The Battle of Alamein was a noisy affair, and a number of people got hurt. Aside from these two factors, it seemed totally unrelated to my previous experiences of active warfare. This time I was confident of a successful outcome; this time it all made sense to me, and this time I had a sense of responsibility for others that left me very little time to think about the chances of losing my own skin.
While the British and Imperial troops had never lost their remarkable spirit of "Carry on" even in the darkest days of catastrophe and defeat, still their confidence in their commanders and their general morale had for a time been so low that it was now remarkable to sense the change in atmosphere. For one thing, Rommel had been successfully checked in the September action, and for another thing, every one knew that an end had come to the old business of squirting a garden hose at a four-alarm fire. As one New Zealander put it: "We've got the men; we've got the equipment; and here we go---rip, split, or bust!"
During the Alamein Battle, three of my sections were attached to a South African C.C.S. about ten miles behind the lines, and the other three sections were attached to the 5th and 6th New Zealand Field Ambulances. The 4th New Zealand Field Ambulance was not operating, since the 4th Brigade was back at Maadi being trained as an armored unit. I left Doug Atwood, the platoon sergeant, in charge of the C.C.S. ambulances and spent most of my time trying to keep track of the Field Ambulance boys. Actually I had three excellent N.C.O.'s---Bill Nichols, Scot Gilmore, and Chuck Larrow---in charge of the Field Ambulance sections, and they could have taken care of themselves perfectly well, but since all the drivers were new at their jobs, I felt that it was my responsibility to know just where every one was and why. Also, it was necessary from the organizational point of view to have a central authority.
On the day of October 23rd, the New Zealanders moved up from their reserve positions and made ready to go into the line a few miles south of the coast road. They were flanked on the right by the Highland Division and on the left by South Africans. One of my sections moved up with the 5th A.D.S., another with the 5th M.D.S. The 5th M.D.S. was to handle all New Zealand casualties, and it had originally been my idea to maintain a sort of headquarters at this M.D.S., since all my New Zealand cars would be evacuating into that station. However, when the fighting actually started, I felt that I couldn't keep in close enough touch with things there and consequently spent my time jumping around the advance dressing-stations.
I was terribly anxious to have the drivers in my platoon live up to the high standard set by the men of the original Field Service Company, who had worked for the New Zealand division---particularly since there was a great deal of rivalry between platoons and companies, and a certain amount of resentment over the fact that members of a brand-new platoon had drawn the much coveted New Zealand assignment. Consequently, I was always trying to be in at least two places at once, in an effort to satisfy myself that everything was being done properly. For the first few days of the battle, I think the boys were glad enough to have me around and didn't really mind my nagging at all, but after a while my presence was probably uncalled for and not too welcome. In any case, the twelve days of the Alamein Battle were about as hectic for me as anything I have ever experienced.
On the night the battle started (the 23rd), I was asked to deliver a case of fresh blood to the 6th Field Ambulance A.D.S. I had been waiting all day for an excuse to examine the route between the M.D.S. and the two advance stations, and this gave me a good chance to look things over before the fighting began. The engineers had marked out a series of tracks running west from the "road" that ran south from Alamein. These tracks were named Sun, Moon, Star, Bottle, Boat, and Hat, and bore appropriate insignia. They were so well marked that it was practically impossible to get lost as long as one stuck to the tracks, but it was all too easy to get into trouble when it became necessary to leave the tracks and hunt for a specific point, for the area was honeycombed with poorly marked minefields and camouflaged gun positions. Of course the 6th A.D.S. hadn't even moved up at the time I arrived at their map location, so I spent an uncomfortable hour wandering around asking questions of miscellaneous officers and men. I made myself thoroughly unpopular, since every one was feeling quite jumpy. Nobody was particularly interested in my problems anyhow. God knows they had enough to worry about.
Finally I found a South African dressing-station, where the commanding officer told me that the 6th A.D.S. was moving in alongside and the 5th A.D.S. would be situated a couple of miles to the north. I settled down in a nice hole with a couple of young South African officers and waited for the arrival of the New Zealanders and the start of the great barrage.
It was quarter past nine when I sat down with the South Africans, and the barrage started at 9:40. None of us had met before, and yet the atmosphere was such that before our twenty-five-minute acquaintanceship had ended, we were on terms of intimacy which are seldom equaled among friends of long standing. Under the bright moon, we could see groups of artillerymen making last-minute preparations around the 25-pounders which were to play such an important role in the night's activities. To the east, we could hear the tanks beginning to clatter toward the lines. Yet in spite of these obvious indications of human activity, we might as well have been alone together on a desert island. Something prompted us to speak in voices so low that we were practically whispering. We talked about our own homes for the most part, though for a time we discussed South Africa and the part she was playing in the war.
In connection with the conversation about South Africa, I remember that my new friends had an attitude towards the racial question which would have seemed shocking to Georgia's Eugene Talmadge himself, and yet at the time, I accepted it as absolutely logical.
Five minutes before the barrage was scheduled to start, our conversation began to drop off, and we sat glancing from our watches to the 25-pounder batteries which were just a few hundred yards to the east of us. One of the South Africans disappeared momentarily into a near-by dugout and came out with a bottle of whisky. He poured some into a tin cup and handed it to me. The effect of the raw whisky was amazing; instead of dulling my senses, it sharpened them to the point where I was not only in complete sympathy with the men who were about to initiate the attack, but also with the enemy to the west. It was almost as if I were living each individual experience myself. For a brief moment, I had a feeling of alarm which couldn't have been more acute if I had been on the opposite side of the line with full knowledge of the awful storm approaching. The barrage started exactly on schedule. I knew when it was coming---I even had some idea what it would be like, and yet I distinctly remember at first being surprised by the terrible and continuous force of explosion, the blinding flashes, and smell of gunpowder. There were so many guns firing, and the rate of fire was so rapid, that the sky was illuminated in a continuous line running from north to south as far as the eye could see.
