May 1942

Not a bad day today, the sandstorms have stopped and it is not quite as hot. Now that I am in hospital I shall not be getting any letters as they will all be collecting at my regiment so I just cant get out of here and back to my unit quick enough. We certainly do not get very much to eat here but the fellows as a whole are in a very cheerful mood and now and then you can hear one say, “Well boys, now for some nice chicken and roast potatoes” or “Shall we have some bully beef for a change?” and then one says “Shall we go down to the Springs Hotel and have a nice cold glass of beer?” Of course beer is quite an unheard of thing here and we have quite forgotten what chicken tastes like.

I tried to work a point today and get out of here but they insist I remain a few more days. Anyway I shall renew my efforts tomorrow because I must get back to my unit to get my mail because without mail, I get so lonely and feel cut off altogether.

Dust and dirt flew all night and at 4 o’clock this morning I heard distant shellfire. I renewed my efforts today to rejoin my unit but was told I could go tomorrow. Read books all day, listened to the radio and discussed the war in general and were surprised to see how many fellows were of the same opinions as me, and those that were not I soon convinced them. Hell I am hungry, they just about starve you in this joint and the quicker I get out the better.

I have won at last and allowed to go out today. As I was leaving my pal arrived. He was sorry that I was going and told me the only reason he had come to hospital was because I was there and now here I am going out. Arrived back at the unit and found everything changed around. 6 letters and 2 parcels. A lot of shell fire this afternoon and lots of shooting on my right.

Very cloudy, cold and dusty today. Quite a bit of shellfire all day today. This afternoon we set out in a truck to find some of our tanks, which are about 4 miles to our rear. The dust was very thick and after travelling for a good many miles we woke up to the fact that we were right back at the point from which we started. We had gone right round in a circle, so that is what a sandstorm can do to you if you don’t use a compass. We actually had about 10 minutes rain at about 4 o’clock. Anyway that will keep the dust down for a couple of hours but it will be just as bad again tonight.

We set out again this afternoon to find the tanks, which we failed to find yesterday. After a lot of navigating and driving through the desert we found them and were told how they worked and how we were expected to advance behind them in an actual push. Anyway, I quite enjoyed the experience of playing around in a tank.
I received a parcel and several papers from home today. The first paper I read in gig headlines ‘Starving Finns Cry out for peace.’ That is because the Russians are our allies but I can remember 2 years ago when we were on ‘Bad Terms’ with the Russians. It was the Russians that were supposed to be starving, ill clad and did not want to fight. You see, that is what I mean when I say “Our dirty propaganda” and what a mess they are making of things and how I am able to see through it all now. No I am afraid the people are bluffed from morning till night, and another thing I see my friend George Heard has been fired from the Sunday Times. Why? Because he used to bring out the governments weak points and because he boosted up communism.

Worked all morning storing away enough food in an old dried up Bir to feed an entire division for 2 days. There was the usual shellfire all day long and it seemed to increase towards nightfall. There were only a few enemy planes over us today. They seem to be getting quite scarce these days. There is still quite a cold north wind blowing off the sea but the dust was not so bad today. I received two parcels from home, I have been getting quite a lot of parcels lately.

Our aircraft passed over at 5.30 this morning and a couple of minutes later I could hear them bombarding Jerry with bombs and machine guns. Mind you Jerry put up a terrific barrage, anyway the raid kept up for about an hour and then our planes come back. By the way I learnt that the raid and dogfight, which I reported on The 25th April, was the biggest air battle to ever have taken place in the Middle East. I received another two parcels from home today and also a couple of letters, one letter had a curl of my of my son’s hair in it. When I touched it a lump came into my throat and try as I might I could not stop the tears from running down my cheeks. Oh! God I may be a soldier and tough guy but I have a heart too! It is only out here in the desert in our solitude that we realize the real meaning and value of the word home. I pray to God that I never go through all this again.
There was some blasting going on, on my right and artillery shelling became quite intense towards evening again.

Not much going on this morning. It is a perfect day in the afternoon. I went over to our A company on the Gazala Beach. I inspected some armoured cars and also had a swim. This is the first wash I have had in about 2 weeks. There was considerable artillery firing towards sundown tonight.

