Memoires 02 (1974) - Rommel, Gunner Who Read online

  “Why must we always drop bleedin’ great shells on ‘em to shut ‘em up.” This is L/Bdr Milligan addressing the Command Post.

  “Well what do you suggest?”

  “We could write to them, and say ‘you are causing a disturbance, please keep quiet, otherwise we will drop heavy explosive things on you’.”

  “Look,” says Signaller Birch, “the Germans are thick, thick, thick, if you belt a Kraut over the nut with a sledge hammer you have to tell ‘im to fall down.”

  “Give me a cigarette, and I will agree with you.”

  “Gord, you still scrounging fags, how many do you smoke a day?”

  “As many as I can cadge, in civvy street I smoked sixty a day.”

  “That’s too many mate.”

  “Yes, it was too many, but some days, it was just right.”

  “They’ll kill you in time.”

  “Something kills everybody in time, take my grandmother, she died of deafness.”

  “Died of Deafness?”

  “Yes, there was this steamroller coming up behind her and she didn’t hear it.”

  “She didn’t die of deafness…she died of steamroller.”

  So the dialogue went on between fire orders. Then at midday, we were in the middle of a counter battery shoot against enemy Guns at Djbel Guessa when we heard what I thought was an unusually loud explosion from one of our guns. I failed to get any acknowledgement of fire orders from A Subsection. “A Sub are you hearing me…”

  Something had gone wrong, then a startled voice came through my headphones. “Command Post, we’ve been hit,” a gasp and then silence. We all started to run to the guns, which were about thirty yards away screened from us by a small feature in the hill. What we saw was terrible, the entire crew of A Sub section lay dead, dying and wounded around their gun. At first we all thought it was a direct hit by Jerry, but it was an even bitterer pill to swallow. B Sub Gun in the lee of A Sub had fired and their shell had prematurely exploded as it was level with A Sub Gun causing havoc. Lance Bombardier ‘Ginger’ Roberts lay on his back, blood spurting from his neck. “Put digital pressure on,” he shouted to a Gunner who was trying to stench the bleeding, but the wound was too huge, he started to lose consciousness. “I want to write to my wife.” We hurried for paper and pencil. “The bastards,” he said, “The terrible bastards.” He still thought it was a German shell, we let him. He started to dictate a letter but lapsed into unconsciousness half way through. Gunner Glanville lay face down, his entire back blown away, he couldn’t have felt a thing. Others lay dead, Nicholls, Wood, Glanville…the only one unhurt was Smudger Smith but he was staggering about in a state of shock. To stop any decline in morale, the remaining guns were immediately given Gun Fire and soon were blazing away, while, under their muzzles lay the blanket covered figures of the dead. It was bloody awful. I went straight to Beauman-Smythe.

  “I’ve never drunk whisky but if you have any, I’d bloody well like some.” He looked at me “Of course,” he said, went to his bivvy and came back with a bottle. “Try that,” he said, handing me a stiff tot and consuming his from the bottle. The ambulance had arrived and the Medics had bandaged up the injured which included Sgt Wilson, Bdr Marston, Bdr Powell, Gunners Convine, McCourt, Wisbey and Howard, and carted them off to the Hospital. What a terrible day.

  There was to be a ‘Short Arm’ Inspection. How Bombardier Morton berated it. “It shouldn’t be allowed.” he said, in heavy Welsh tones, starting to undress.

  “Why not?” I said, looking forward to the occasion for a laugh.

  “What’s down there is a man’s private affair.”

  “They’re not going to make it a limited company, it’s a medical inspection, that’s all.”

  “No! that down there is only for the eyes of the woman you love.”

  “Only for her eyes? Is she a dwarf?”

  He paced up and down holding his trousers up with one hand, and gesticulating with the other, his face set grim. Occasionally he’d gesticulate with both hands and the trousers fell down. All this because someone was going to have a quick ‘butchers’ at his Wedding Tackle.

