January 1942

New Years day dawned, but for my part, after last night it might just as well be any other day. When eventually I managed to gather my senses and lift my head, which to me felt as though it was filled with lead, and someone was trying to hammer it into shape, I found to my amazement a large sized Union Jack Flag draping me, while on either side was a palm, complete with stand, and at my feet a basket chair. Whether my friends had carried out a burial service on me, I don’t know, and neither do they, as that was the first thing I asked them, but they were unable to throw any light what so ever on the subject. It must have been quite a party, as it is the first time that I have been unable to remember at least how I got to bed.
At about 10.30 this morning I made a rather remarkable recovery, and so with my usual two friends we wended our way to Helwan, after telling the Military Police a rather tall story. We whiled away the time, wondering through a Japanese Garden laid out in the fashion with Japanese Gods and little bridges over streams of water, and Pagodas everywhere. Midday found us in rather a low dive, which boasted of serving first class grills at all hours to his Majesties Troops; I might include they were not all that they might have been, but never the less, stimulating.
At 1.30 I left my friends and caught a train to Cairo to keep an appointment with Molly. I met her at her headquarters and after a delightful conversation over supper in the Big Ben Café and a promise to meet her again on Saturday, I came home to bed, where I was told the exciting news. Tomorrow we are moving up the line. Evidently everybody has been looking for me all day today to issue me with the necessary orders for tomorrow. So I am afraid my appointment with Molly will have to be cancelled, but I have no way what so ever of contacting her.

I was formally told this morning that I was on the draft of reinforcements moving up the line tonight and that I was to hold myself in readiness and prepare for such. All day today was one of chaos and confusion, re-equipping making up deficiencies, handing over surplus kit for safe keeping and other final preparations such as writing home and destroying all letters.
Is this the final stage at last? We have all waited a long time for this and the day past not without considerable excitement. Only two companies of my regiment are moving up, so at 7 o’clock this evening when we were all eventually boarded on our trucks which were to take us to the stallion there was many a lump stuck in the fellows throats at having to say farewell to pals with whom they have spent nearly two years together in training camps, and I actually saw one of our Sgt/Majors, who we were leaving behind, cry. Cry hard and aloud. It may sound paradox and impossible, but I actually saw it and it also shows how men can make great friends of one another and become terrible attached.
We eventually moved off, and took a macadamised road running parallel and on the banks of the Nile to Cairo Main station. The trip took about two hours and after considerable amount of bother with the Egyptian officials on the station we were put into a train, which to me was an excellent means of transporting cattle. A first class ticket to war on the third class Egyptian state Railways, still I shall not complain, provided it is a return ticket.

I do not know if I shall be able to keep this diary up from now on, however I shall try as, if ever I get over all this, it would be rather amusing reading over it all.

The train eventually left Cairo station at 12.30 this morning and I believe we crossed the Nile at about 2am. But as it was a very dark morning I was unable to see any of the surrounding countryside. We were all fairly well tired and some of us overcame our excitement and lying on the floor covered with our great coats went to sleep.

It was a terribly cold morning with rain falling incessantly and I eventually awoke with the train coming to a stand still at about 7am at a siding about, I believe seven miles from Alexandria. The rain has virtually turned the desert into a marsh, and here a trudge ankle deep in mud for about 300 yards we received a breakfast from a lonely N.A.A.F.I. canteen, consisting of a Dixie full of hot mincemeat poured over a slice of bread. I don’t think anything could have been more welcomed as it not only filled that hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, but also helped to fight the ever-increasing cold.
There were a mixed crew on board, from Indians to British Tommie’s, and every time the train stopped the one tommy next to me would haul a jam tin out of an old sack, dash along to the engine driver to get it filled up with boiling water out of the engine boiler and then come back and brew what he called a nice “koop of Chi”(tea). How hardy these fellows are, at home even in the desert. Here was one well prepared for all eventualities with his bag of provisions and seemingly without a worry in the world apart from how long it would be before the train stopped again to enable him to brew another “koop of chi”.

