Walter’s War: Retreat from Benghazi

Previous chapter: Benghazi interlude

April 1941

The rumours were now becoming more believable. The Germans were showing signs of preparation for an advance from their positions about 150 miles west of Benghazi. Suddenly, orders came that 295 Coy were to carry out extensive demolitions to the facilities and installations in the port of Benghazi and then withdraw towards Tobruk carrying out whatever demolitions they could en route and destroying bridges etc. where feasible. These orders caused a bit of a flap to say the least, but once we got hold of the idea things went quite well and poor Benghazi was reduced to a shambles in short order.

The dockside cranes were toppled, the high water storage tank had two legs blown out and fell spectacularly and a lot of lesser acts of vandalism were perpetrated in the sacred name of ‘orders’. The sappers who destroyed the power station told a harrowing tale of the effect this had on the civilian workers there. When they entered and began to place explosive charges against vital parts of the generating plant, it was a little while before any of them realised what was about to happen. When they did they threw themselves down in front of sappers and implored them to spare the power station. They had to be forcibly carried outside.

The most affecting incident, one told me, was when they found the machine shop. He said it was spotlessly clean, with beautiful machines lovingly kept by the machinist. In particular, there was a large metal twinning lathe, which was his pride and joy. When he saw that they intended to lay a charge on the headstock of this lathe he threw himself across it as if to protect it from danger, and had to be dragged out sobbing.

Back at the barracks, we were busy getting all the stores we had unloaded back on wheels. The C.O decided that all the G1098 stores should be loaded on to the Fiat truck, and the newly acquired trailer, and that I should set off for Tobruk as soon as could be. This would free all the other load carrying vehicles to carry only explosives, rations and men and give them more mobility. The three hundred mile journey was going to take quite a time because the heavily laden truck, plus trailer was not expected to average more than about fifteen miles in the hour. In fact it took a good deal longer than expected.

We spent nearly all day loading. On went all of the quartermasters’ stores, bales of blankets, uniforms, shirts, vests, pants long, pants cellular, towels, socks etc., then a multitude of boxes containing heaven knows what. When the truck was piled high, the load was sheeted and tied down securely. Next we loaded our heavy equipment on the trailer – portable petrol engines with the things they drove – generators, chain saws, a folding boat or two, a blacksmith’s forge, and sundry other items stored securely in their own custom made boxes. The trailer took nearly twice as much as the truck and when that too had tarpaulins spread over and tied down we had two elephantine looking loads. All this stuff had previously been shared out between ten or a dozen lorries. Half a dozen sappers were ordered to go with me, two in the cab with me, and rest spread about on top of the load on both truck and trailer.

We left the barracks early next day, with several more non-essential vehicles, leaving behind the lorries, men, and equipment who were still busy with demolitions, Sergeant Jeffery leading on his motorcycle.

As we left town, the smoke from burning buildings was in our nostrils. We headed out across a salt marsh, the road being raised on a causeway with a drainage ditch on either side. About a mile away to my right I could see a large old-fashioned fortress or castle, standing quite alone.

Suddenly a tremendous shock wave hit the cab and the whole vehicle swayed and shuddered. Jeff nearly fell off his bike, he did in fact, end up off the road. I looked to where the fort was and saw the whole thing go up in a huge explosion.

What was stored there I never knew, possibly aircraft bombs, as Benina was not far away, but the whole lot went up in one enormous bang. Years later I saw the film of an atom bomb exploding and I was reminded of what we saw then, on a smaller scale of course. A cloud of yellow dust rolled out in a circle, spreading rapidly, and from it a large mushroom rose, spreading and expanding and reaching higher until the top was thousands of feet above. We were awe-struck, and I remember thinking that I hoped the chaps who set the charges there, had given themselves time to get well away before they blew, and that they knew just what they were dealing with.

When our little convoy cleared the outskirts of Benghazi, I began to realise what a heavy load the Fiat was being asked to pull. Every one of those multiple gears was used to the full and any small rise slowed me down. After a while it was obvious that the rest of the trucks could get along a lot faster without me, and there was no reason why we should stay together, we all knew the way back to Tobruk.