My New Zealand friends, with Scotty Gilmore's section of ambulances attached, put in an appearance about quarter of ten, and I drove over to deliver the blood and see how the boys were enjoying their first barrage. I was pleased to notice that the ambulances were well dispersed and every one was happily employed digging slit trenches.
Scotty Gilmore and I found ourselves an abandoned dugout near the reception tent and pretended we were going to get some rest before the work began. Of course, we were much too excited to settle down for more than five minutes at a time and consequently did a lot of wandering around looking for some one to talk to.
The continuous barrage was sustained along the entire front until ten o'clock and then seemed to become more sporadic and therefore somewhat less intense. Shortly after ten there was sufficient lull in the firing so that we could hear the wail of the Scottish bagpipes as the Highland Infantry moved forward on the, right flank of the New Zealanders. I had heard many tales of how the Highlanders traditionally went into battle with bagpipes playing, but I was nevertheless surprised to hear the pipes with my own ears. Even from a distance, the "music" is enough to make your skin creep. It can't have failed to have a demoralizing effect on the enemy.
It wasn't until 1:30 that our Field Service cars were called on to start working, and then five cars were ordered to the 24th Battalion R.A.P. I decided to go along as a spare driver for a friend of mine named Brook Cuddy.
We drove westward on a dusty track crowded with tanks and Bren carriers getting ready to move out and cover the infantry positions at dawn. It was touchy work by-passing the concentrations of armor, since it was, of course, necessary to leave the proper path of the track at times and take a chance of running into a slit trench or perhaps a stray mine. However, we found the 24th R.A.P. truck without mishap and loaded three of our cars quickly. I was about to settle down and wait for more casualties to fill the two remaining cars, when a very excited padre came rushing up and told me that the 25th Battalion was a few hundred yards to the west and needed ambulances in the worst way.
I had learned to mistrust directions from people who said things were a "few hundred yards" one way or another, so I tried to pin him down to a more specific statement.
"Which side of the track? How many hundred yards?" I asked.
"Oh, less than a mile. Perhaps half a mile-right near the track," he answered.
It took us two hours to find the 25th Battalion, and by the time we got there, it was a good three miles west of where it should have been according to our informant. We had to work our way through and around the tanks, across the British minefields, across what had been no man's land, and across the German minefields, before we reached our destination---and when we did get there we found that neither the battalion doctor nor his R.A.P. truck had put in an appearance. The battalion had just taken its second objective, but the wounded were still scattered all over.
That was a mighty unpleasant trip in many ways, especially since we had to wait for an hour, in company with a great number of tanks, on the east side of the German minefield, while the engineers cleared a lane. The enemy gunners must have been awfully busy withdrawing, or they would surely have subjected that dense mass of armor to a ruinous pounding. As it was, they managed to land an occasional shell in the neighborhood. While we were waiting I climbed out of the ambulance and asked a friendly engineer if he'd help us get through the minefield before the tanks got in and jammed things up. Luckily he thought I was a doctor and promised that our two ambulances could get through immediately behind the engineers' truck. He smiled and said: "Well drive ahead of you, sir---just in case."
I couldn't help thinking what a wonderful set for a movie that scene would have made. It certainly had about every possible element required for a composite battle scene: the infantry banging away on the far side of the minefield with rifles, mortars, and machine-guns; long lines of tanks shifting about on the near side; the engineers nonchalantly going about their business of clearing a passage: shells and mines exploding at odd intervals, and a great white moon shining down through a haze of fine dust, creating a unique lighting effect.
I had expected the 25th Battalion to greet us with open arms when we finally did get through to them, but every one seemed too tired and preoccupied to get enthusiastic about anything. I found a young captain and told him we'd be glad to evacuate as many casualties as our ambulances could carry.
"Ambulances?" said he. "Well, we haven't really had time to collect our wounded. Perhaps you'd see to that? I'll send over a guide. Better hurry up and get those ambulances away.
He sounded like a man who has just finished running a hard race and is having trouble bringing himself back into his immediate surroundings.
It took us a good half-hour to find enough casualties to fill our ambulances. I know for a fact that we should have been able to fill the ambulances twice over, but it was like pulling teeth to try and persuade any one---even the battalion stretcher-bearers---to take a real interest in what normally would have been a common task. This was the most marked exception to a general rule of behavior that one could possibly find. I've never known a time before or since when fighting soldiers were not willing to drop everything in an effort to get their wounded comrades started toward a dressing-station. The only explanation I've ever been able to figure out is that we had arrived too soon after the battalion had taken its objective, and the men hadn't had time to bring themselves out of the strain and tension of the attack.
It's very rare for ambulance drivers to join in the work of battalion stretcher-bearers, since the dirty work is usually done at the time and place of the action, and ambulances don't exactly drive into the midst of an infantry engagement. The only time I'd really done any stretcher-bearing before was on the night of July 4th, and that had been one quick trip, but this time I had a good chance to find out just what a nasty job a stretcher-bearer had. At one time Brook Cuddy and I accompanied two New Zealanders out in front of the infantry positions and had the unpleasant experience of finding ourselves sitting among a group of mangled bodies while an enemy machine-gun sprayed a stream of tracer in our direction. We'd probably still be out there if it weren't for the fact that a column of British tanks came clattering through on the right and diverted the fire.
We drove back to the A.D.S. just as dawn was breaking. Once again we had to fight our way past the tanks and through the narrow minefield lanes. It must have been a terrible trip for the wounded, who had received no medical attention of any sort. The ground was rough; we kept scraping up against the sides of the oncoming tanks, and an occasional shell landed close enough to the track to add a degree of mental discomfort to their physical agonies. This was the first time that Brook Cuddy had ever driven an ambulance-load of screaming wounded, and I practically had to chew his ear off to persuade him to travel over three miles per hour.
