Essai en Guerre: an FFO-inspired TL

[spkaca]

A Song at the Sacrifice, ch.19, by Theo Barker

Wingate set out his views to me and several others one day in late July, or it might have been early August. I have lost the diary I kept at the time, but I do remember that it was a remarkable day of classic ‘Sumatra squalls’. We took shelter in the bar at Raffles and chewed things over.

The higher-ups had fixated on getting 10th Indian into the fight on Borneo, believing that would solve the problem, he said. In his opinion, Monty in particular had no thought for anything but getting more men and more guns and throwing them against the Japs in their mountains. I felt he spoke a trifle unfairly, but let it pass since I knew that they did not really get on. Of course we now know that Monty was moving heaven and earth to get Wingate out of ‘his’ theatre, but in the end it was Wavell’s theatre, at least for a little while, and keeping Wingate around had become something of a test of who was really in charge.

Anyway, we had taken Pontianak and Singkawang, and now 10th Indian had landed and given a ‘colossal crack’ at the Japs in the hills, but had not gotten far. ‘The Japs can hold us off until the wet season,’ concluded Wingate. ‘We are still six hundred miles from the oil wells.’ The airmen, he said, claimed they could knock out the oil targets themselves, once they were close enough.

‘But we aren’t close enough yet, though,’ I commented. ‘Six hundred miles, give or take - the same as Attica to Ploesti. Wellingtons won’t do it, and we don’t have any heavies.’

Wingate nodded. ‘We need to get closer, and we won’t do it butting heads at Mount Rumput.’ He had evolved a plan…

Among the higher-ups in London and Algiers, paratroop ops had fallen out of fashion, but gliders had recently become flavour of the month. They had wanted to make glider assaults in the Med, but had not found a good opportunity. Now it looked like there was a good chance in our theatre. Air recon said that the Japs had recently cleared a huge area of ground near Kuching, possibly to make a new airfield, possibly for some other purpose - it wasn’t altogether clear, we had agents in Kuching who fed us various stories, some of them highly implausible. But in any case, it looked like a suitable spot for a glider landing, and the Staff had told him we had enough air assets to make it possible. ‘We can fly in an entire brigade,’ said Wingate, his eyes lighting up. ‘We can sustain it by air.’

‘One brigade won’t achieve much by itself,’ I said.

‘It won’t be. We’ve got other schemes too.’ He quickly ran through the various ideas, and explained that the Government very much wanted to get a morale-boosting victory soon, in case Rome did not fall this year. ‘The PM is behind us,’ he said. ‘This is right up his street.’ Wingate had apparently met the PM at the Martinique Conference and impressed him, so that he had a direct line to No.10. With this as support, and with almost his last act as C-in-C of FABDA, Wavell approved Wingate’s plan, got the Americans and French invested in it, and so Monty was stuck with it…

Some of us were sceptical at the complexity of the operation. Vincent had been grappling with supply problems in the East for over a year, and had become a bit obsessive about always having a margin to spare - probably rightly. ‘It’s a lot of Dakotas, and these new LVTs too. They’re fantastic, but we’ll need the Yanks too, if we want to put it all together,’ said Vincent.

‘Are they in, 100%?’

Wingate nodded. ‘General Macarthur gets behind anything that brings him closer to Manila. We’ll have the landing craft and aircraft. Theo, I want you to visit 6th Division and sound them out.’

Once 10th Indian landed, we had pulled the 6th off the line, they had had a fairly horrid time of it. They had taken part in the advances that won us Pontianak and Singkawang, and in so doing had come across the beaches where the Black Watch and Essex had suffered their Calvary. There they found evidence of what the Japanese did to prisoners, and they wanted their own back. I explained to them what we wanted, and they showed willing, provided they had time to train. I said they had a month or so…

I reckoned we had a good chance, provided all the different parts of the plan went off together. The Australians kicked things off with another attack near Rumput on September 20th. They’d got a whole tank brigade with them, though in that terrain they could only use a few at a time, and progress was slow. 10th Indian joined in to keep up the pressure on the 25th. Then it was our turn.