So it was that the Fiat, the trailer, the little band of sappers, and I plodded along together, crawling up the hills and flying downhill when we could. We did not know then, that the German offensive had started and the Afrika Korps were heading straight across country for Tobruk. If we had known it wouldn’t have made much difference, for there was nowhere else to go.

As it was we trundled along with no great sense of urgency. The country we were traversing was new to me, for the journey up had been done in the dark. Gradually the land was rising, and beginning to look very green and attractive. We were climbing up to the Jebel Akhdar, the Green Mountains, which stretch along that coast to Derna and beyond. This area had been colonised by Mussolini because the fertility of the soil made farming possible. He had ejected the native Arabs and brought over hundreds of Italians from the depressed parts of Southern Italy and Sicily, given them grants and loans and built farmhouses all over the cultivable land. These homes were not clustered together but spaced precisely the same distance apart, each being in the same corner of the square plots which seemed to be about half a mile square.

As far as the eye could see, these little whitewashed buildings stood out in rows. A typical piece of planning, worked out no doubt by some official back in Rome, laid out without regard to any human values.

Many of these homesteads lay empty and abandoned. Presumably their occupants had fled when the Italian soldiers retreated. Some were still being worked by Libyans who seemed to be interested in keeping sheep and goats rather than tilling the soil. We passed a collection of larger buildings, which were owned by a co-operative and provided facilities for threshing and milling corn, pressing olives and grapes etc. These buildings were whitewashed, but were also covered in carefully sign written propaganda slogans. The one which amused us most said “Mussolini ha sempre ragione” which we understood to mean, “Mussolini is always right”. This seemed to be a great favourite, and we often came across these words painted on the surface of the roadway in other parts of the Italian “empire”, even later on in Sicily.

A railway ran from Benghazi up to a town in the hills called Barce, and we saw it from time to time crossing and recrossing the road. When we got to Barce, I was surprised to see what a pleasant little place it looked. Palm trees lined the main street, and some of the houses were really beautiful in a Mediterranean style. Signs along the road pointed to a NAAFI. When we got near it we saw a procession of men in Arab dress staggering away with sacks and boxes on their shoulders. They were looting the NAAFI, which told us that the manager and staff must have abandoned it and fled. This was the first indication to us that things were going wrong.

A little further on, a dead Arab was lying stretched flat in the middle of the road and people nearby seemed quite unconcerned at the sight. I suppose a truck had hit him. I carefully drove so that the wheels of the truck and trailer straddled him, and kept on going thinking that Barce was a good place to get out of as quickly as possible.

I cannot remember anything about how we got food on this trip. We certainly did not stop to cook meals or brew tea even if we had had the necessary to do it. I suppose we must have been issued with the usual bully beef and biscuits, and relied on our water bottles for a drink.

Beyond Barce the green country continued, but without so much cultivation. The road rose and fell, and after toiling up long inclines we enjoyed the speed we could attain going down hill.

It was on one of these long descents when I had got the outfit up to a fair speed that there came a loud thumping on the roof of the cab, mingled with cries of “Stop”! This was easier said than done, the brakes on the trailer being fairly useless, but we eventually drew to a halt just at the entrance to another small Italianate town called Giovanni Berta. There was plenty of room at the roadside and I got well out of the way of any other traffic before climbing out to see what was happening.

Well might they have shouted, “Stop”. One leg of the A shaped drawbar of the trailer had broken clean through. It was made of tubular steel, and when we unpinned it from the truck and. dropped it to the ground, the other leg bent upwards, being also cracked half through.

We all gaped, especially those who had been riding on the trailer load, they must have been thinking about what would have happened to them if no one had spotted the break in time to stop the truck.

It was obvious that we were not going to get that drawbar repaired anywhere around those parts. While we were still debating, a Morris pick up, driven by one of our lieutenants pulled up behind. He took one look and said “Right Earley, you drive the truck to Tobruk (still another 150 miles) and unload. Then come straight back and take back as much of the trailer load as you can”.

He then cast an eye over the group of sappers who’d been my passengers and said, “You two go with the truck. You! Get your kit and rifle and stay here and guard the trailer till they come back, the rest of you get in my pick up”. With that he drove smartly off leaving one very discontented sapper nervously looking up and down the road, while his two mates climbed happily into the cab and we set off once more.

Next Chapter: On the road to Tobruk