All along the line could be seen derelict aircraft, railway tracks and motor vehicles riddled with machine gun bullets. Mementos of some past actions, and these sights set us all thinking and scanning the horizon, expecting enemy aircraft to appear any minute and shoot us up. After all, every mile we travel means a mile nearer the enemy, and already we are in territory in which enemy aircraft operate.
It certainly is a queer feeling when one starts thinking of one’s life be in peril, but when you weigh the balance of the issues at stake it does not seem so frightful. Never the less it still does something to you, more so when you see the rows of barb wire entanglements, tank traps and trenches, with here and there a head bobbing out of the otherwise concealed dugout.
The terrain here is quite unlike that to the east of the Nile and further inland is that it is less undulating, rising in regular escarpments from the sea and dotted here and there with desert serub. I saw the sea for the first time at midday. The blue Mediterranean, or is it blue? It might be green yet a green that is not green; Oh! How shall I ever describe it. A beautiful conglomeration of blue and green, contrasting against the white desert sands bordering the beaches. I have never yet seen a span of water containing so many beautiful colours.
We arrived in Mersa Matruh at about 5 o’clock this evening and marched with all our goods and shackles to the open desert, outside the town on the main coast road to Alexandria and just passed the harbour. Mersa Matruh, the one-time rich mans African Monty Carlo. Mersa Matrah today battle scarred and without a building standing as a whole. Just a pile of rubble and scattered bricks and mortar. I passed a church, which appeared to be only half built, and even houses that do still have four walls standing are minus a roof.
Fortunately a hot meal was prepared for us when we arrived at this, what appears to be a transit camp for disposing of troops arriving. The meal was simply Bully Beef warmed up with a few hard biscuits, but I appreciated it as it is the first bite of food I have had since seven this morning and no I have just rolled out my blankets.

I awoke this morning and refreshed myself by having a wash in a nearby pool of water on the roadside left by the recent rain, but count not bare the thought of trying to shave in it so consequently my beard is just one day older. From this pool too I replenished my water bottle as I don’t know where our next water is coming from and I am still too new here to know where the local water holes are.
No one seems to be aware of our arrival here and our own officers have been busy all day trying to find some one of authority to report to, and receive the latest data as to our disposal. That is their worry, so this morning I took a walk down to the much-depleted harbour and on the way several loads of German prisoners from Bardid passed me. Did I say depleted? Well to me it looked more like a cornfield, only instead of corn it was the masts of ships sticking out of the water.
The news of our arrival soon spread like wild fire to the outer defence perimeter of Matruh and this evening saw about a dozen fellows originally of my regiment who came up here about six months ago on a special draft and who, as soon as they heard of our arrival came down to visit us.
Of course, they, having just come out of the Sidi Rezegh battle thought themselves great men of action and had many tales to tell which made us feel like a lot of new recruits. One fellow even went so far as saying he did not know why we had been sent up here as it was all over except for the shouting, that the Germans were utterly destroyed and that it was only a matter of mopping up (the bulk of the German army apart from the surrounded garrison at Bardier and Helfaya Pas have been driven back to Benghazi and beyond). I was not slow in giving him a good slice of my mind as I was annoyed with him insinuating that they had done all the fighting and that our presence was not required.
Of course I for one sincerely hope that the German army is destroyed but only time will tell as far as that is concerned. I am inclined to think otherwise. The Germans have a very strong hold and a very large army in Africa and they intend to hold on to what they posses at all costs. They will never evacuate without at least trying to reinforce their Afrika Korps. We must also bear in mind the fact that the German lines of communication are considerable shorter than ours and they could quite easily bring large reinforcements from Italy in an over nights run across the Mediterranean. So until we have complete control over the Mediterranean sea routes and complete superiority in the air over that sea and their large base in Tripoli, it is no good our wishful thinking of an early expulsion of the enemy in Africa.

Our old officer commanding our regiment, Colonel Cherrington arrived this morning to wish us goodbye and good hunting as he is too old for combatant service and is being sent back to the Union again. It was on his request that he was allowed to accompany us up here as he maintained that he was still in command of us until we have been dissolved into other units as reinforcements.
I felt extremely sorry for him when, on his request he shook hands with every man. The tears were in his eyes and running freely down his cheeks as he asked each man in turn to dedicate our first German victim to his name and to the name of his son who has been killed in this war. After he had finished speaking he walked away to a nearby sand dune, sat down and sobbed his heart out. Several officers endeavoured to pacify him, but he only asked them to please leave him alone.