It was full daylight when we arrived at the 6th A.D.S. There was a great rush of work as the casualties were pouring in from the battalions, being quickly and efficiently treated, and loaded into ambulances to be evacuated to the main dressing-station. Scotty Gilmore's boys didn't seem to be having any trouble getting into the swing of things and were busy shuttling back and forth between stations with a good routine efficiency. I stopped long enough to find out that the night attack had been a complete success for the 6th Brigade, which had managed to take all objectives right on schedule. Then I drove over to the 5th A.D.S. to find out how Bill Nichols' section and the 5th Brigade were making out. Here again I was pleased to find that the A.F.S. boys were handling their assignments like veterans, and that every one was very cheerful about the success of the 5th Brigade operations. Bill was somewhat put out because his cars were being used exclusively for the M.D.S. run and had not been sent out to the battalions. He wanted me to ask the company commanding officer to assign the Field Service cars to more exciting work, but this I refused to do. I did agree to let the commanding officer know that he should feel free to use our cars for any sort of work, but I couldn't see my way clear to asking for special assignments. For one thing, I knew that all the drivers would get plenty of blood and thunder before the battle ended, and for another thing, I was convinced that they would do a better long-term routine job if they took things as they came and didn't play the short and snappy game of temporary fire-eaters.
Since there was a shortage of ambulances at both the advance dressing-stations, I went back to the M.D.S. and split up Chuck Larrow's section, assigning two cars to the 5th A.D.S., and three to the 6th. The M.D.S. looked like a scene from Gone with the Wind (station scene, siege of Atlanta) since there wasn't enough room inside the tents to hold all the patients awaiting treatment. However, the general atmosphere was cheerful enough and the doctors were doing a remarkable job of rushing things through and at the same time seeing to it that no man was deprived of his right to the best available care.
How different this was from the early summer days of defeat and discouragement! Word had got around that the enemy had suffered a "hell of a knock" in the opening stages of the battle, and a good many of the wounded undoubtedly were comforting themselves with the double consolation that they had borne a hand in a good piece of work and were now well out of it. It's the most natural thing in the world for a man, no matter how much he may talk about wanting to "get back and have another crack at it," to feel a sense of relief when he can make an honorable exit from the strain of battle.
I felt a great sense of personal relief and comfort as I left the main dressing-station and made my way back to the battle area; the general situation seemed to be better than it had been for many months, and somehow the problem of getting my three Field Ambulance sections settled into their jobs had been solved overnight. The boys just seemed to fit in as a matter of course. Furthermore, I had the satisfaction of knowing that the dressing-stations would probably not be changing positions for a few days now, and I could settle down to a routine of shuttling back and forth between definitely established points. For the next three days, I spent most of my time distributing the mail, cigarettes, and tinned fruit, which came up from our company headquarters; urging people to take better care of their ambulances; discussing the merits of Paulette Goddard and Mary Martin, and acting as a spare driver for various people. I didn't get much sleep, since most of the hard work came at night, especially for the cars attached to the 6th Brigade, which were making quite a few R.A.P. evacuations.
These trips out to the battalions weren't much fun. One of the New Zealand orderlies got killed the second night, which put the wind up in some of the orderlies attached to our cars, making it necessary for me to report two of them to the medical officers. I had a bad habit of worrying like an old hen whenever an ambulance would go out on a mission which seemed to me at all dangerous---not as a matter of sentiment or affection, but rather because it took me some time to get used to a sense of responsibility for the welfare of others, particularly since in this case I was supposed to have seen to it that these fellows were properly trained to cope with any situation. My excessive anxiety cut down on my sleeping time considerably.
For three days the New Zealanders kept on attacking, taking their objectives and consolidating them with machine-like precision, and on the third day they were withdrawn into temporary reserve. I took advantage of the lull in Field Ambulance work and spent a couple of days with the other half of my platoon attached to the South African C.C.S. Here the boys were putting in a lot of hard work but were somewhat disgruntled over the lack of glamour attached to their job. Fortunately, Doug Atwood, the platoon sergeant, had a knack of getting a good degree of efficiency out of people under almost any conditions, and I didn't have to bother myself too much over the familiar moans of the fire-eaters. Of course, the field ambulance drivers coming into headquarters for workshop inspections made life unpleasant by looking down their noses at the C.C.S. boys, but that sort of thing is always normal.
While the New Zealanders were being held back in reserve, the Australians cut off a pocket of Germans northwest of the famous Hill of Jesus, and the Highland Division pushed forward on their left, thus creating a salient on the northern end of the line. The 6th New Zealand Brigade, was again brought up into the lines, and together with the Highlanders and the Home Counties Division they took up the job of exploiting the salient. Since the 5th Brigade was still in reserve, my cars were now divided between the 6th A.D.S. and an English Field Ambulance serving the Durham Light Infantry.
By this time the battle had entered a second phase: Montgomery and company had apparently decided to take a major crack at the enemy in a limited area on the northern end of the line and had concentrated strong infantry forces, backed by a tremendous weight of artillery. The first night of the second phase, the New Zealand Brigade was used to cover the engineers, who were working on the formidable German minefields; the Highland and Home Counties Divisions put on an infantry attack, and the artillery laid down one of the most terrific barrages of history. (It was estimated that there would be a shell landing every eleven and a half yards in one particular sector.)
I spent a good part of that night driving around in an ambulance looking for a battalion which apparently didn't exist. Major Eliot, the C.O. of the 6th A.D.S., had a strange idea that I could find all sorts of units that nobody had ever heard of and was always sending me out on wild goose chases. I didn't really mind, since I was very fond of Major Eliot, but it was a little embarrassing to find myself wandering around in the middle of a battle asking foolish questions. On this particular night we went out looking for New Zealanders and came back with an ambulance load of Germans and Scots. There were a lot of Germans walking back along the minefield track that night, some of them supporting wounded comrades, and it was quite a job keeping the healthy ones from climbing in with the wounded.