  “I don’t see any harm in a Doctor lookin’ at yer tool’ said Gunner Farminer, “I think a bit of air does it good and let’s face it, it’s no bleedin’ holiday for the Doctor either.” Still grim and grey Morton continued ‘You have no pride boyo.”

  “No pride?” said Farminer. “How can you be proud of an ‘orrible lookin’ thing like that? I mean, if it was beautiful, people would do an oil paintin’ of it, but I ain’t seen a Portrait of a Prick signed Picasso?” Morton dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  We stood in a queue. “Drop ‘em.” was the instruction, a professional eye would scrutinise the honeymoon area, a gesture to turn round—“Bend Down,” I couldn’t resist it, “Good morning sir,” I said through my legs, “nice day.”

  “Not from where I am.” said the M.O. There was a round of applause when ‘Plunger’ Bailey dropped his trousers revealing God’s answer to lovely women, even the laconic M.O. was given to nodding his head in approval. A worried Gunner, who we will call ‘X’, asked to see the M.O. ‘privately’. What follows was told me by Medical Orderly Watts.

  ‘X’ had been married just before we came overseas, but, his wife had never written him since. He had been harbouring a fear, which he confessed to the doctor.

  “I think sir, perhaps my private is undersized and my wife will go off with a Polish airman.”

  The M.O. assured him, ‘Lots of men have this phobia but it’s all in the mind’.

  Gunner ‘X’ insisted.

  “Very well, ‘X’ let’s have a look.”

  The surprised M.O. saw that Gunner ‘X’ had indeed been sold short.

  “Yes,” he said, “Mother Nature hasn’t been very kind to you. Does it hurt you?”

  “No sir.”

  “It doesn’t pain or anything?”

  “No sir.”

  “Can you pass water all right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well I should use it just for that then.”

  7.2 Gun at Longstop firing on enemy Battery

  May the 1st

  Battery Diary:

  Battery still engaged on Counter Battery Targets. The Offensive launched at end of April has ground to a halt. What now?

  I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. On the Medjez plain to our right appeared the vehicles of the Eighth Army, all painted sandy yellow, tanks, halftracks, Brens, transports, the lot, the dust they raised was like a sand storm. At night they lit bonfires and the scene looked like Guy Fawkes night on Hampstead Heath. What was happening? Alexander had moved the 4th Indian, the 7th Armoured Div. (The Desert Rats) and 201 Guards Brigade on to our Front, to build up for the final Battle (STRIKE).

  The accumulation of Eighth Army Units went on until the 3rd of May. A new officer has arrived to replace Tony Goldsmith, one Lt Walker, dubbed ‘Johnny’, blonde, blue-eyed, a cavalry moustache, 5 foot 8 inches, quiet, funny—i.e. Laying on a hill in the dark at a dodgy O.P. I heard him draw his Colt Automatic and put a round in the breech. “What’s that for?” I whispered. “Academic reasons, Milligan.” he said. Away from his Bivvy, he left a notice—“This is a forward office for a Dewar’s Whisky Agent, who is authorised to taste any whisky to verify that it is of the required standard. For this service—there is no charge.”

  General Montgomery about to start the battle for Tunis

  The arrival of hot weather brought an issue of Khaki Drill. The sight of white knobbly legs plus voluminous shorts brought forth howls of laughter. We looked like ENS A comics trying to look funny.

  “What are you writing inside your trousers?” said Edging-ton.

  “It says, ‘these shorts must never be worn in sight of the Enemy…’.”

  The sun never sets on the British Empire—with these shorts it would never set on their knees either.

  “Bloody mosquitoes! I thought they’d all been killed by the Bri
tish Army in India,” said heavily bitten Smudger Smith. Indeed they hadn’t. Fortunately we were taking anti-malarial Mepacrin tablets three times a day, with unfortunate results, for some gunners turned yellow. Gunner Woods went to sleep an Anglo Saxon and woke up a Chinaman.

  “Oh, look, chop-chop,” I said. “You fightee Jelly Soldier disgluised as Chinky Poo.” Poor Woods, a simple man, went into a depression. “It’ll wear off,” I consoled. “It won’t, I been trying to wash it orf all morning, I rubbed the skin orf and it’s still yeller underneath.”

