World War II: The Autobiography

by Jon E. Lewis

  . . . The Afrika Korps signals officer brought Rommel a decoded message, from the 10th Hussars to Montgomery, which our people had intercepted. It read:

  “We have just captured a general named Ritter von Thoma.”

  The Field-Marshal took me aside, and said:

  “Bayerlein, what we tried with all our might to prevent has now happened. Our front is smashed and the enemy is pouring through into our rear area. There can no longer be any question of obeying Hitler’s order. We’re withdrawing to the Fuka position so as to save what still can be saved.

  . . . “Bayerlein,” Rommel went on, “I’m putting you in command of the Afrika Korps. There’s no one else to whom I can entrust it. And if it should happen later on that the Führer court-martials us for our disobedience, we’ll both have to answer squarely for our decision to-day. Do your duty as best you can. All your orders to the troops carry my authority. You may say this to the senior commanders, in the event of your having any trouble with them.”

  “I shall do my best, sir,” I replied. Then Rommel got into his armoured command vehicle, to visit the other units of his beaten army and to give the orders for the retreat.

  ONE MAN’S WAR: THE DIARY OF A BRITISH SOLDIER AT EL ALAMEIN, 23 OCTOBER–10 NOVEMBER 1942

  Corporal John Green, Military Police

  Green supervised track laying for British armour during Alamein.

  Diary: 23 Oct 1942. 1600 hrs take position, my position West of Quartara Track, which means I am in front of our own artillery. 1730 hrs L/C Newton reports to me track all ready & lit nothing to do now only wait.

  App. 2140 hrs British Barrage goes over, it is like hell let loose, shells are screaming over my head by the thousand. I don’t think anybody ever experienced any thing like this before. It is terrific. The push is on.

  0000 hrs Tanks are using my track now hundreds of them nose to tail they are going in, it is going to be a terrific battle. I am choked with dust and deafened by the noise of the guns.

  0200 hrs 24th Oct. MT & tanks ease up on tracks to allow the stuff to get clear that went in front. Our bombers roaring overhead in one continuous stream & bombing Jerry’s position. They are never going to stop. Barrage eased off about 0200 hrs. 0300 hrs. Traffic starts again Tanks, MT & Infantry going in 0400 hrs. Barrage bursts out again plastering Jerry with Shells. This continues until 0600 hrs All night our planes have been blasting Jerry’s lines. 0730 I am relieved for breakfast & what a relief. Everybody is full of high spirits. The main topic is the barrage. Every one was impressed by the intensity of it, I should think the people most impressed are the Germans.

  24 Oct. Go back to duty at 0930 hrs. We are right in the thick of it. German aircraft active today. 1730 back on the tracks, we are bombed. None of my gang hurt. A very similar night to last night, relieved at 0700. No sleep again tonight, duty again.

  25.10.42 Resume duty at 0930 hrs, plenty of activity over the whole front, dozens of dogfights. Our planes continue to bomb enemy without stopping day & night. We also get bombed quite frequently. At 1530 I am relieved to go back to Alamein Station. I take on duties of visiting NCO to visit every post on all Tracks. This visiting job is sticky being in a truck, I cannot hear enemy aircraft. They are on you before you know. I go to bed at 7.30 pm for the first time since the night of the 22nd. I am tired to death. We are bombed at intervals during the night, but I am too tired I just snuggle in my hole and hope for the best. 26.10.42. I continue visiting each post on each track twice a day, these are very exciting days. On each journey I have to take cover and leave the truck at least a dozen times. We are bombed & straffed through the night. Bombs drop right across our laager, we are lucky again no one is injured. Reports say the battle is going in our favour.

  27th. Same duty – visiting Tracks.

  28th. We move back a mile, it being too hot.

  29th. All these days are nearly alike busy all day & getting as much sleep as Jerry allows at night. I am used to it by now. We hear Jerry is retreating – slowly but surely although the din he makes doesn’t seem much like it, but things are going in our favour.