Our artillery was very active between 1 and 2 o’clock this morning. The rest of the day was very hot and quiet. Only once during the day were enemy aircraft over our lines and of course we opened up on them. I learnt that the British have taken Madagascar. Good for them, that will forestall any move by the Japs but now they have occupied the place they must arm it and not leave it half ready. They have got time now still and they must not wait until the Japs come and then afterwards hold a meeting to decide why they lost it. I played poker.

I shot a bad looking snake this morning. I don’t like those devils and we seem to get plenty in the desert. I could see Jerry artillery shells bursting away in front of us but they were very short of our lines. Our artillery replied shell for shell all day. One of my men was taken to hospital this morning but I do not know what is wrong with him. 6 enemy aircraft came over our lines just at midday and dropped quite a number of bombs but did not stay too long. Our artillery shelled Jerry’s position right through the night and at times the whole sky was lit up with bursting shells and flares. Jerry got annoyed and sent aircraft over to try and liquidate our guns but they just lay quiet until the aircraft passed and then continued the shelling.

We shelled Jerry’s positions all morning and right through the day. Smuts has arrived at Gambut and we have to send two men tomorrow to represent our company to see him. Why doesn’t he come up to the front line here? I suppose the papers in the Union will be printing all about the way General Smuts visited the Springboks in the front line and found them all happy and in the best of spirits. Yet Gambut is well behind the line. It is all very nice for him when he need only come here, stay for a week and then fly home again, but let him stay for a year without seeing his wife and family and then see how he feels. We are sending out armoured columns to attack Temrad tonight. Big 60 and 25 pounders have been coming up all afternoon so there should be some fun tonight, anyway if there is any I shall fill it in here tomorrow. Temrad is one of the wadies in No Mans Land west of Gazala that Jerry has moved into with a strong force and has consolidated himself there. We used to patrol this wadi until Jerry moved in. Anyway we intend to shift him out tonight. The sky was lit up all night with flares.

Several dog fights over here this morning and I saw one plane shot down but I don’t know if it was ours or Jerry’s. there was increased land activity as well during the day. We smashed up a column of 15 tanks and troop transports between Tamimi and Gazala. I had a wash in the Mediterranean Sea this afternoon.

Jerry paid us an early visit this morning at 7 o’clock in the way of four messerschmitts. The first I knew of it was when every darned machine gun for miles around opened up at what seemed all at once as well as about a dozen beau fords all going together. I had just dosed off and was having a sleep when I was awoken with the racket. For the moment I thought the spring offensive had started and perhaps Jerry was on his way. Hell the heat was cruel today.

My sister’s birthday today. There was a sudden change in the weather in the weather today and it is bitterly cold with a very strong north wind blowing off the sea. There was land patrol activity today along the entire front but nothing exciting except for one or two enemy aircraft that flew over at intervals and an exchange of artillery fire. I hear that General Smuts is intending to turn his two divisions up here into armoured divisions so if it comes off we may soon be withdrawn from the front line back to base to be reequipped and then we shall be all riding around in tanks. Some fellows are of course kicking about it and say they signed on for infantry and don’t want anything to do with tanks.

There is still a cold wind blowing from the north across the Mediterranean. Although the north wind is very cold I prefer it to the south wind, which is just the opposite and makes you feel so lifeless and unable to move a limb. There was a lot of aircraft activity here today. I can’t seem to be able to sleep at nights. I just lie on the cold desert sand and my thoughts are always many thousands of miles away in South Africa and I try and draw a picture in my mind of what my son and my wife are doing now and if they are safe and that is how my mind works right through the nights. Late tonight there was quite a considerable amount of artillery fire.

Still quite cold today and everything was very quiet the whole day and it puts me in mind of the calm before the storm. Actually I wish the storm would hurry up and break as I am bored and tired of this keyed up feeling of facing an enemy just waiting, waiting, watching and wondering when will it come, will it be tonight or tomorrow. This time tomorrow may see me in the midst of a bloody battle. I can picture it, blazing tanks, shells, bombers, bayonets, hell has no fury. When will it come? No the waiting is worse than the fight and a fight is inevitable.
The calm was shattered for a few seconds this evening when I spotted a rat I had been after for several days so I just gave him a burst of my Tommy gun. I might include there was not much left of him.