Early in the morning I left the New Zealand dressing-station and went over to the British station, where Bill Nichols and his boys were attached. I'd seen some strangely located dressing-stations by this time, but this one took the prize. It was set up right near a minefield bottle-neck, through which a great assortment of tanks, Bren carriers, infantry-trucks, ammunition trailers, and anti-aircraft guns was trying to pass with very little success. Not since the days of the retreat had I seen such a concentration of undispersed equipment, and never before had I seen such a number of sitting pigeons for enemy shell-fire. It was almost impossible for a shell to land without hitting something or some one, and there were plenty of them landing.
I'll never be able to figure out why that dressing-station wasn't wiped off the face of the earth, especially since four full coffin-sized boxes of mines were sitting right in between the reception and evacuation tents, but somehow not a single shell landed close enough to the small group of Red Cross tents to do any harm. I soon discovered why the boxes of mines hadn't been moved away; it was because the casualties were pouring in so fast, both from the infantry battalions and from the concentration near the minefields, that not a single orderly or stretcher-bearer could take time out to do the moving.
I found that four of Bill's cars were loaded up and heading for the M.D.S., while Bill was out in the fifth with a boy named Eccy Johnston, at a Durham Light Infantry Battalion. They'd all been going steadily all night. I had a talk with the harried commanding officer and then sent my driver back to the M.D.S. to bring up Chuck Larrow's section, which was waiting around for the 5th New Zealanders to go back into action. Within forty minutes there were ten Field Service ambulances and four English Austins all operating out of that one station---and all of them busy. I spent most of the day carrying stretchers, between the ambulances and the reception tent and worrying about Bill Nichols and Eccy Johnston, who kept driving back and forth between one of the. R.A.P.'s and the A.D.S., each time passing through the gap in the minefield under heavy shell-fire.
Three battalion doctors were killed that day, including the man that Bill and Eccy were working for, and by mid-day the going got so tough that it was necessary to move the brigade headquarters and the battalion R.A.P. trucks back to within a few hundred yards of the minefield gap. Unfortunately, the major commanding the A.D.S. decided to go out and look for brigade headquarters just after it had changed its location, and picked on Bill Nichols to give him a ride, since the headquarters had originally been located near Bill's R.A.P. I had just relieved Eccy Johnston and was acting as a spare driver for Bill at the time and therefore managed to get in on one of the nastiest possible rides. I had to take my hat off to Eccy and Bill when I saw the kind of stuff they'd been driving through all day.
We passed through the minefield gap and traveled along a track leading up to the infantry positions. There were plenty of shells plopping about, and it would have been an uncomfortable ride at best, but in this case we no sooner got out west of the minefield than we found ourselves in the middle of a tank battle of sorts. There were about twenty British tanks scattered along the southern side of the track taking pot-shots at a pocket of Germans to the north. The Germans were returning the fire with anti-tank guns that sent out a lively white tracer with shells that seemed to go bouncing along the ground. The major couldn't decide whether to go on or not, but anyhow we drove right in front of a number of tanks, probably spoiling their aim, and then pulled up right in the middle of things before the major finally decided we'd gone far enough.
I thought for a minute that he'd given up the whole idea of finding brigade headquarters, but not at all---he simply climbed out of the ambulance, adjusted his snappy garrison cap at a jaunty angle, and announced his intention of taking the next few hundred yards to the supposed location of headquarters on foot. Needless to say, Bill and I didn't sit around in the ambulance waiting for him to come back. As a matter of fact, he hadn't walked ten yards before we were making our way toward a vacant slit trench. The major strolled along for about ten minutes with a beautiful, though foolish, disregard for life and limb, and then returned with the news that the brigade headquarters had withdrawn and was now well to the east of us.
We finally found the headquarters situated on the western side of the minefield, amid a large concentration of trucks and guns such as I had first noticed on the other side, near the A.D.S. This concentration was also drawing a good deal of German shell-fire. In fact, the shelling was so effective that while we were waiting for the major to finish talking to the bigwigs, we gathered one load of casualties on the spot, evacuated them to the A.D.S., and filled up the ambulance again.
I saw an interesting sight while Bill was driving the first load of wounded back to the A.D.S. and I was waiting to catch the major in case he should come looking for the ambulance. A truck-load of infantry was proceeding westward on the same track we had been traveling when a flurry of shells prompted the men to pull up, leap out, and take to the ground. A disagreeable sergeant-major started shouting about and ordering the men back on to the truck---all to no avail. Three times he ordered them to get going, and three times they completely disregarded him. Then a nonchalant-looking young officer---I think he was the brigade major-came sauntering along with a map under his arm and quietly but firmly said: "Get back on that lorry." Without a moment's hesitation they climbed on board and went on their way.
Shortly after this incident I had a chance to disprove the old theory that it's no use ducking when you hear a shell, because "you'll never hear the one that's close enough to hit you." I was sitting on the edge of a big slit trench when I heard the familiar noise which has been likened to everything from a whistle to the roar of an express train, only this time it was obviously louder and closer than usual. I automatically ducked behind the pile of earth heaped up on the side of the trench, and as I did so a fragment imbedded itself with a loud smack just about where my bottom had been resting a split second before---and I know that was the same shell I had heard coming, because there had been a single explosion immediately followed by a lull which lasted for at least three or four minutes.
The major eventually returned from his pow-wow, and we made our way back to the dressing-station on an ambulance so loaded with wounded that it was necessary for me to ride on the mudguard. The narrow track through the minefield had been so chewed up by heavy traffic that there was a layer of fine, powdery dust at least six inches thick covering the hard desert surface, dust which was so churned up by every, passing vehicle that at times it was impossible to see three feet in front. Most of the overworked tracks in the limited area behind the Alamein line were in the same condition in those days, and a large proportion of the Eighth Army went around looking as though they had been dipped in a barrel of tinted flour.