  30th Oct. Bombed again during last night at frequent intervals. Detailed for a special job I take 6 L/Cpls with me. I have to go forward as far as the second German minefield and light the gaps for our armours to (go) through at night. This takes me right into the forward zone about 4 miles west of Quatara Rd. The Germans were here only a few hours ago. All my past experiences were nothing compared to this. We are right amongst it.

  31st Oct. We had bacon, beans & Stukas for breakfast. 21 of them dive bombing. Lucky we have each got a good dug out. We are shelled for 2 hours. Our artillery are behind us & are replying. We are shelled again in the afternoon. Jerry seems to have taken a personal dislike to us.

  We spend most of the day in our holes. At night our dug outs are one continuous boom, owing to the guns. After a while you get used to it & find you can sleep without difficulty. We light up the gap tonight. The N.Z’s go through the gap “Good Luck to Them”.

  1st Nov. Plenty of air raids last night also Jerry dropped his shells around us. It is a hot spot here. L/cpl.S looks like cracking up. He takes hold of himself fairly well. All day is the same as yesterday. Lighting the gap again tonight.

  Nov 2nd. 2 German planes are shot down quite near us. We see 7 shot down altogether. S. is definitely “Bomb Happy” – he has been much worse today, I have taken him off duty tonight & do his duty myself – the gap lighting is pretty sticky when within range of enemy guns.

  Nov 3rd. More air raids last night. We have had them every night since the push started, we are shelled again at intervals. Jerry is definitely being pushed back. More prisoners pass us today. Shelling is worse this afternoon. 3 pm DR brings message. I have to hand over to S. African Police at 4 pm. We are all pleased to leave this joint. We pack our kit and make ready to move – Jerry is shelling again (as we) pull out. My dug out has got hit. Lucky I got out. We go back to Alamein & dig in once again.

  Nov 4th. More bombing last night, flares by the thousand. I am informed that the whole company is moving forward. We move west of Quartara Rd on the coast Rd at 9 am. At 11.30 I am detailed along with my section to lengthen Diamond Track, running it 2 miles nearer Jerry’s lines, Jerry is shelling the track all the time. At 5.00 pm Hopkinson is killed & Power & Varley badly injured, both Varley’s feet are blown off. At 5.15 Varley dies. Power has about 11 wounds. We get our job finished about 6 pm, from 12.00 to 7 pm we were shelled, straffed & Stuka-ed continuously. It has been a trying day. Young Hopkinson has only been out here three weeks & Varley has a baby he hasn’t seen. It shook me a bit today to see my own blokes get wiped out.

  Nov 5th. We had air raids again last night but I didn’t hear them. I had a deep hole & I slept well. I am back with Coy at the new location. I am not put on duty today so I spend the day digging myself a good dugout.

  It is bonfire night & all the boys are firing flares & shooting tracers into the air. It was quite a display but Jerry put a stop to it at 8 pm. He came over & dropped flares of his own, he wasn’t long before he dropped something else. He hit 2 ammo trucks near us.

  Nov 6th. There are signs that Jerry is flapping back, but is fighting strong rearguard action. One or two daylight raids. I got 2 bottles of beer today. At 6 pm we hear Darba has fallen.

  Nov 7th. We move up to Darba at 9 am. We see lots of German & Italian dead on the way & learn they are putting mines under their own dead. Our chaps refuse to bury them, they are afraid of being blown up in the process.

  Coy make location at Darba. Dozens of knocked out Jerry tanks & MT & planes here.

  The Darba airfield is littered with German planes. Fuka has fallen today.

  Nov 8th. I am sent to Fuka, 25 miles west of Darba, this morning, with a detachment to take charge of water point. This job is a little quieter than the ones I have had lately. Jerry is flapping & only fighting rear guard action. Our troops are advancing & doing fine. The RE are busy all day & work through t
he night to get water.

  Nov 9th. Start pumping water at 6.30 am. I learn that this is the only water point for miles. 14 Italian soldiers come in from across the desert & give themselves up.

  Later nine Germans come & surrender. I keep filling batches of prisoners all day. They are all short of water & look hungry. They say they have been drinking water from pools left by the recent rains.