Our fighters passed over our lines early this morning and shortly afterwards I could see thick columns of smoke rising into the sky from Jerry lines. They must of hit a petrol or oil dump. Some minutes later our planes came back and I counted them, there were all there. The dump burned for several hours. One of my men failed to carry out an order I had given him today. Perhaps I could have over looked it but I was just not in that kind of mood so I had him “up for it”, I was rather sorry for it afterwards when I had time to think that perhaps he was feeling just fed up too. There was a lot of air activity right through the day today and at most times there were shells bursting in the sky.

I do not know if it is a prelude to Jerry making an attack but every day we have more and more of his planes in the air. I attended an order group by our Major and he told us that Jerry is concentrating a large fleet of barges mounted with 88mm guns at Derma also paratroopers and from information received from prisoners and photographs taken from the air, Jerry, when he does attack intends to go for our lines of communications. This he intends to do by landing troops from barges along the coast between here (Gazala) and Tobruk together with paratroopers in the hope of cutting off our supplies in the rear and at the same time attack us in front. What measures we have taken to prevent this, I shall refrain from writing down here but I am quite confident that any move he makes we shall forestall him. There were slight bursts of artillery fire right through the night. The moon has started once again and is getting bigger every night so I wonder if it shall bring anything.

I gave my section half an hour of PT early this morning as we call all do with it. We are getting very flabby just lying here and not having any exercise whatsoever so a bit of PT every morning when we can will not do us any harm. Watched a demonstration by engineers in their methods in blowing up mines and the different types of booby traps. There were enemy planes over us at different times today and our artillery increased its intensity towards nightfall.

Did a wee spot of PT again this morning and I quite enjoyed the exercise. At 9 o’clock there was four planes engaged in a dog fight in which one messerschmitt was shot down in flames, after about 10 minutes hard machine gunning. I don’t think there was a minute the whole day when there was not some enemy planes over our lines, although our artillery was rather silent throughout the day. At about 10 o’clock tonight the whole sky over the German lines was lit up with flares and we could watch the bombs which our bombers dropped, burst with terrific explosions and a flash that made it seem like day light. Our planes must have pounded the German lines like that for a solid hour. Our officer got his ration consisting of one bottle each of whiskey and gin so I helped him to drink it.

Got the order this morning to stand by ready to move but then unpacked again at 8 o’clock. The sky seemed to be full of our planes all day and at one time this morning 12 of our heavy bombers escorted by about the same number of fighters flying in formation coming back from another pounding of enemy lines or perhaps they had been bombing the barges that Jerry is concentrating on at Derma.
Two men in our platoon got blown up today, I think it was either a German booby trap or an Italian grenade. Anyway whatever it was it certainly made a mess of them. On the 19th I told my section that I had a feeling Jerry would attack us by Sunday I even told my wife in a letter to her but I don’t know what gave me that feeling, any how my officer told me tonight that the “Brass Hats” at an order group had given Jerry until Sunday to attack. It is rather strange that I too should decide Sunday as the day. Anyway the moon should be in a nice position for night operations so that gives us two days to go. Our bombers passed overhead one at a time at 5 minute intervals right through the night and I could see them dropping bombs of very heavy calibre on the enemy with devastating effect which one must see to believe. The whole hemisphere was lit up for many miles as they burst on hitting the ground and the enemy put up a terrific barrage to try and prevent our planes from doing any great damage but with no success for they just kept at it all night.

Everything leads up to make me firmly believe tomorrow is the day. There were scattered dogfights all over the sky all day with long bursts of machine gun fire at intervals. At two o’clock the 42 Royal Tanks moved up to their battle area which is right in front of my position and they are now busy digging in for it is feared Jerry will try and break through the line where our S.A. 1st Brigade is holding which is in front and slight on my left and if Jerry breaks through there then he will hit us who will be working with the 42 tanks.
It is funny I am not at all excited as I thought I would be when zero hour arrives, instead I seem to be taking everything quite cool although the weather is as hot as Hades. Our aircraft was rather quiet tonight.