  “What you need,” said Lt Joe Mostyn, “is a solicitor. In your condition you could sue the British Army for altering your nationality without your permission.” Fortunately for the Chinese race the effect of Mepacrin wore off after a week.

  Terrible effect of Mepacrin on Gunner Woods

  It was about this time that I saw something that I felt might put years on the war. It was a short Gunner, wearing iron frame spectacles, a steel helmet that obscured the top of his head, and baggy shorts that looked like a Tea Clipper under full sail. He was walking along a gulley behind a group of officers, heaped with their equipment. It was my first sight of Gunner Secombe; what a pity! We were so near to Victory and this had to happen. I hadn’t crossed myself in years, and I remember saying, “Please God…put him out of his misery.”

  I never dreamed, one day he, I, and a lone RAF erk called Sellers, at that moment in Ceylon imagining he could hear tigers, would make a sort of comic history, not that we were not making it now; oh no—every day was lunatic. What can you say when Gunners taking mobile showers get a sudden call to action? Imagine the result—the sight of a gun team in action, naked, in tin hats and boots, all save Bombardier Morton who holds his tin hat afront of that part which only his “loved one should see.” As I stood there I thought “My God, what havoc one determined German could wreak on this lot with a feather duster.”

  “You lot, Ammunition ↓ Fatty gues.” says Sgt Dawson with all his hate glands going.

  ≡ Fatigues.

  “Not me sarge,” I said, “I’m a Catholic—today’s Ash Wednesday, a day of obligation.”

  “Today’s Thursday.”

  Have you ever tried off-loading 200-lb. shells for three hours on Ash Thursday? The effect on my back was more devastating than twenty minutes with Louise of Bexhill. At the O.P. Lt Walker and Bombardier Deans were carrying out a pleasurable shoot. Now Germans don’t like 200-lb. shells landing on their nice clean tanks, it spoils the paintwork, but there was Lt Walker landing nearer and nearer with every shot until—ker boooom!

  “You’ve hit one.” says Deans.

  “It wasn’t the one I aimed for,” said Lt Walker.

  B.S.M. MacArthur, the Bore of Tunisia turns up at the G.P. and spends the night in the gun crew’s bivvy. He starts, “…among my friends are Lord Beaverbrook, The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Edmund Speers, The Earl of Caernarvon…”

  A voice from a dark corner, “Don’t you know any fucking dustmen?”

  “You’re on a charge for insolence to an NCO.”

  “Shall I wear full court dress, or could you stand me wearin’ KD’s?”

  The tent went quiet save for a few stifled laughs. The offending Gunner got off with a caution, and B.S.M. MacArthur was told by the presiding Major to try and avoid—“boring the arse off tired soldiers with late night fairy stories, and something else, I know Lord Beaverbrook personally and I tell you straight, he’s never bloody heard of you.”

  The end was near for the quarter of a million Axis troops. Our build up of tanks, troops and artillery was massive, the weather was now really hot, bone dry, and dust was the most prolific element of our daily lives.

  May 2nd

  Battery Diary:

  B.C. to O.P. Enemy Battery observed active 62356 engaged by 19 Battery and silenced. Enemy guns active from DJBEL GUESS A, Favourable Meteor brings them within range of 19 Battery, effective observed, fire continued till last light, one enemy troop silenced the others out of range.

  Well, that took care of May the 2nd. The third and fourth continued as both sides jockeyed for positions for the final round. “Bloody ‘ell.” says an alarmed Gunner Forrest rushing into the Command Post, “There’s bloody black soldiers fightin’ on our side.” I explained they were the Fourth Indian Div. “I didn’t know they let ‘em fight for us, I thought they was never allowed out of India, I mean can you trust ‘em, they’re all bloody Wogs. My dad said they were lazy buggers and you couldn’t trust ‘em.” I explained that nearly a fifth of the Eighth Army was made up of ‘Wogs’ and all that lay ‘twixt him and the Jerry at this moment were in fact Wogs. That night I heard he slept with a loaded rifle by his bed. “I hope the Germans give ‘em a bloody good hiding,” he said. Today that man is Alf Garnett.