By nightfall the pressure on the British A.D.S. had let up considerably. Apparently the tanks had done a good job during the afternoon, and in the evening the infantry was able to keep the situation well under control, suffering very few casualties in the process.
The Durham Light Infantry was withdrawn in the morning, and our brief attachment to the British Field Ambulance was ended. Chuck Larrow's section rejoined the 5th New Zealander A.D.S., and I split Bill Nichols' cars between the two New Zealand stations. We had a couple more days of routine work (again I spent a night on one of Major Eliot's wild goose chases) and then the break-through came. On our last day "on the line," word spread that the Army had broken through and the Allied Air Forces were giving Rommel's boys a fair idea of how it feels to be on the receiving end of the kind of punishment that had been inflicted on the refugee-packed roads of France.
In keeping with tradition, the New Zealand Division was picked to lead the infantry break-through---the general idea being that we were supposed to make a mad dash some thirty miles west and then northwest to an escarpment commanding the coast road along which the Axis forces were retreating. Also in keeping with tradition, we made a good try but never got there. I think we were all expecting this to be a really hair-raising experience; I know that I was mentally preparing myself for a large-scale repeat of the Minquar Quam ambush, but somehow it was all rather an anti-climax. If things had gone according to schedule we would have started out at noon and been in position to cut off a good portion of the German forces by first light the next morning, but of course we didn't get through the Axis defenses until well after dark, and when we did get through we spent most of the night getting unstuck from a series of unusually bad patches of soft sand. I was riding with Father Kingan, the Roman Catholic padre attached to the 6th Brigade, since it had seemed best to leave my own truck behind, but I spent as much time out of the car as I did in it, running back along the column looking for stray ambulances.
The first night of the great adventure turned out to be really a very irritating experience: not that any of us were at all blasé about it at the time---God knows we expected to be set upon from all sides every time we saw a flare in the sky---but just that we had expected to make a sensational dash, and here we were jogging along at a rate of two miles per hour.
At dawn we were still a good fifteen miles away from our original destination and getting nowhere fast. Apparently the brains of the army had figured we were too late to go through with the encircling movement at that point so we didn't make for the coast road at all that day but kept on moving slowly to the west. By this time every one was impatient to catch up to the Germans before they could make a complete getaway, and there was a good deal of comment about our poky progress, but on the whole the daylight served to lift our spirits considerably. It was a wonderful feeling to be out from behind the Axis wall that had confined us through the summer months, and to be out in the open spaces again---even if the open spaces didn't amount to much more than endless stretches of sand and rocks. The British and Imperial soldiers had always referred to the western desert as the "Blue," and once again it struck me as a strikingly appropriate name: miles and miles of nothingness with seemingly no limits---no beginning and no ending.
We didn't travel very far that day but saw a lot of people who really weren't going anywhere. In other words, the Germans had literally filched a good part of the Italian transport right out from under them, and there were sizable groups of forlorn-looking warriors scattered all over the desert, mostly just sitting around scratching themselves. It was really quite an amusing sight and very good for our morale.
I personally spent a very enjoyable day riding with Father Kingan, who was in rare good form and gave vent to his good spirits by frequently breaking into song in one of the most delightful. voices I have ever heard. When he wasn't singing he was telling me about New Zealand and the rugby team he'd coached at Saint Patrick's College. He was not only a good singer but also an exceptional talker. I've never met a New Zealander who couldn't talk about his homeland with convincing enthusiasm, but Father Kingan had such an exceptional gift of description that it wouldn't have taken much to persuade me to shift my national allegiance. As a matter of fact, if he'd tried hard enough, he probably could have sold me the Catholic Church to boot.
We kept crawling along until the middle of the night, when the column halted and Major Eliot gave orders to dig in and get some sleep. Smoking was strictly forbidden, since, according to Major Eliot, we were "in full view of the enemy." I remember we thought that last was a bit of sensationalism, but we found out differently in the morning, when a group of Germans started letting off machine-guns in our direction. It was only a matter of seconds before the division anti-tank and machine-gunners were racing out in the direction of the fire and only a matter of minutes before they had literally wiped out the foolhardy attackers. Aside from some minor incidents on the first night out, to the best of my knowledge this was the only aggressive action directed at our column from the time we passed through the Alamein line to the time, some four days later, when one battalion of the 5th Brigade cleared out a delaying force of Italian infantry and German gunners on the heights of Halfaya (or Hellfire) Pass above Solum. A remarkable thing, when one considers that most of the time we were passing through territory which was still largely in enemy hands.
We made very poor progress during the next two days, running into some unusually rainy weather which not only bogged down the vehicles but also made it impossible for the service corps to bring up sufficient supplies of gasoline to expedite our progress. On the seventh of November we were thrilled to hear of the American landings in Northwest Africa. The news was just too good to be true, and at first we either discredited it completely or figured it must be only a large-scale raid, but when the truth was known there was great rejoicing, and all the fighting troops were anxious to press on toward the west to wreak a personal vengeance on the Africa Corps and get to Tripoli ahead of the new-comers.
The 6th Brigade stopped to occupy Mersa Matruh on the eighth of November. Half of our ambulances followed them in with the 6th A.D.S., and I went on toward Bardia with the ambulances attached to the 5th A.D.S. We traveled mainly by the coast road, after by-passing Matruh---noting with special satisfaction the great quantities of burned-out enemy equipment strewn along for mile after mile. It was really fine to be playing on a winning team for a change. When we arrived at Solum there was a tremendous jam-up of traffic waiting to get through Halfaya Pass and continue the chase into Libya. Rommel's engineers or our own air force had blasted the winding portion of the coast road that led over Solum hill, rendering it temporarily impassable, and we were obliged to cool our heels at the foot of Halfaya (the only alternate route into Libya), while the infantry cleaned up a delaying force that was holding the pass and until our proper turn should come to join the brigade column.