Wingate insisted on accompanying the glider borne brigade, but I’m ashamed to say the idea of gliders gave me the willies. The French had three old destroyers that they didn’t mind risking; they had worked hard to make them resemble Japanese ships. So I went with the Yorks and Lancs instead. My old chum Arthur (he of blancmange fame) was CO, and he invited me to join him. The destroyer I was on was the Lynx, along with HQ company and a rifle company. Our spies in Kuching - mostly very brave local Chinese - had obtained the local Japanese signals. The hope was that we could sow confusion in the enemy’s rear, then link up with Wingate and his boys...

 

[Alanith]

A Song at the Sacrifice, ch.19, by Theo Barker

Wingate set out his views to me and several others one day in late July, or it might have been early August. I have lost the diary I kept at the time, but I do remember that it was a remarkable day of classic ‘Sumatra squalls’. We took shelter in the bar at Raffles and chewed things over.

The higher-ups had fixated on getting 10th Indian into the fight on Borneo, believing that would solve the problem, he said. In his opinion, Monty in particular had no thought for anything but getting more men and more guns and throwing them against the Japs in their mountains. I felt he spoke a trifle unfairly, but let it pass since I knew that they did not really get on. Of course we now know that Monty was moving heaven and earth to get Wingate out of ‘his’ theatre, but in the end it was Wavell’s theatre, at least for a little while, and keeping Wingate around had become something of a test of who was really in charge.

Anyway, we had taken Pontianak and Singkawang, and now 10th Indian had landed and given a ‘colossal crack’ at the Japs in the hills, but had not gotten far. ‘The Japs can hold us off until the wet season,’ concluded Wingate. ‘We are still six hundred miles from the oil wells.’ The airmen, he said, claimed they could knock out the oil targets themselves, once they were close enough.

‘But we aren’t close enough yet, though,’ I commented. ‘Six hundred miles, give or take - the same as Attica to Ploesti. Wellingtons won’t do it, and we don’t have any heavies.’

Wingate nodded. ‘We need to get closer, and we won’t do it butting heads at Mount Rumput.’ He had evolved a plan…

Among the higher-ups in London and Algiers, paratroop ops had fallen out of fashion, but gliders had recently become flavour of the month. They had wanted to make glider assaults in the Med, but had not found a good opportunity. Now it looked like there was a good chance in our theatre. Air recon said that the Japs had recently cleared a huge area of ground near Kuching, possibly to make a new airfield, possibly for some other purpose - it wasn’t altogether clear, we had agents in Kuching who fed us various stories, some of them highly implausible. But in any case, it looked like a suitable spot for a glider landing, and the Staff had told him we had enough air assets to make it possible. ‘We can fly in an entire brigade,’ said Wingate, his eyes lighting up. ‘We can sustain it by air.’

‘One brigade won’t achieve much by itself,’ I said.

‘It won’t be. We’ve got other schemes too.’ He quickly ran through the various ideas, and explained that the Government very much wanted to get a morale-boosting victory soon, in case Rome did not fall this year. ‘The PM is behind us,’ he said. ‘This is right up his street.’ Wingate had apparently met the PM at the Martinique Conference and impressed him, so that he had a direct line to No.10. With this as support, and with almost his last act as C-in-C of FABDA, Wavell approved Wingate’s plan, got the Americans and French invested in it, and so Monty was stuck with it…

Some of us were sceptical at the complexity of the operation. Vincent had been grappling with supply problems in the East for over a year, and had become a bit obsessive about always having a margin to spare - probably rightly. ‘It’s a lot of Dakotas, and these new LVTs too. They’re fantastic, but we’ll need the Yanks too, if we want to put it all together,’ said Vincent.

‘Are they in, 100%?’

Wingate nodded. ‘General Macarthur gets behind anything that brings him closer to Manila. We’ll have the landing craft and aircraft. Theo, I want you to visit 6th Division and sound them out.’