This afternoon we were all lined up (typical of a sheep market) while strange officers, representing various regiments, took their pick of us. I, along with several of my friends (thank goodness they did not part my friends from me) were selected to go to the Second Regiment Botha, A Regiment of very high repute which had been sadly depleted in their action of Sidi Rezegh.
The balance of this afternoon was spent in once more packing and lying on our backs with all our packs on waiting for the transport that was to take us to our new “home”. While I was waiting a strange thing happened, I heard a whistle, a very familiar whistle which I had not heard for many years, and its notes rang clear in my memory, that a friend of mine of very long standing and myself used to use for calling one another in the earlier days long before a war was ever dreamed of by us happy, carefree young people of South Africa. And now after all these years and in a foreign country that I should it again, is more than remarkable. I immediately jumped up to locate the origin of the whistle and there, not thirty yards away stood my friend, Dave Dwen. He is working as a Radiographer at a casualty clearing station here in Mutrah and on hearing of the arrival of my regiment come down hoping to find me but was unable to discern me among the hundreds of men lying about so he used the best means at his disposal to locate me, the whistle.

Our transport arrived at about four o’clock (one troop carrier and two armoured cars) and we were eventually transported to a defensive position about five miles west of the town on the coast. I was allocated to my sector of the perimeter and immediately set about making ourselves as comfortable as possible in a musty concrete pillbox thick with mud from the recent rains. I never thought the time would come when I would have to live in the dirt and filth of a trench, all this that I had once read about was now realising itself. Dirt was thick on me and I had not shaved for four days.
With the little water that we had from the pools on the road of yesterday we brewed some tea (a mixture of tea and sand minus mild and sugar) this was accomplished by throwing some petrol on sand and setting light to it.
After we were all settled down I had to go about two miles to report to my officer that my section was O.K. and as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. As Matruh is the most heavily mined area in the world, this was not done without a great deal of nervous tension as I had two mine fields to get through and the sweat ran freely down my face.
This evening I could hear some heavy fighting going on at the back of me but after all my dugout is not so bad as from that one is inclined to get a feeling of false security.

I got up at 7 o’clock and after warming up a tin of bully beef I had breakfast. Oh! Our glorious key men on the home front; who would not, at this moment gladly change places with them.
Ten o’clock this morning saw us yet again on the move, this time to a section position in the sparkling white sand dunes that border the beach. Sand that is soft and sifting yet blinding in the morning sun, and dotted here and there with a palm tree.
There is a network of underground passages leading off into concealed communication trenches and I selected a dugout about fourteen feet deep to accommodate my lance corporal and myself, but before we could settle down there was word to be done in clearing out all the sand that had blown in, and for many hours we laboured with shovels and petrol tins. Eventually by seven this evening we had completed the job and settled in to what was not exactly the Taj Mahal, but as best as can be expected in the desert.

I decided to take a stroll and see how the balance of the men in my section had furnished themselves out, but not being desert minded yet and still ignorant to this new environment, I took my lance corporal with me. It was only a matter of about twenty yards, but the night was pitch dark (we had a little self made petrol lamp in the dugout) and after considerable groping around we fell into a dugout containing the rest of my fellows. That was all very well, but when we came to try and find our own abode again, it was a rank impossibility, for in the dark every direction is the same and not having been a very brilliant student on astronomy, I am as yet quite unable to read the stars.
We wondered around for what appeared to be hours and eventually had to resort to shouting. After a few seconds, in the still desert night, I heard a soft voice say, “What is it?” and looking down, I found I was standing right over the dugout containing the men of my section. We had been wandering around all this time in an undiminished circle. We set out again, but this time only one going out and the other remaining behind whistling to keep contact. In this manner we were not long in finding our bearings, and none the worse off for our lost feelings of a few minutes back. I suppose one day I shall get used to it all and be able to wander around at random.
I have eaten neither lunch nor supper today and my stomach feels quite shrunk. As yet nobody seems to be aware of or concerned of our arrival but I suppose by tomorrow we should get our rations.

