Target Tobruk: Yeoman in the Western Desert
Page 17
In Tobruk, Yeoman and his pilots, together with the rest of the garrison, waited helplessly for the mess to sort itself out. Finally, at nightfall on the 25th, came the word they had all been waiting for: a New Zealand division was once more pushing on towards Sidi Rezegh. Early the next morning, the garrison stormed the last enemy strongpoints between Tobruk and El Duda, where they were to rendezvous with the New Zealanders, and overwhelmed them after bitter fighting. By four o’clock in the afternoon contact had been made with the New Zealand Division’s supporting tanks, and the corridor from Tobruk was open for the first time in seven months …
The battle, however, was far from over. On 27 November Rommel, strongly opposed on the ground, hammered ceaselessly from the air, abandoned his thrust into Egypt and brought his Panzers racing back across the desert to Tobruk. By the end of the month they had once again succeeded in capturing Sidi Rezegh and closing the corridor. Yeoman’s small band of Hurricanes — reduced to four in number now, the other two having been severely damaged by ground fire — became fighter-bombers with forty-pound bombs mounted on racks under their wings, and joined the rest of the Desert Air Force in harrying the enemy columns. The first week of December was a confusion of roaring engines, of brief periods of exhausted sleep, and of sudden, blinding dust-storms. And gradually, as the days passed, Rommel’s forces were forced to yield ground.
On 5 December, one of Yeoman’s pilots, carrying out a routine reconnaissance, reported large concentrations of enemy transport streaming westwards past Tobruk. The Hurricanes were hurriedly bombed up, and arrived in the target area to find two or three squadrons of Hurricanes and Kittyhawks already in action. The enemy vehicles, mostly of the soft-skinned variety, had already taken a fearful mauling. Yeoman’s team dived down through the melee and expended their bombs and ammunition on a widely dispersed group of heavy trucks, leaving at least fifteen of them in flames.
Two days later, the Tobruk corridor was once more open, and now Rommel’s forces were clearly in full withdrawal westwards to Gazala. The following morning, Yeoman was ordered to take his surviving fighters out of Tobruk and rejoin the main body of 493 Squadron at Sidi Barrani, where the three squadrons of No. 260 Wing were now based.
Commandant Combette was the first person to meet Yeoman as he climbed stiffly from the cockpit at the end of the flight from Tobruk. The Frenchman pumped the young pilot’s hand, grinning hugely through the habitual cloud of pungent tobacco smoke, and his opening words stopped Yeoman dead in his tracks.
‘Fantastic news, my young friend,’ he beamed. ‘Don’t you think it’s fantastic news?’
‘What is?’ Yeoman asked, utterly perplexed. Combette’s eyes widened.
‘Are you saying you haven’t heard? Why, America is in the war!’
‘Good God!’ Yeoman exclaimed. ‘What happened?’
‘It seems the Japanese attacked their naval base at Pearl Harbor,’ Combette replied. ‘There was no declaration of war. Do you see what this means? Now, with America and Russia alongside us, we can’t possibly lose. Think of the resources! And we’ve got Rommel on the run here, too!’
Later, in the mess tent. Yeoman repeated Combette’s words to Kendal. The squadron leader was sceptical.
‘I don’t share his optimism,’ he told Yeoman. ‘We haven’t finished with Rommel yet, not by a long chalk. There are rumours that the Japs are invading Malaya. In that case, our chaps out there will need reinforcements, and I’ll bet anything you like that they’ll pull troops out of Egypt. Rommel is a very clever character, and as soon as he sees his chance he’ll go over to the offensive once more. Don’t get me wrong — I think we’ll win, now. But it’s going to take a bloody long time.’
He looked sideways at Yeoman and broke into one of his rare smiles. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I forgot to tell you. You’ve been awarded the DFC for shooting down that recce kite off Tobruk. It was a good effort. Congratulations. The drinks are on you.’
Fifteen hundred miles to the north-east, another young pilot was also buying drinks for the rest of his squadron. Joachim Richter was celebrating the award of his Iron Cross, First Class, the reward for shooting down six I — 16 fighters of the Soviet Air Force in a single day. There was not much else to do except drink, anyway; it had been snowing almost non-stop for three weeks and the airfield of Staraya Russa was completely unfit for operational flying.
All along the front, the German offensive had ground to a standstill in the face of the worst winter in living memory. Richter stared moodily out of the window at the driving snow, his eyes smarting from the smoke of the reeking stove that stood in the centre of the stinking Russian hovel that served as the mess room for the pilots of No. 3 Squadron, Fighter Wing 66.
The news of America’s entry into the war had just reached them. It seemed like an incredibly foolhardy move on the part of the Japanese. America would now certainly declare war on Germany, Japan’s Axis partner. To hell with it, Richter thought, downing half a mugful of neat vodka in one swallow. We’ll take them all on and lick them all, if only those Party bastards in Berlin will let us get on with this job. He turned to a young lieutenant who stood beside him at the window, a boy from Mainz who had just joined the squadron, and put his arm around his shoulders.
‘Don’t worry, Hans,’ Richter said drunkenly. ‘We’re going to win this war. But it’s going to take a bloody long time.’
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