  Nov 10th. O.C. visits me today & says we have to take it easy, the whole Company have been pulled out to rest. The Coy is 25 miles behind us.

  Nov 11th. I go for a look round to-day & find dozens of enemy tanks knocked out on the desert. The bodies are still in some of them. There are about 30 German planes all knocked out on Fuka landing ground.

  Prisoners still coming in. Enemy aircraft visit us during the night, & few shells from very long range guns.

  Nov 12th. Our rest doesn’t last long, we are on a half hour’s notice to move. Jerry is going back faster now & we are to follow up. We move off at 11.30 hoping to make Mersa Matruh & if Jerry keeps running we shall be in Tobruk in a day or two.

  A MEETING WITH THE FÜHRER, RASTENBURG, 28 NOVEMBER 1942

  Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Afrika Korps

  On 8 November, even as Rommel was in headlong retreat towards Tunisia, a strong Anglo-American force (the USA having joined World War II in December 1941) under General Eisenhower landed in French North Africa in Operation Torch. Three days later, the invasion army had taken Casablanca, Algiers and Oran. Rommel was now squeezed between two gathering armies.

  At about 1700 I was ordered to the Fuehrer. There was a noticeable chill in the atmosphere from the outset. I described all the difficulties which the army had had to face during both the battle and the retreat. It was all noted and the execution of the operation was described as faultless and unique.

  Unfortunately, I then came too abruptly to the point and said that, since experience indicated that no improvement in the shipping situation could now be expected, the abandonment of the African theatre of war should be accepted as a long-term policy. There should be no illusions about the situation and all planning should be directed towards what was attainable. If the army remained in North Africa, it would be destroyed.

  I had expected a rational discussion of my arguments and intended to develop them in a great deal more detail. But I did not get so far, for the mere mention of the strategic question worked like a spark in a powder barrel. The Fuehrer flew into a fury and directed a stream of completely unfounded attacks upon us. Most of the F.H.Q. staff officers present, the majority of whom had never heard a shot fired in anger, appeared to agree with every word the Fuehrer said . . .

  But there was no attempt at discussion. I began to realise that Adolf Hitler simply did not want to see the situation as it was, and that he reacted emotionally against what his intelligence must have told him was right. He said that it was a political necessity to continue to hold a major bridgehead in Africa. He would do everything possible to get supplies to me. The Reichsmarschall (Goering) was to accompany me to Italy. He would be vested with extraordinary powers and was to negotiate with the Italians and all responsible authorities. We, however, had had experience enough of these ventures.

  After leaving the Fuehrer’s H.Q., Goering and I travelled in a rail-car as far as Gumbinnen where we changed to Goering’s special train for the journey to Rome. I was angry and resentful at the lack of understanding displayed by our highest command and their readiness to blame the troops at the front for their own mistakes. My anger redoubled when I was compelled to witness the antics of the Reichsmarschall in his special train. The situation did not seem to trouble him in the slightest. He plumed himself, beaming broadly at the primitive flattery heaped on him by imbeciles from his own court, and talked of nothing but jewellery and pictures. During the whole of this time my bitterest enemy was Goering. I think he wanted to get me sacked in order to realise his own plans in North Africa . . .

  Flying back to Africa I realised that we were now completely thrown back on our resources and that to keep the army from being destroyed as the result of some crazy order or other would need all our skill.

  OPERATION TORCH: GI MEALS, NOVEMBER 1942

  Ernie Pyle, war correspondent

  Pyle was a reporter for the Washington Daily News in World War II.

  Our soldiers at the front learned quickly how to keep their stomachs filled during emergencies. Ordinarily, the soldier’s food was prepared for him in army mess kitchens, but at the front many things could happen. Small parties went out for days at a time and had to carry their own rations. On the battle front, kitchen trucks came up only at night and sometimes not even then. With our mobile armies on the move it wasn’t always possible for kitchen trucks to be in the right place at the right moment, and as a consequence every soldier learned how to feed himself. Every vehicle from jeep to tank had a few spare cans of rations hidden away somewhere.