This morning after scrutinising around I found a bag of meilie meal half buried in the sand and fifty per cent solution of sand itself, but never the less we were all to hungry to have any scruples as to whether we were to eat it or not, so we stoked up a fire and ate our honourable breakfast.

Owing to the softness of the sand where we are, it is impossible for a lorry or motor vehicle of any description to travel, but this has been overcome by an ingenious scheme whereby engineers have laid down rolls of netting wire thus improvising a road.
The nearest of these roads passing us is about three hundred yards from where we are bivouacked, so at 10 o’clock this morning when our rations did arrive, it entailed having to carry them over three hundred yards of the softest desert sand that could possibly be found anywhere. To be sure, a very hard and trying job especially when our rations come for three days at a time. This includes a camel drum of twenty gallons of water (a ratio of ½ gallon per man per day) to be carried up over one sand dune after another and all the time your feet sinking up to the shins in the soft surface.
For future reference, our problem as far as carrying rations is concerned has been solved, for this afternoon I found two stray Arab donkeys wandering around in the mine field, and after careful manipulation, managed to extricate them from their unusual predicament. We now have them securely encamped in a barbed wire entanglement erected especially for that purpose and nourishing themselves on army biscuits of which were given liberal ration.
I was able to have a shave tonight, so now I am feeling more like a civilized human being again.

There was nothing of exceptional interest today apart from making every endeavour to adapt myself to this new mode of living. I feel as though I have landed in a totally different world not only that, I feel as though I am a different person. Surely it is not the same man who just three years ago was so happy with life, the year of my marriage. And yet in that short space of time, so much seems to have happened to me. I have crossed the entire continent of Africa. The past stands out in my memory like a dream as though I have transmigrated and yet the future lies before me, dark and black like the sky before a storm. When will these clouds break and what lies beyond them? What will tomorrow bring forth?

The section on my right was doing a considerable amount if shooting this afternoon. It is a section made up chiefly of the original 2nd Botha men. Men who have acquainted themselves with many battles here and now start shooting at the least provocation. However I was compelled to keep my head well below the datum or else this miserable existence of mine would have come to a hasty conclusion.
I am feeling of high spirits to go to bed with tonight as some ambitious and praiseworthy fellow of my company acquired a quantity of beer. I was formally notified and was able to obtain two bottles per man of my section at the nominal charge of 1/6 a bottle.

I went for a two mile walk today towards the town of Mersa Matruh, and just on the outskirts of the town I came upon enormous big blocks of barracks which I learnt where, before the war, used to house the Egyptian army; Egypt, being neutral, were compelled to evacuate her large army from the war zone, and consequently the British authorities have taken over the whole place, and, (I am made to understand, although I cannot vouch for the authenticity of my informants information) the British Government is responsible for the rebuilding of Matruh after the war. It today being just a heap of rubble.
It was here that I met an official for whom I used to work on the mine “in the other world”. He used to be a mine captain, today he is Corporal Gill; so here in Mutrah we meet on an equal footing. He was as pleased to see me as I him, and we talked for many hours in his dugout, over a few bottles of beer he had and a tin of pork sausages, which we warmed up with a blowlamp. I eventually left him at nine thirty this evening, but dreading the long walk back, I took the liberty of helping myself to the first truck I saw standing unguarded.
With the constant fear of enemy aircraft, all night driving here has to be done without lights of any description, consequently my progress was very slow. I had been driving for about a quarter of an hour when I heard the most fearful scraping noise and on closer inspection I found that I had run into a barbed wire entanglement bordering a minefield. The wire was wrapped around the brake drums, all four wheels and generally speaking it was impossible to get out tonight, so I abandoned it and completed the rest of my journey on foot.

I have just partaken in the best meal I have had in weeks and for the first time in about four days my stomach feels really satisfied, for when I arrived back at my dugout this evening, much to my jubilation, there were three parcels from my wife and one from my former place of employment. It was not long before we had a petrol fire going and indulging in hot tinned chicken, chicken brother and Christmas pudding, most inappropriate yet most gratifying to the appetite, all this was rounded off with a tin of apricots each, not to mention a couple of packets of biscuits. I shall repudiate the onus of we are both very ill tomorrow.