  We continued various firing tasks, then!

  0300 hrs. on the 6th

  At that hour, on a very narrow front, 600 guns in two hours dropped 17,000 rounds atop the Baddies. The Infantry moved forward. By 7.30, 6th Armoured started to move forward through a mine-free gap prepared by the 4th British Div., but alas the job had been botched and this slowed up the armour. Overhead there was an unending umbrella of British and American aircraft that bombed and straffed anything that moved, including us. Our battery continued firing at targets chosen by our O.P. The ammunition expenditure was enormous. “This is costing us a fortune.” said Lt Mostyn, “Honestly, in the last three hours we’ve spent enough to have opened two hat shops in White-chapel, with a hundred pound float in the till.” I calmed him, “Would it help if we fired slower, sir?” He shook his head, “Its too late now, if I had been running this war I could have done it at half the price, I mean what’s Churchill know about business? Nothing! Give him a dress shop and in two weeks he’d be skint!”

  A gown shop in Whitechapel:

  CHURCHILL:

  Good morning madame.

  SHOPPER:

  I’d like to see a black velvet evening gown with a plunging back.

  CHURCHILL:

  Is that a dress?

  SHOPPER:

  Yes.

  CHURCHILL:

  In two weeks I’ll be skint.

  A lucky escape by Sergeant ‘Maxie’ Muhleder whose gun prematurely exploded at the muzzle but no one was hurt. Lt Mostyn rushed to congratulate Muhleder on his escape—at the same time trying to sell him an insurance policy.

  In the heat of the final battle, the intense use of artillery never gave much time for anything except moaning.

  “If this is bleeding Victory, I prefer stalemates.”

  “Even if we win the war, the bloody Germans won’t admit defeat, they’ll say, ‘Ve came second’.”

  May 7th, 2.45 a.m.

  Diary:

  On the Command Post wireless I picked up the electrifying message—“6th Armoured and 7th Armoured Units on outskirts of Tunis!”

  I threw the headphones in the air. It was round the battery in minutes, everybody was grinning—this was it!

  Hitlergram No. 32b

  A bankrupt Gown Shop in Whitechapel that went skint in two weeks.

  The scene:

  The bunker. Hitler is ironing Himmler’s head.

  HITLER:

  If we do not vin, zer war ve vill come second!

  HIMMLER:

  I have zer Victory Plan. Ve vill burn all zer top Jews.

  HITLER:

  Idiot! London is a smokeless Zone.

  HIMMLER:

  Zen ve vill only burn smokeless Jews.

  Terrible clanging sound as Hitler brings coke shovel down on Himmler’s head.

  “The Major wants us to look out our white lanyards for the Victory Parade.” said Lt Walker. “Just this once.” I said.

  “Prepare to move, we’ve got the bastards holed up in Cap Bon.” said Sgt Dawson. The great chase started. We passed swarms of prisoners and gave them the usual treatment. We raced along the dust choked road to Grich el Oued. Across the great baked plain of the Goubellat we thunder
ed in concert with Infantry and Tanks, all shouting and yelling with the excitement of the kill. “The Kill!” for that’s what it was. Here was I, anti-war, but like the rest of us feeling the exhilaration of the barbarian—it’s just under the surface folks, so watch out! B.S.M. MacArthur almost mummified in dust goes down the column. “It’s all over!” he’s shouting—and it was! We camped at Oued Melah, told to “stand alert for a call.” It never came. On May the 12th the fighting ceased. The war in Tunis was over. “Cup of tea?” said Edgington, “Ah, cheers,” I said, “Let’s tune in to Radio Algiers.” We did.

  End of Volume Two

  In Volume Three I will tell of our visit to Tunis and the adventures from there on until the Invasion of Italy. Christ knows when I’ll get round to writing it, but stay tuned.

  A German Kriegs Marine officer approaching under a flag of truce