Once 10th Indian landed, we had pulled the 6th off the line, they had had a fairly horrid time of it. They had taken part in the advances that won us Pontianak and Singkawang, and in so doing had come across the beaches where the Black Watch and Essex had suffered their Calvary. There they found evidence of what the Japanese did to prisoners, and they wanted their own back. I explained to them what we wanted, and they showed willing, provided they had time to train. I said they had a month or so…

I reckoned we had a good chance, provided all the different parts of the plan went off together. The Australians kicked things off with another attack near Rumput on September 20th. They’d got a whole tank brigade with them, though in that terrain they could only use a few at a time, and progress was slow. 10th Indian joined in to keep up the pressure on the 25th. Then it was our turn.

Wingate insisted on accompanying the glider borne brigade, but I’m ashamed to say the idea of gliders gave me the willies. The French had three old destroyers that they didn’t mind risking; they had worked hard to make them resemble Japanese ships. So I went with the Yorks and Lancs instead. My old chum Arthur (he of blancmange fame) was CO, and he invited me to join him. The destroyer I was on was the Lynx, along with HQ company and a rifle company. Our spies in Kuching - mostly very brave local Chinese - had obtained the local Japanese signals. The hope was that we could sow confusion in the enemy’s rear, then link up with Wingate and his boys...

This is going to go horribly.

 

[Driftless]

^^^ sounds ominous

 

[Geordie]

I somehow have the marches Colonel Bogie and A Bridge Too Far playing in my head simultaneously...

 

[spkaca]

A Song at the Sacrifice, ch.19, by Theo Barker (continued)

...We approached the mouth of the Sarawak River not long after midnight on the 30th September, according to my diary, though some of the other chaps swear blind it was earlier. We had not seen any Japanese aircraft during the journey, by this point, if anything, we were more worried about getting attacked by our own side, since we had the look of Japanese ships. The RAF put in a heavy air raid on Kuching just after nightfall, and we could see the flashes of the bombs from out at sea…

The Japs challenged us by blinker light, but our answers seemed to satisfy them until we got a mile or two upriver, when someone fired a machine gun at us. We didn’t reply, but the Captain ordered us to increase speed. We were ok but the last destroyer in line, the Panthere, ran aground, and we soon left her behind, along with the troops aboard her, including as luck would have it our Support Company with the 3-inch mortars. Later I heard she had managed to reverse off, but by this time the enemy fire was so heavy she had to pull out to sea, and only just made it, with over a hundred casualties…

The Lynx, plus the other destroyer, which I believe was the Leopard, landed us at some rather shabby-looking docks, not really much more than a few wooden jetties and sheds. We quickly took these over, killing a few Japs in the process, and capturing several locals. We couldn’t make out what they were trying to tell us: our interpreters only spoke Cantonese and Malay, and these fellows spoke something else again. But as soon as we let them go they scarpered lightning-quick. The destroyers cast off, and ran the gauntlet back to sea, all pretence over, trading gunfire with the Japs on shore. We later heard that the Leopard took a hit in the engine room and had to be abandoned in the estuary, the Lynx limped out to sea full of holes and over-crowded with survivors. I have to say those French sailors were magnificent.

Intelligence had said all the Japanese combat troops had been drawn to the front. Maybe that was true; if so, the clerks, laundrymen and cooks fought like demons. We could certainly have put up a better show if we’d had the mortars; as it was the Brens fired until the barrels smoked... Our aircraft, Hurribombers, came over as dawn broke. They hit some of the Jap positions with bombs and cannons, which lifted our spirits, but didn’t seem to intimidate them one bit, and the attacks and sniping resumed as soon as the planes left.

By midday we found ourselves facing a decidedly sticky situation. Our radios were working only patchily, ammo was getting short. We could see or hear the Japs bringing up artillery, their wicked little 70mm cannons. We heard that Wingate and his brigade had got in at Batu Lintang, but they were hard pressed, so no help from that direction. Arthur, to his credit, took the difficult decision to cut our way out. At first we hoped to link up with Wingate, but enemy resistance seemed heaviest that way. So we gathered up everyone and everything - including several wounded on stretchers - and pushed roughly southwards towards the jungle. The FOO called in an air strike to clear the way, then we were off, with A Company as rear-guard, HQ Company in the middle with the wounded, B and C companies up front.