What an utterly miserable day. There is a terrific sand storm blowing from the south, and it is impossible to see ten yards in front of you. The sand infiltrates everywhere, your hair, eyes, nose and mouth until your whole body feels as though it were dragged through a sere morass. Try to comb your hair and you might just as well comb a bats nest.
I heard a very high pitched aeroplane engine all morning and by the sound of it he must have been flying at a great altitude. I was told by one of the old 2nd Botha lads that it was a German reconnaissance plane taking photographs, and that we could reconcile ourselves to a pounding within the next few days. It seemed rather futile to me from an airman’s point of few to try and take photographs in the present dust storm which has no likely hood of abating, still I suppose he is a little more conversant than me so have no alternative but to take his word for it.

This afternoon a gigantic old crate of a red cross plane was hovering about and several times I had to throw myself to the ground for fear of getting knocked about by its under carriage. It appeared to be lost in the sandstorm and was doing its utmost to find a suitable landing ground.

I tried to read a book this evening but for the life of me I found it impossible to concentrate. My mind persisted in wandering, wandering to my home, my family, and my past, the great “what might have been” if only - , and then to my present predicament. All my existence I have taken life so much for granted and here now I find there is so much to be learned and just how precious little we do know of life.

It is terribly cold today and much to my relief there is no sandstorm. I think a reoccurrence of yesterday for two consecutive days would not be congenial and a little more than my moral constitution could stand. I am truly grateful for this warm British battle dress.
By ten o’clock this morning I received the order to back up and it was not long before I, with my whole section were once more on the move to a place called Beau Geste. An Oasis and old Arab fort only about two miles away but at least out of the sand dunes on to a more flat type of desert. There are a few palm trees and thorny desert shrub but most important of all is the “Bir” (the Arabic translation for waterhole) containing blackish water, but never the less, water.
Oh for a hot bath and nice clean sheets. I am feeling lousy all over and I forget when last I had a bath. I think it was the second last time I was in Cairo. So once again I have to start cleaning out some dirty bug bound dugout and make it at least inhabitable. It would not surprise me if I awoke one morning to find fungi growing out of my body.

We are now bivouacked as a platoon for the purpose of training as such, and this is the first occasion I have had of mixing internally with the original fellows of the Botha.
It is very evident that they do not like us and ill feeling runs very high for which I am not the least concerned, although it would make life a little more bearable if they try to cooperate with us. The cause of this dislike is absolutely without foundation. Their grouse being that we are untried in battle and that they should be the likely candidates in the promotion to fill the gaps of non commissioned officers who became casualties of Sidi Rezegh.
Who are these recruits from the Union who lead and dictate to us? In all probability when the day of trail comes we shall prove, if not better, then equally as good.

This period is being spent in settling down and becoming familiarized and apart from a daily visit from a German Reconnaissance plane taking Photographs over the dock area, there is very little else to write about. We have of course to put out a nightly patrol of our platoon area which is about the most boring and insipid of all occupations that I know, not that it lacks its moments of suspenseful anxiety for in the still hours of the night out there across those white moonlit desert sands some insidious illogical creature which increases in magnitude the longer the mind is permitted to indulge in it. The illusions to the mental vision at about 3 o’clock in the morning of some imminent danger is most fearful and one finds oneself longing for the company of someone just to converse with and to co-ordinate the mind o logical reasoning.

On Tuesday our anti aircraft guns went into action and a short while afterward I could see thick palls of black smoke rising over the harbour area, but I learnt later that it is what is called a decoy. These decoys consist of large tubs of oil and the moment a bomb is dropped, a tub of oil in that area is purposely set on fire. In the evening you will hear from Dr Goebbels personally all about how numerous of our ships were sunk.

