almost, but not quite. For three days, while the men of the Tobruk garrison clung desperately to the ground they had gained, the Allied commanders fought hard to regroup their scattered, dislocated forces, to check Rommel’s dash for the frontier and push the offensive forward once more.

  During these three days, the men of the embryo Desert Air Force flew continually, striking the enemy’s armoured columns wherever they were to be found. It was a difficult, thankless task, for amid all the confusion, chaos and panic it was often hard to distinguish friend from foe, and communications with Eighth Army HQ were badly disrupted. The Germans swept on, menacing the forward Allied airstrips, and pilots were ordered to sleep under the wings of their aircraft in case their bases were suddenly attacked.

  At one landing ground, east of Fort Maddalena inside Egyptian territory, over 175 fighters and bombers stood wingtip to wingtip. A German Panzer group passed less than ten miles to the north and failed to see the airfield in the darkness. Had they done so, they could easily have wiped out most of the Desert Air Force’s effective fighter strength.