For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II. Dr. Campbell-Begg Richard

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      After a period carting supplies, petrol, etc, to various dumps over the desert area we started taking Italian prisoners of war back to Egypt. We had a little bit of fun with them; they appeared to be so pleased to become prisoners, you couldn’t very well lose them, and when you backed up to the compound they were in, instead of getting about 25 you got about 50 of them. And so we’d leave room for as many as could get in. One day we were stopped for a spell – we used to stop every hour, while they had a comfort stop – and the prisoners would all scatter over the desert, all over the place, and you’d only have to start the vehicle up, they’d be there. This particular day we were stopped and a British staff car came along and one of the officers said, “What are all those chaps doing out in the desert? You’re supposed to be looking after them and taking them into Alexandria.” So we just jumped into the vehicle and started the motor, and they all just piled in and away.’

      Another to experience the war in the Western Desert was Leo Hannah, a New Zealand doctor about to undertake post-graduate studies in London. When the war broke out he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps:

      ‘I arrived in Cairo in February 1941 when the British forces had just succeeded in routing the Italian Army in Libya, and the bulk of those British forces had come back to Cairo to refit, and the front line was being held by fresh troops from England. I was posted as Medical Officer with the rank of Captain to a regiment, the First Battalion The King’s Royal Rifle Corps. They had been fighting the Italians and had actually been training in the desert before the war and were thoroughly conversant with the Western Desert.

      At that time the New Zealand and Australian Divisions and British troops had gone to Greece and it was expected that the bulk of the troops in the Middle East would go to Greece and that the war would be fought in the Balkans. However, we suddenly were told that our battalion was to go back into the Western Desert right up to Benghazi, which was just behind the front line, to guard Italian prisoners of war, of whom there were many thousands. This was rather unexpected and mysterious, and we had to be hurriedly refitted with trucks, etc, and we made our way back through the Western Desert. When we got to Tobruk we were told that there were German troops in Libya, that they were driving back the British troops in the front line without any difficulty and that we would be fighting a battle in the next two or three days. This took us by surprise because nobody had mentioned the presence of German troops in Libya until then.

       Leo Gordon Hannah

      We continued westwards and got just short of Benghazi and found ourselves attached to the 9th Australian Division, who were on the coast road whilst the British troops were further south. We were then posted to be rearguard to the 9th Australian Division and withdrew behind them back to Tobruk with our Rifle Companies fighting various rearguard actions with the advancing Germans. It was decided that Tobruk should be held at any cost, and we thought that we would be shut up in Tobruk, but somebody decided that as we were the only mobile infantry regiment with our own transport, we should not be shut up in Tobruk so we went out into the desert and the Germans came in between us and Tobruk, in which we had left the 9th Australian Division and various other British troops.

      We went back to the Egyptian frontier and stayed there for some weeks. As reinforcements gradually came up from Cairo, the Germans occupied themselves with surrounding Tobruk and we kept them under observation from the outside and fought various minor actions with them. There were two attempts made to relieve the Tobruk garrison when forces of tanks and artillery came up from Cairo, but these were unsuccessful and our life was mainly one of patrolling and observation, and at times we were the only troops in close proximity to the Germans.

      The medical set-up was very primitive. At first we didn’t have an ambulance; we got an ambulance later on, otherwise everything was just done with trucks – we had 15cwt trucks. Each section of infantrymen had one – I had one and the stretcher bearers had two – and we just put what casualties there were on these trucks as comfortably as possible, and the distances were very great. There was a field ambulance behind us, but it could be anything from 10 to 40 miles behind us, and the unfortunate casualties just had to put up with bumpy trips as there was no air evacuation in those times. One could only give morphia for pain and splint broken legs and bandage wounds; the situation wasn’t suitable for suturing wounds, and these had to wait until the trucks got back to the field ambulance, which, as I say, was a variable distance back.

      The usual type of action would be when we were approached by marauding columns of German tanks and armoured cars, in which case we would usually make a quick retreat but come under fire from the tanks until we had got out of range, as at that time there were no British tanks anywhere near us. We were also liable to be strafed from the air by German fighter planes and occasionally bombed by Stukas, but the casualties were not heavy at those times.

      Finally, a determined effort was made by what had become known as the Eighth Army, and in late October 1941 an attack was made on the Germans who were still around Tobruk, and there were several days with heavy fighting between the Egyptian frontier and Tobruk. The casualties then were very heavy and the situation was always extremely fluid in that in tank warfare in the desert there was no front line and one could be attacked from front or rear or either side unexpectedly by mobile columns of tanks and armoured cars. The fighting was very complicated and at times one side appeared to be winning and at other times the other side. Casualties were better looked after at this stage because the Field Ambulance was up in the midst of this fighting and were able to do a reasonable amount of surgery when they were not actually under shellfire.

      Eventually the Eighth Army seemed to get on top, largely owing to the actions of the New Zealand Division, who fought very, very well at that time. A link-up was made with the Tobruk garrison, which by this time was entirely composed of British troops because the Australians had been evacuated a few months previously at the express demand of the Australian Government. The evacuation had been done by British destroyers at night coming up from Mersa Matruh to Tobruk and going back again before daylight came, when they would be vigorously bombed.

      Our battalion had heavy casualties in this fighting, which is known as the Battle of Sidi Rezegh, and we were taken back to Cairo to get reinforcements and generally refit. It was very sad to see the number of men and officers who were killed. I remember vividly dressing the wound of the Brigadier to which my Battalion was attached, who won the VC in the fighting at Sidi Rezegh because of his outstanding leadership and heroism. He was Brigadier Jock Campbell and he drove in and out of a section of the fighting in an 8cwt truck directing tanks and the fire of artillery in the most heroic manner. I was circling an area of heavy fighting in my truck looking for casualties one afternoon and a British tank came driving out of the thick of the fighting towards my truck, which had a Red Cross flag on it, and as it drew near I saw that the body of the Brigadier was lying across the front of this tank and he appeared to be unconscious. However, by the time the tank got up to my truck, he was on his feet again and the tank commander said that he had seen the Brigadier struck by some object and he had fallen off his truck unconscious. The tank commander had jumped out and picked him up and put him across the front of his tank and brought him over to me.

      By this time Jock Campbell was on his feet and wanting to get back into things, but I insisted on examining him and he had deep graze on the side of his chest, but it was not a really dangerous wound so I began to put a dressing on, and I had to order him to stand still while I put it on. And he said, “Well, hurry up, hurry up – I must go and rally those bloody tanks.” And so as soon as I got the dressing on he was away again, his truck having come up in the meantime. I might mention that one of the riflemen of the 1KRRC also won the VC when the battalion had to attack a heavily held German position and he unfortunately lost his life in doing this.

      We were in Cairo for several weeks and then up to the Desert again and took over much the same role as we had been at before until May 1942, СКАЧАТЬ