Today will most decidedly mark another stage in this inchoate saga of inaccessible human condemnation and I must not be prejidius in preserving it from oblivion and perpetuate its memories for the rest of my natural existence, for today I came under actual enemy fire for the first time. Not to any excessive proportions but never the less, to be sure, a frightful introduction for a novice such as I.
It all happened when five of my friends and myself this morning decided to go for a swim and we had scarcely arrived at the waters edge when, what appeared to be dozens of guns, commenced firing and their explosions seemed to rent the very atmosphere. Looking up, the entire sky was peppered with little puffs of white smoke as the shells were exploding, and, there gliding through them where planes on whose fuselage I could clearly see marked with the “Black Iron Cross”, a fiendish looking symbol which those poor peoples of all Europe will well and truly appreciate its full fiendish value. Then came that high-pitched whistling which indicated that they had released their ghastly cargo of destruction. Whistling and ripping the entire being to atomical dimensions, followed by a series of explosions and bursts of flames being thrown hundreds of feet into the air causing the entire earth to literally vibrate and tremble.

This afternoon I went into Mersa Matruh where a concert was being enacted for the troops and which I enjoyed with incalculable immensity; rather an unusual and unexpected pleasure to be able to cast ones eyes on the fairer sex in these vile surroundings and to distract ones attention from the immediate future.

Up to this point all the diaries had been edited. Hereafter I type from the actual scraps of paper, therefore the entries may appear far shorter than these I have typed above)

Jerry attacked us again today at the same time as yesterday (11.30am) as we were marching along the desert along side a big lagoon. We scattered and fell into any little hole we could find in the sand. Our Ack-Ack went into action and we could see their shells bursting high up in the sky but old Jerry dropped his bombs and they were too close for my liking. Oh gosh it is an awful experience and the explosions are terrific. You think the world has come to an end. This is the second Air Raid I have been in now and I am not too keen to be in anymore as it is not too nice a feeling. I do not know what damage he has done by this mornings raid but he came over again in the early afternoon but did not drop any sticks and he was chased off. I am sitting in my dugout now filling up this diary somewhere between Mersa Matruh and along the road to Solum and Helfya pass. Both Alec and (?) Murdock’s are with me and we keep hearing Jerry planes coming over and we just wait and wonder if the next bomb will hit our little dugout.

Bombs from yesterdays raid landed in a minefield and exploded a few mines but did not do any damage. I got a letter from my wife and sister Clara today.

I went to Mersa Matruh on a motorcycle that I had managed to pinch, once there I had lunch with Dave Owen, who showed me how to develop films. Went to El Daba and saw a rugby match between New Zealanders and South Africans, and later went back to 8.C.C’s. Dave wanted me to stay for supper but I had to get back to my section. Was on night petrol, went back to Mersa in the evening but not for long.

I had to give Bren instructions this morning. I got another letter from my darling wife.

I had to guard all the German and Italians that we captured at Helfya Pass.

Had an air raid at 1 o’clock this morning. No damage. Escorted 2 000 prisoners between 5am and 6am. Was escorting more prisoners at 11.30am when Jerry came over again and bombed us. He must of thought the prisoners were our men. I jumped into a hole and the men standing next to me caught a piece of shrapnel on the nose. His one bomb hit two lorries on the road not too far from where I lay. It smashed both lorries and killed three men and left a hell of a big crater in the middle of the road. I pulled out my camera and took a snap of the lot. It was a terrible sight as the one man had no arms legs or head and all his clothes were burnt off. I took two snaps of the prisoners. I was paid tonight.

Jerry over again today but no bombs dropped.

Nothing much to report all day today. Had to guard more prisoners. I developed a spool tonight and had my hair cut by an Italian.

Yesterday my son was 7 months old. He will soon be going to school. Came off guard and had a few drinks. A terrible sandstorm blowing.

Was told to be ready at five tomorrow to move up the line to a new position.

Was all ready to move this morning at 5 and at the last moment it was put off. Jerry came over today at the same time as usual and dropped his rotten eggs all over the place. Brought one of his planes down. Sewed buttons.

One of my men took a crack at the Sgt/Major and swore at him so I had to put him under arrest when he grabbed a rifle and tried to shoot him. Jerry came over again the usual time. I had to go up as a witness.

I had to go in front of the Colonel today as a witness. Jerry came over again. I had a few beers.

Nothing to report, had summary of evidence.

Two months today since we sailed out of Durban. Oh! If only I were back. A lot of mine explosions today all around us.

I was told today that I was to stop keeping a diary. Nobody is allowed to keep one. I saw Cleopatra’s bath. I took a snap.