  Soldiers cooked their own meals when on the move. They made a fire in one of two ways, each involving the use of gasoline: For a short fire they dug a hole about the size of a man’s hand, poured gasoline into it, sprinkled sand over the gasoline, and then threw in a match. The sand kept the gas from burning too quickly. On a small fire like that they could heat a canteen or cup of coffee. For a bigger fire, they filled a small can with gasoline and buried it even with the surface of the ground. They piled rocks around to set their cooking utensils on, and then tossed a match at the gas.

  I never saw a real skillet, pan or stewpot. The soldiers made their own utensils out of those famous five-gallon gasoline tins. I don’t believe there’s anything in the world that can’t be made out of a five-gallon gasoline tin.

  The soldiers also learned not to be lax about keeping their mess kits clean, for they found out by bitter experience that a dirty mess kit was the quickest way to violent nausea through poisoning. To wash their mess kits they scoured them with sand and then polished them with toilet paper – the best dishrag I’ve ever found.

  Despite their primitive forms of cooking, the soldiers did eat well. They got either British or American rations, or a mixture of the two. Soldiers who were traveling actually preferred the British “compo” to our own famous C ration. The reason being that the C ration has so little variety that after three meals a man could hardly look a C can in the face.

  The British compo was more diverse. It had such things as sausage, puddings, chocolate bars, salt, jam, butter, and cheese. It even included toilet paper.

  Although a general order was issued against buying food from the Arabs, in order to avoid using up their supply, we bought it anyhow. Mess sergeants scoured the country and came back with eggs, sheep and chickens. You might say we lived partly off the country.

  Of course ridiculous prices were paid to the Arabs, which infuriated the Europeans in North Africa because it ran up the prices for them too. But the Americans’ attitude was usually expressed something like this: “Well, money means nothing to us here, and from the looks of most of the Arabs a few extra francs won’t hurt them.”

  We had more eggs right at the front than anywhere else in the whole European and African theaters of war. The love of Americans for eggs has become almost a legend. Along the roads over which our motor convoys were passing constantly, Arabs stood by the score, even out on the limitless desert, holding up eggs for sale. The natives paid one franc for an egg. Mess sergeants paid three francs when buying in bulk, and individual soldiers paid five francs an egg.

  After being driven out of Libya (Tripoli fell to the Allies on 23 January), Rommel withdrew to Tunisia, where the Axis army was surrounded but far from defeated. On 14 February, Rommel launched a fierce assault on the Americans in the south, his Afrika Korps and 10th Panzer Division veterans shattering the untested US 2nd Corps at Kasserine Pass and driving through to threaten Allied advance airfields, supply dumps and TAC HQ First Army.

  “FIGHTING LIKE THE DEVIL”: THE US 26TH REGIMENT AT EL GUETTAR, 23 MARCH 1943


  Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr, 26th Regiment, US 1st Infantry Division

  Roosevelt, son of the 26th President of the US, commanded the 26th Regiment in both World Wars.

  North Africa, Mar. 25, 1943

  Dearest Bunny:

  Since I wrote of our attack on the unnamed city much has happened.

  First we were ordered to attack again. We moved out for this show as usual under cover of darkness. We had only one road and two combat teams plus supporting arms to be brought down. That meant a truck movement covering twenty miles of road space. After we had done our best to give our directive to the unit commanders and laid on a schedule of movement for units timetable I went forward in my jeep. All went reasonably well. At the time I did not think so for I got furiously angry with countless idiocies that delayed the column.

  By dawn the show was on – machine guns spluttered, artillery rumbled. We caught the Italians unprepared. On the north we came down on them from the mountains – a devilish climb. On the south we swept around their right flank. By then the original objectives were taken and crowds of prisoners were being marched to the rear. Our men don’t take to all this “bitter hate” business – and all the Sherwoods, MacLeishes, Sarnoffs etc. with their swivel chairs, daintily fed bellies and soft safe beds can’t change their natures. Our men will fight like the devil, but when the battle’s over, it’s over. They treat war like a football game – when the game’s over let’s all get drunk together. They gave the prisoners candy and cigarettes and roared with laughter.