It was devilish hot and before long the stretcher bearers were fagged out. We all took a turn but soon we could tell that we couldn’t go on as we were. Arthur had a quick word with old Stumpy and the M.O. and came back looking exceedingly grim. I wouldn’t write this except that all concerned are now past caring about what happened next… All I can say is that we had fewer stretchers to manage after that. Let me say I believe it was completely the right decision.

Before long we came to a narrow path through a thicket that looked-tailor made for an ambush. B Company shook out a skirmish line and flushed out a whole pack of Japs, a right ding-dong followed. We cracked on as fast as possible, and despite some nasty moments - screams and shouts that I still hear sometimes in my sleep - somehow we got through. As evening came on we set up a position on a wooded hill, feeling very lonely - three hundred Englishmen in the middle of Borneo, with little or no indication of how things were going elsewhere. ‘All round defence,’ I heard Arthur say, and I believe he was still on his feet well after midnight checking the perimeter.

I had nodded off briefly, when in the small hours all hell broke loose all around us. I remember spending the next few hours rushing from place to place with Bren magazines, occasionally throwing hand grenades, and the sick feeling, at first light, as it became clear we were running out. We were also desperately thirsty - the water had run out hours before. One man, crazed beyond endurance, just ran out into the open screaming and flinging grenades in the enemy’s general direction, and they shot him down instantly.

At dawn the next day I woke in the middle of a ten-minute rainstorm that cleared with startling suddenness to bright sunshine. The firing had died down, although the Japs were still screaming at us, ‘English, you die today,’ and suchlike pleasantries. Then Arthur, red-eyed from exhaustion, asked me to join him inspecting the perimeter again. ‘Poor old Adj took a nasty one,’ he explained, ‘and Stumpy’s lost an arm, now his nickname fits. There’s no-one else.’ I reflected on how desperate the situation must be if I were the most senior surviving subaltern in the battalion…

 

[Driftless]

A grim situation

 

[Purity of Violence]

Reminds one of the 2/19th and the road to Parit Sulong. Hopefully Arthur survives to wear his VC.

 

[spkaca]

A Song at the Sacrifice, ch.19, by Theo Barker (continued)

On our way from A to B company, we stumbled through a patch of woodland denser than most. The light was poor, but I had a nasty feeling we were being watched. Suddenly Arthur grabbed my arm and put his finger to his lips. He gestured with his stick, and I saw in silhouette the shape of a man, short and hunched over. ‘It’s a Jap,’ he hissed, ‘shoot him.’ I pulled out my Webley, then hesitated: shooting might bring a horde of the enemy out of nowhere, and besides I had an odd feeling. I crept closer, the figure turned and saw me, and said: ‘ook?’

We had met the Man of the Forest. I could not help but laugh. The orang then looked at me for a moment, before seeming to hear something, and vanishing with surprising speed and lack of noise. I think he made it to safety, well away from his mad relatives: I hope he did.

‘I think there’s something over there,’ I said, gesturing vaguely eastwards, to where the sun was rising.

‘Think you’re right,’ said Arthur, and we hastened the other way, just in time, as a dozen or more Japs emerged out of hiding, one or two of them firing pot shots at us, though thanks to our friend’s warning, they were too far away to hit us.

We cut short our inspection after that, and returned to company CP, which was also the aid station; a single exhausted M.O. was trying to treat about fifty badly wounded men, no cover, no supplies. The less-wounded men could not leave the firing line. ‘Not another step,’ Arthur said, ‘either something turns up or we make an end here.’ I wounded vaguely if this hill we were to die on even had a name, and if Eleni would ever visit…

But our orang-utan proved the harbinger of good. About 9am a Lysander flew overhead, and we fired every flare we had. Shortly afterwards - it seemed like ages, but Arthur was keeping time and insisted it was less than ten minutes - a pair of Hurribombers came over and dropped their bombs. They released them right over us, and for a sickening moment I thought they would hit us, but they flew into the valley and landed among the Japs. I never heard such cheers, despite the exhaustion and thirst of the men, and I realised I was yelling as loud as anyone…

