Walter’s War: Benghazi interlude

Previous chapter: On the road to Benghazi

March 1941

Benghazi town gave me a pleasant surprise. It was quite a large place, with wide streets and avenues. The buildings in the centre were solid stone mansions built in the style that I was to see later in southern Italy. All the shops and services were running. A jolly Italian barber gave me a haircut to the strains of “The Barber of Seville” (no kidding) and cafes and restaurants were still in business. What they had to sell I don’t know, suffering as I was from the chronic lack of money, which afflicted us all.

Benghazi was an important seaport, with a large harbour. The Italians were extending the mole to enclose more of the bay, using a lot of heavy equipment to place very large blocks of stone, and the whole port area bustled with cranes and all the usual paraphernalia of a docks.

We were stationed in an army barracks on the edge of town and I remember feeling uneasy at the prospect of going back into a building to live after such a long time in the open. This uneasiness was made worse by the crop of rumours flying around regarding the situation up at EI Agheila, which seemed to be the ‘front-line’.

We hadn’t gone any further than Benghazi, but the rest of what was left of our army, after the removal of a large part of it to Greece, was spread around somewhere in the desert to the west. The Air Force had taken over the field at Benina, just outside Benghazi. This airfield was littered with dozens of shot up planes from the Italian Reggia Aeronautica, and looked like a rubbish tip. British troops were thin on the ground everywhere and we began to feel a little vulnerable when we heard reports of the number of tanks and aircraft the Germans were said to be bringing in to Tripoli some five hundred miles to the westward.

Benghazi in 1940 (from a postcard)

 

In the square at the barracks I found a large six-wheeled trailer, which looked capable of carrying ten or twelve tons load. It was obviously something special instead of having the usual front pair of wheels on a solid axle, swivelling on a turntable; it had a regular lorry type front axle beam, with swivelling hubs connected by a tie bar and a drag link moved by the drawbar. The thing that made it special however was the long tie bar that ran back diagonally under the trailer chassis to a similar type of axle at the rear. Behind that axle was another solid beam axle with fixed wheel hubs. This was the first fully steerable, multi-wheel trailer I had ever seen, and I imagine it had been designed for use on the new Autostrade, which Mussolini had built in Italy. The higher speeds on these roads called for something better than the “horse and cart” type trailers in use everywhere until then. What it was doing there, miles away from its proper habitat, I don’t know, but it was to come in handy before long.

Next Chapter: Retreat from Benghazi