Well the attack has not come although at 7 o’clock this morning I really thought it had as Jerries shells started falling a way in front of us but it did not last long and the rest of the day we all just waited very highly strung. I was shown what tank I, with my section, had to work with in action. There are two squadrons, one facing north and the other south. If Jerry comes from the south I go with A squad and north I go with C squad. Our bombers raided Jerry line right through the night and never a second went by without the sky been full of flares. It was just like day and there were shells bursting and bombs exploding all night.

Still waiting for the attack to come but as yet nothing has happened. There were several dogfights during the day and our artillery put up some heavy shelling during the night. Our bombers were over the enemy lines all night again only on an increased scale. It seems to get more intensified each night. I think Jerry is moving his big guns well up into No Mans Land and the attack must come at any time now.

The morning was rather quiet but the real fun started at about 3 o’clock this afternoon. This must be the prelude to an attack so I am expecting it tomorrow. German Stukkas came over in wave after wave the whole afternoon until 8.30 tonight. There were 9 Stukkas in each wave escorted by many fighters. I counted 30 messerschmitts escorting the last wave.

After a restless night in which we were shelled continuously and all we could do was lie and listen to his shells whistling over our heads. Jerry has attacked us and made, I think, the biggest mistake of his life, this is Rommels downfall. For once in his life he has under estimated our strength. I think, and it is my opinion that he thought we only had remnants of two divisions of tanks left, meanwhile we have got more than twice his number not only that is it now disclosed that our 7th armoured division is fully equipt with the very latest American Grant Tank which has a 6 pounder gun. He tried to out flank us by coming right around the extreme left of our line with 360 of his tanks as well as lorry borne infantry with the object of making for Tobruk and so cut us off completely. Unfortunately for him, our intelligence was so perfect that they knew all of his moves days ago and so has our first Armoured division as well as other armoured regiments waiting for him at El Hackiem in the south, but they did not try to stop him for they knew that our 7th armoured division was lying between there and Tobruk waiting for him and as soon as they came to grips with our 7th , the 1st could cut him off from the rear. As he came around our line in the south the Free French who are holding that sector, knocked out 15 of his tanks. Up until now I understand and even before he met our 7th armoured division, we had knocked out 68 of his tanks. There is no news yet of what the 7th has done but at the time of writing there is a terrific tank battle raging 10 miles south of Acroma which is half way between us here and Tobruk in our rear. I am quite confident however, that our 7th armoured division will deal effectively with Jerry and hold up the wonderful name they have got.

Two Italian fiats (?) started machine-gunning us this morning at 7.30am. I returned the fire with my gun. At one time a spray of his bullets fell right across the front of me only a few feet away. Then I saw him manoeuvre his plane and bank to come straight for me with all his guns blazing. I felt sure for a second I was going to collect a packet and my first impulse was to take cover in a trench but when I saw my whole section watching me from a hole in the ground I felt I could not because of all my preaching I had given them about being afraid so with determination I grabbed my machine gun and gave him everything I could. Fortunately for me the Italian changed his tactic and flew away in another direction but I think the incident did leave a good impression on my men.
Jerry has for the meantime cut our supplies from Tobruk and we got no food rations tonight. We have had to send to Acroma all our divisional Tanks and also bring a lot of stuff out of our line to go to Acroma to stop Jerry from attacking our front line from the rear and I have never yet seen so many tanks and guns as what went out to meet Jerry. By evening tonight the situation was well in hand so our divisional tanks came back to us and then formed a defensive ling right around us. Our 44th R.T.R. today received a hard crack from Jerry when they lost 28 tanks out of the 40 that they went into battle with.
We do not know yet how many of Jerry’s tanks we have knocked out but we have taken a lot of prisoners. My officer told e today that there was a ration of two tins of beer for every man if somebody cared to go and attempt to get it lying at Bat HQ. To get there you have to go down the pass in the escarpment overlooking the bay of Gazala and the Italians have been shelling that pass for 3 days now. Anyway, I took one of my men with a machine gun and set out with my truck to get the beer. All went well until I got to the bottom of the pass when one of the Italian observers must have spotted me and telephoned back to their artillery my position as I was riding along because the next thing a shell landed 15 yards on the left of my truck. There was a terrible explosion and I was covered with dust and smoke but unhurt. I did not stop but kept on driving and after a few minutes another landed not 10 yards from the back of my truck. If I had been going 1 mile an hour slower I would not be here to write about it. A little later another landed just in front and to the left of me but it was a dud and did not explode. At last I got back to my company with all the beer intact and were the boys glad but I could not get over the idea that they actually tried to shell me alone.
I have been given another machine gun and now have a strong machine gun nest. The Italians made another attack on B Company tonight but were moved down by machine gun and artillery fire and were driven back. There was shelling going on right through the night.