About midday an American plane, one of the little ones that can land anywhere, came over and dropped a canister; it contained Bren magazines and a message from HQ, telling us to hold tight. Some of our radio messages evidently had got through. Then another plane came over, a Dakota, and flew dangerously low, braving some rather heavy ground fire, the crew throwing out containers on parachutes. Several missed, and some burst, but we at least got enough water to soothe the wounded and take a mouthful each for the men. ‘God bless the USA, so friendly and so rich,’ said Arthur, which I thought quite clever until I later learned it was a quotation…

The Japs seemed to go quiet that afternoon, the Hurribombers - RAAF boys, as we later learned - kept their heads down. A few of our chaps did get wounded by shrapnel from their bombs, but afterwards, none of us would ever pass up the chance to buy an RAAF pilot a beer… though we had another hairy night the worst was past. One of Wingate’s battalions pushed out and linked up with us the next day. I led a patrol out on seeing a flare go up, and we found the Jap positions abandoned. Then we found ourselves amidst a platoon of Dogras. Their commander, a VCO and a tough-looking cove with a great scar, introduced himself. ‘Well you daft beggars got yourselves into a proper mess, didn’t you?’ he said, and we could only agree. We came off that hill (I never did find out if it had a name) with less than two hundred unwounded men.

The Dogras had had a rough time too, but they, with the rest of Wingate's air-landing brigade, had received plenty of supplies and reinforcements by air. There was good news from elsewhere. The RAF had spotted an enemy convoy at sea off Miri; our subs and aircraft wiped it out, one particularly bold USMC Corsair pilot had sunk a destroyer single-handed. The Japs would get no reinforcement by sea any time soon. 5th Indian Division had landed successfully on the north coast, close enough to Kuching to take it in a few days, and although the enemy were still fighting like blazes up near Rumput, Monty was getting cocky enough to declare it all over bar the shouting. He had never liked Wingate’s schemes, but knew better than to spoil the party now. In the end, I couldn’t help feeling that what we’d done had been a bit of a sideshow to a sideshow, wrecking a fine battalion to little purpose; but one can’t always tell in war what will work and what won’t…

Of course in the end it was touch and go, more so than it should have been, to complete the operations to clear south-western Borneo before the rains came. The pundits and historians have long complained about the way 9th Australian spent weeks toiling up Rumput bunker-by-bunker, losing thousands of men, more to heat and sickness than to the enemy. (They made that film about it, the one with Leslie Howard in it, which I think laid it on rather thick.) I suppose the pundits are right, but in the middle of a battle a kind of stubborn madness can take hold, as every man of the Yorks and Lancs could attest. In the end no-one would begrudge 5th Indian their victory; they took as many casualties as the Aussies, but it gets talked about less.

I met Wingate by the prison compound in Batu Lintang about a week after our relief, he’d set up his tent next to a huge pile of wrecked gliders. Some have accused him of a Messiah complex, but I have to say after seeing the hundreds of prisoners he freed, and hearing them talk, it’s understandable. Most of them would not have lived another month, I have to say I was amazed that people could live through that kind of thing at all. I don’t underrate what we went through those days and nights on the hill, but Batu Lintang puts it into perspective…

Despite the monsoon, the big wheels soon wanted to come and see the place for themselves, and most wanted to meet the man of the hour. Monty didn’t: he pointedly avoided Wingate when he came, and in his public pronouncements gave all the credit to the Aussies and 5th Indian. A lot of us felt sore about that. Wavell put things right, as usual he gave credit where it was due; Indians, British, French, Australians, New Zealanders, Dutch and Chinese, no-one was outside his vision or his sympathies; a great man.

Macarthur came last, arriving on December 25th, and I realised that for some reason he hadn’t been warned about Wingate. He had his photographers with him, of course, and strode into the tent with them in tow. But none of them felt inclined to immortalise the moment when the victor of Kuching greeted the American generalissimo completely naked, and offered him a raw onion for Christmas lunch.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

Wavell put things right, as usual he gave credit where it was due; Indians, British, French, Australians, New Zealanders, Dutch and Chinese...

What about the Dyaks? When George McDonald Fraser visited Sarawak in the 1970s, the Dyaks had relatively fresh trophy heads in their longhouses, which they said were "Orang Japon".