There was an amusing incident which served to lighten the strain of our impatience. Long lines of prisoners had been herded down the pass during the early morning hours, and by mid-morning it seemed that most of the Axis troops in the area had been collected and sent back to the rear. But such was not the case. About noontime a forlorn-looking group of two Italians and one German came shuffling along with handkerchiefs tied to their shirts and white rags in their hands. There was no question but that they intended to surrender. The awkward thing about it for them was that they couldn't find any one to surrender to. No one would pay any attention to them.
Looking like three small boys who had just wet their pants and were waiting to be punished, they went and stood in front of a military policeman who was busy directing traffic. Of course, the M.P. didn't even notice them. Finally a smart-looking captain walked over and led the prisoners up to a little group of very senior officers who were taking an interest in the proceedings. The senior officers were Generals Alexander, Montgomery and Lumsden. The prisoners seemed to take heart, assumed a military bearing, and snapped to rigid attention in front of the generals. This was the way to surrender: they would be able to tell their grandchildren, "It took full general to capture me!"
But if they were temporarily inflated with a sense of special importance, it wasn't to last for long. One of the generals took up a camera, carefully adjusted the lens, and took a snapshot of this miniature Axis Army. Then he handed the camera to an aide, turned on his heel, and walked away, leaving the captives looking like so many deflated balloons. It was a very funny sight. Of course, it's mean to laugh at the discomfort of others, but it was gratifying to see just how insignificant three ex-"world conquerors" could look, and anyhow I knew they would soon be enjoying three meals a day and safe billets for the duration.
Our turn to go through the pass came the afternoon after this little incident, and by evening we had set up camp a few miles outside Bardia. We had picked up a number of wounded German artillerymen as we drove through Capuzzo at the top of the pass, and that evening I had a good chance to talk to some of them. One of our Field Service boys had gone to school in Germany and acted as interpreter.
The Germans seemed remarkably well informed: they knew more about the American landings in North Africa than we did, and besides genuine information had a ready store of "facts" about the number of Allied ships sunk in the Mediterranean. They all seemed happy enough to be out of the war and said that they were anxious for the war to end so that they could get home, but they refused to admit that there was any possibility of a German defeat. They seemed friendly enough, and not at all arrogant, but were firm in their conviction of invincibility. I asked one of them if the Alamein attack had been a surprise. In a way it had: they had expected something, but nothing so big.
One of the Germans who could speak some English asked me if I too didn't wish that the war would end so that I could return to my family. When I replied that of course I did, he beamed all over.
On the day after we had set up camp I made a trip into Bardia with Major Dempsey, who was commanding the 5th A.D.S. Bardia had once been a pretty little town of modern white houses set on a high promontory overlooking the Mediterranean, but the war and particularly the Italian Army occupation had made a great difference. A surprising number of houses were still standing, and there were portions of the town which might have been habitable if it weren't for the fact that Italian occupation had rendered them unfit for a monkey to live in. There were piles and rows of human excretion all over that town-not only outdoors, but also in the very rooms of the "habitable" dwellings. Apparently it is a concession to sanitation when an Italian soldier goes, to the trouble to take down his pants. The army must do something to Italians. It seems to me that Italian civilians must be decent enough folk (at least clean enough), or they wouldn't have built such a nice town originally.
We picked up. a lot of Italian wine in Bardia and some fairly good German brandy, and that night every one in the company had a big binge, in the course of which Major Dempsey poured a good deal of wine down my back.
The 5th New Zealand Brigade established a reserve area outside Bardia and took a long rest, together with the 6th Brigade which shortly came up from Matruh. Apparently the high command was saving the New Zealanders for later operations, and it wasn't long before the entire Eighth Army, including the rest of the American Field Service, had passed us and gone on toward the west. The South African C.C.S., that had the rest of my platoon and our company headquarters and workshops attached, paused outside Bardia for a few days, so I had a chance to have the cars belonging to my field ambulance sections overhauled by the workshops.
While the operation was getting on, I had some long talks with Captain Andy Geer. Andy had made up his mind to leave the Field Service during this lull in the fighting and go home to transfer into the American Forces. I had been carrying on some negotiations with the Navy in recent months and had always planned to leave the Field Service as soon as I should have completed my obligations. Now I felt that, in a sense, my job was done. My new platoon was thoroughly experienced, there was very little ambulance work to be done for the present, and if I were ever going to make the break, this seemed as good a time as any. Therefore I told Andy that I'd like to head for home at such time as he deemed advisable. Andy wanted to get to Benghazi before turning his back on the desert campaign, so we agreed that once that had been accomplished we'd head for Cairo and home.
I hung around Bardia for a couple of weeks, sleeping most of the day and playing black-jack with the New Zealanders at night. Then I turned my platoon over to Doug Atwood, said good-by to my New Zealand friends and the A.F.S. boys I'd grown so proud of, and headed for company headquarters, which by this time had reached Benghazi.
The drive to Benghazi was a very happy one. Furthermore, it was good to pass through battered Tobruk, where we bad first joined the desert forces, and to travel through the country to the west that I had never seen before. Of course a lot of it looked just the same until we passed to the south of Derna: but what a difference then! All of a sudden the desert ends and you enter a stretch of fertile country with green and rolling hills, cultivated fields, and fruit trees. I hadn't seen anything like that since leaving Syria in April.
On the twenty-eighth of November Andy and I and a few others who were on their way home, made a quick sight-seeing trip around Benghazi, which looked very much like the European quarters of Alexandria, except that it was deserted and had been badly battered-and then made a mad dash for Cairo. We drove the six hundred and fifty some miles over war-torn roads back to Cairo in thirty-six hours -looking neither to the right nor to the left. just hell bent for home.