This is my birthday and here I am many miles away from home in the middle of a bloody battle. Things are still very obscure and we still have no news of our 7th armoured division. Our artillery was pounding the enemy from very early this morning. Our supplies are still cut off and we got no rations again today. If things go on like this we will be starving just now. I don’t mind pulling my belt in, but he has cut off our mail as well and we have not had any letters for a few days.
Our 7th armoured regiment went out to a place 209 but they underestimated the force that Jerry had there and were forced to withdraw after leaving 7 tanks burning.
I bought my officers whiskey rations and I also managed to get a couple of other fellows beer rations that they did wanted so I didn’t do too bad.

“And I sallied forth into action to do battle” and again I predicted it before hand. Just before day break I fell off to sleep, and my wife’ father came to me and told me that the Germans holding the pint 209 in our rear were a menace and had to be cleared out at all costs and that we would go out today and fight them. When I awoke I told my L/Cpl of my vision but he was not to sure if he should take any notice of me or not as so many of my predictions have come true up till now. At 10 o’clock our officer gave me orders to have my section pack and load everything on our truck and we were to be ready to move off at 11.15am and we were going to move as a strong striking column with tanks and artillery and were going to clean Jerry out of 209. At 11.15 we moved off towards the east in desert formation and what a massive sight, the whole desert seemed to spring alive with tanks and guns:-
The whole column must have been about 6 miles wide by 6 miles long. We went east for 15 miles until we struck 209 and found that Jerry was not there but was going like hell for Bir Hacheim in an attempt to get back to his own lines, but 50 division and Free French came up in front of him and so stopped him. We have now got him in a hollow piece of ground and we are lying 2 miles south of 209. By 3 o’clock our 25 pounders started shelling Jerry and then we were to attack him but our observer who went out on a recon reported Jerry to have about 100 tanks and over 1000 transports so he is too strong for us to attack him but we have got reinforcements coming up. In the meantime we are still shelling him. One of our armoured cars caught 2 Germans running around wild in a little car, one also caught their big ration truck so now after days without much food we have an abundance but a lot of the rations on the truck were our own which he had captured a few days before. A few shells dropped in our lines towards nightfall and Lt-Col Martin was wounded in the leg with a bit of shrapnel but not bad. Lt-Col Martin is in command of our column. After dark we withdrew for one mile because the ground suited us better. Different coloured flares were going up all around us and there were planes in the air right through the night.

At 4 o’clock this morning I really thought Jerry had started to attack us but it was only our reinforcements coming up which consisted of 1 company of the 1st Trans. Jacks and later in the day the 8th army tanks arrived. Jerry is now surrounded by us in the north, 4 Indian Div in the east. To the west is our 50th div with a gap and then the Poles at Bir Hacheim.
Mean while Jerry has massed his force at Knights Bridge in the hollow ground. We are on top of a ridge and can see his force, which is terrific, below us. Our 25 pounders roared the whole day and only once did Jerry answer back and with only one salvo but that one salvo was devastating and it landed right in our position. For the minute I thought the whole world had come to an end yet when I came to think of it, that was only one salvo of about 12 shells and yet we have been giving him that solid for two days now at the rate of 2000 shells a day so goodness knows how he must feel about it. Where we are now there is a hospital full of our wounded men. 3 days ago it was in Jerries hands but when our column came we relieved it. The men in the hospital say that Jerry was very nice to them and did not interfere with them at all, only when he cleared out for Knights Bridge he took all their rations as well as their whiskey which was a very sore point, other whys he treated the inmates very well indeed. All our tanks are lined up on the top of the ridge waiting their chance to go in at him but they realize how strong he is and do not want to take a chance and we don’t know which way he will try and break out.