Once you've started home after being away for over a year you get a sort of fever which is like nothing else in the world, especially if you expect to keep on moving without delay and then run across nothing but one delay after another. When I first got to Cairo and reported to the Field Service General Headquarters I was informed that I could expect to sail within five days. I went to a service corps camp near Port Tewfik and waited for three weeks. After the first five days it looked as though there might be some chance of getting off ten days later. Still no luck. At the end of three weeks I hitched a ride back to Cairo and stormed into the A.F.S. headquarters to ask why in Gods name I hadn't been put on one of the many boats which I knew had been sailing from Tewfik harbor. It seemed to me that since I had stayed over my enlistment period the Field Service ought to move heaven and earth to get me home. I got so mad that I began to really feel sorry for myself and worked up a lot of emotion about how I'd been, out in the desert "taking my chances, while those bastards sat on their bottoms in Cairo." No amount of emotion or ranting and raging did me the slightest bit of good. I guess the Cairo boys were doing their best at a thankless job, but I didn't see it that way at the time. I had the old "going-home" fever, and my general attitude was "To hell with the A.F.S. and every one in it."
Finally it turned out that if I could put up three hundred dollars, to cover any charge which might he made against the Field Service, I could fly as far as the west coast of Africa and take my chances of getting passage from there. My family cabled the money (it was quickly returned, since I traveled on a British movement order as though I were a genuine officer), and, after a dismal Christmas and New Year's in Cairo, I said good-by to my old friend Andy Geer, who was to travel separately, and flew to the west coast in the quick and efficient charge of the United States Air Transport Command. It would be stepping out of line if I were to describe my air route or the location of various fields, but I would like to say that the U. S. Army and Pan American Airways have done a truly remarkable job of building a "bridge across Africa."
On January 10th I landed at a British West African port, where I was met by the British Movements Control Officer, who greeted me with all sorts of courtesy and a promise that I would be flown on to the United States via British Airways within a week. That week stretched out to five weeks, and then I never did get close to a British Airways plane but was eventually flown home by my good friend the United States Air Transport Command.
During my five weeks in West Africa I lived in a British officers' transit camp, conveniently located right alongside the only swamp for miles around which had not as yet been cleared of malaria-bearing mosquitoes. The camp was a dismal collection of huts built out of palm stalks with thatched roofs. I've never lived in such a hot, damp, dismal place in all my life. I'd venture to say that in addition to the unattractive physical aspects it was also one of the worst run transit camps in the British Empire. The two worst features were the mess, in which the food was not even up to the standard of desert rations, and the lack of protection against native thieves, who made regular bi-weekly visits during the dead of night and never failed to get away with considerable sums of money---usually stolen from the clothing of officers, who were sleeping peacefully with their garments draped on pegs beside their cots. I never really had to worry about the thieves myself, because I hadn't any money except when I sold most of my clothes to a Scottish doctor who lived with me toward the end of my stay, and by that time I had sense enough to keep things under my pillow. Nevertheless, I didn't enjoy the idea of having people creeping around while I was in bed. God knows the place was spooky enough as it was, what with rats and lizards and all sorts of bugs crawling around on the walls and roof all night.
The natives around there were hard for me to understand. There was a black servant attached to each hut, and I thought I was getting along first rate with my "boy" until he found out just how poor I was. You weren't supposed to tip the servants anything according to the camp rules anyway, so I figured out I'd make up for my enforced observance by trying to get along on a friendly footing. He seemed willing enough to play ball until he found just how things stood from the financial point of view, and then he either looked at me with a pitying contempt or sulked in a comer whenever I tried to get any work out of him.
I used to be shocked that the natives called white men "master," and I thought the British officers were downright offensive in their behavior towards the transit camp servants, but apparently, for better or for worse, the blacks were conditioned to it. There was one particular officer at the camp, an "old Africa hand," who used to scream around and call the servants "filthy black bastards" and about everything else you can think of. When he wasn't cussing them out he was joking with them in pidgin English, and one time I came across him helping a little black boy with his Sunday school lessons. Apparently he'd found one kind of formula for handling "conditioned" natives, because they seemed genuinely fond of him, and he got an awful lot of good service.
The native population in the town looked like a self-respecting lot of people and, compared to the poorer Egyptians around Cairo, seemed clean and healthy. Those who could read were delighted to see the embroidered "American Field Service" on my arm. They'd always get the idea across that they thought America the finest place in the world, and usually wanted to know if it was true that America was going to take over from the English and give them a lot of food and money. I had heard the same kind of talk from Indians, Arabs, and Egyptians. People all over the world seem to be busy loving America better than England these days, but it's mostly because they have a hazy idea that America is going to create heaven on earth after the war. I hope they won't be disillusioned.
I was awfully impatient to get home and hated the transit camp---especially at mealtime or during the hot, sticky nights, but, on the whole, I had some good times in West Africa. I formed a fast friendship with a New Zealand Air Force navigator and a Canadian pilot, who were waiting for a boat to England, and we used to rent bicycles and go to the beach almost every day. There was a terrific surf which was somewhat frightening at first, but once I got used to it I enjoyed the best sea bathing there is.
I had some interesting talks with those two air force boys---especially when we got through the preliminaries of discussing women and sex in general---the main wartime topic of conversation for soldiers, who are always particularly nostalgic for female companionship. I remember discussing the results of the Roosevelt-Churchill Casablanca Conference. None of us was at all pleased with the glib, unqualified phrase, "Unconditional Surrender." It seemed to play right into Hitler's hands, and we felt that it might involve a lot of unnecessary loss of life for the Allies.
We were agreed that the war must be prosecuted until Hitler and all he stood for should be utterly defeated, but it seemed to us that the German people in particular would be far more likely to fight to the last man as long as our high-minded statesmen kept fighting the war with such quick and easy talk. I do not use the word "high-minded" facetiously. The Canadian and New Zealander felt free to criticize Churchill at times, but they still felt that he was about the greatest living hero. I never thought of Roosevelt as a hero, exactly, but I always gave him credit on general principles.
I used to think about Roosevelt and Churchill quite a lot on my own while I had nothing better to do. I came to the surprising (to me) conclusion that Churchill pretty generally has been making' Roosevelt look like a monkey when it comes to straight talking. Churchill gets up and frankly states that he has no intention of "presiding over the liquidation of the British Empire." It doesn't sound so fine, but at least he's putting the cards on the table.
Roosevelt, on the other hand, indulges in flights of oratory about all sorts of freedom "everywhere." It sounds fine: it's a good idea, and you've got to give him credit for sincerity, but you never know what he's thinking about from an immediate practical point of view. How soon is the good Lord going to make the American people his special agents? It's all very well to give people something to shoot for, and the Four Freedoms are an excellent goal, but it's a sure thing that there are going to be a lot of people---especially Africans and Asiatics---who will be looking at the sky and waiting for the U. S. A. to turn on the rain of plenty after this war is over, without getting an awful lot of satisfaction.
It's all very frightening to me. I suppose that Roosevelt really means that we aim to work with people 'everywhere" toward the goals of freedom, and I'm all for him, but about every time I looked at one of those West African natives, I used to imagine that he was already watching for the rain to fall, and I'd think: "Boy, you just don't know the half of it!"
One evening I ran across an educated West African who really seemed to know what he was talking about. I was drinking beer with my two air force friends in a "sailors' hotel" near the harbor, and this fellow was the owner of the place. We were talking of one thing and another when I happened to ask him if he thought it would be best for his country if the British were to pack up and go home.
"Well,," he said, I don't like the British very much, but this is a potentially rich country, and we need some one to show us how to exploit it. The only trouble is that when that happens, then we get exploited along with the country. You can't expect any one nation---even the Americans---to develop a country without wanting to get something out of it."
It seemed to me that he had just about put the problem in a nut-shell. I asked him then just what could be done about it. His answer ran something like this:
"Some day the governments of the world will realize that the natural wealth in this and every other country should be developed to better a universal standard of living. Then, and only then, will the undeveloped areas such as this be exploited for the direct or indirect benefit of all nations."
I'll never forget that West African hotel-keeper. I had left college and traveled half around the world and part way back, and it wasn't till I talked to him in a dirty, rotten barroom in West Africa that some of the cynicism about the "brave new world" dropped from my confused way of thinking and I began to see that perhaps it might turn out to be something more than a bad joke after all.
The conversation that evening made me more anxious than ever to get home in a hurry and see what my own country was like. A lot of water had flowed over the dam since I had left home in November, 1941.
Finally, after five long weeks, the British Movements Control Officer decided that I had very little chance of getting a seat on a British Airways plane and advised me to go to the United States Transport Command Headquarters and "see what your own chaps can do." Within three days I had made contact with a very pleasant American colonel and five days later set foot on American soil for the first time in fifteen-and-a-half months.
I had always dreamed of sailing up New York Harbor past the Statue of Liberty. And, at first, when the plane set me down at a Miami airport, I had the feeling that something was missing from my homecoming. As it turned out, however, a Canadian flying officer, whom I had met on the way down, took me under his wing and saw to it that I had two wonderful days in Palm Beach while waiting for my train to New York. He introduced me to his fiancée, an American girl, and the three of us got along so famously that I ended up as best man at their wedding. There couldn't have been a better, way of finding out that, even in wartime, the world can be a very wonderful place.
Lt. Eugene W. Mason
Lt. Eugene V. ConnellDEAR BUTCH AND GENE:
I'm home again. As a matter of fact I'm in bed with malaria, which I caught from a hungry mosquito while stranded in British West Africa on the way back. It didn't hit me until after I got home, but now I've got it good and proper. I'd been hoping to get right into the Navy, but I guess that will have to wait for a while now. In the meantime I'm lying here, listening to the radio and trying to get acquainted with the latest sentimental tunes.
You're probably wondering whether I think I've learned all the answers I was looking for when you saw me last. No, I didn't learn all of them, but I did learn some. I learned that war is just about as bad as I thought it was going to be, but then again it's not all bad. Men learn that they can't live alone in wartime---that they depend on others, particularly the respect of others, and that sense of dependence can do wonders. For one thing, it can help men to be brave when they're frightened almost to the point of paralysis. For another thing, it can teach men a type of tolerance. You seldom find real soldiers worrying about races or creeds, or even about the other fellow's mannerisms. The almighty individual is not so sure of himself when he gets a little shaken up. Some day the things men learn in wartime will stick, and then there won't be any more wars.
I learned to have a high regard for and almost an understanding of, people of other nations. Take the English for example. I wouldn't want to be an Englishman for anything in the world, but I found that the average Englishman has a courage, a will to "carry on," and a passion for freedom that will see him through far greater storms than this.
I learned that the dream of a better world, after this war is over, may have some substance to it after all.
And then I've learned something about coming home. At first I was discouraged when I rode north on a train from Florida and listened to soldiers and civilians fighting the war with their mouths. At first I was discouraged when I read the papers and listened to the radio. There's so much talk and so much writing about the war. At first I didn't know what war they were talking and writing about. It didn't seem to be the same war I came back from. They talk and write as though the war was almost over and America was winning it single-handed (with a little help from Russia).
It took me a few days to get over the smell of so much talk and print, but now I think I've figured it out. I've learned that it's all a boiling over of a spirit that's essentially American. The nation of people who have been brought up to never tip their hats to anybody has gone to war. Now we're very noisy and very cocky. At first, coming straight from close association with Englishmen and New Zealanders, I thought it all very shocking. Now I see it differently. It would be a bad sign if Americans were not full of beans at this time. As far as we're concerned, it's our war now, and well see it through.
Now I'll ask you something. What are we going to do with all the beans we've got inside us when the war is over?
Think it over for a couple of years and let me know....