We quickly took these over, killing a few Japs in the process, and capturing several locals. We couldn’t make out what they were trying to tell us: our interpreters only spoke Cantonese and Malay, and these fellows spoke something else again. But as soon as we let them go they scarpered lightning-quick.

The Dyaks were fiercely loyal to the White Rajahs and their British suzerain. IMO this expedition would include at least a few local whites who could talk to them; it would be stupid not to. They wouldn't have to be "captured", and they wouldn't run away.

 

[spkaca]

Reminds one of the 2/19th and the road to Parit Sulong. Hopefully Arthur survives to wear his VC.

I think a VC is virtually a certainty in circumstances of a fiasco redeemed by great courage.

What about the Dyaks?

The Dyaks were fiercely loyal to the White Rajahs and their British suzerain. IMO this expedition would include at least a few local whites who could talk to them; it would be stupid not to. They wouldn't have to be "captured", and they wouldn't run away.

The particular fellows Theo encountered at the Kuching docks weren't Dyaks; maybe they were forced labourers brought in by the Japanese from elsewhere. But the Dyaks will certainly make an appearance, I have an update coming upon that features them prominently.

Geordie​

I somehow have the marches Colonel Bogie and A Bridge Too Far playing in my head simultaneously...

Just the effect I was looking for

 

[spkaca]

Extract from Memoires by Guy Lemoine, ch.13

I had followed the army somewhat reluctantly to Italy; I had hoped to move to Corsica, where I would be so much closer to home. It was not to be. The cry for medics in Italy grew only louder, the campaigning had caused a dreadful number of casualties, we also had malaria to contend with, and the civil population had vast unmet needs. I worked sixteen-hour days many times. Still, there were compensations. Truly one says that only Rome deserves mention alongside Paris, and vice versa.

We set up our base hospital in a palace, the vast marble pile of a great Roman family; wonderfully civilised and dignified people, though with ancestors whose shameless wickedness had stained many a page of history. In my diary I recorded an amusing international conversation that occurred in Rome on November 1st.

‘You have a bad case, sergeant,’ I said to an Englishman who had just come in.

‘I hear you can cure that. This new American wonder drug, penicillin, cures it, doesn’t it?’ he replied.

‘So it does, but generally we try to keep it for men who have taken honourable wounds in the field,’ I said. ‘Not rogues who caught a dose in a Roman knocking-shop.’ My English had improved a good deal in the past year, and I could speak to him in this colloquial way.

He laughed, not at all ashamed. ‘Honourable wounds? That depends what you mean. I’ve dodged enough shells in my time. When you get one with your number on it…’

A German officer in the next bed also laughed. ‘Never heard it called that before,’ he said. ‘You didn’t go to the Blue Fairy, did you? I could have warned you against that place.’

The Englishman, who I shall call Stanley, turned to look at him. ‘Blooming heck,’ he said, ‘now there’s a turn-up for the books.’

The German chuckled. ‘The disease rate in the Roman brothels is completely stable,’ he said, ‘at one hundred percent.’ I don’t know if this was true, though I had seen hordes of cases since Rome fell. I had heard the same saying about the brothels in Algiers.

The conversation turned to other common experiences. ‘Sunny Italy, they call it?’ said the German, whose name was Hans, I think. ‘Goebbels himself could not come up with a more audacious lie.’

‘You’re right there,’ said the American airman who lay across the way, who I shall call Peter. ‘We’ve lost more planes to the weather than to flak. Why do you think I’m here?’ We encouraged him to go on. ‘We were bombing some railway sidings. My B-25 lost an engine. We were trying to limp back to Olbia, we hit a squall over the hills - crash-landed near Tivoli, I got this,’ he indicated his plastered leg, ‘and I got off lightly.’

‘Hard luck,’ sympathised the Englishman. ‘Still, you fly-boys can often stay indoors when it rains. We’re out in it all the time.’

‘True,’ said Hans, ‘and one can hardly put up an umbrella. But I can say that Italy is much better than Russia, for weather - quite different.’

The mention of Russia intrigued all of us Westerners. So little information came out of Russia, and one never quite knew what to believe, though I made it my rule always to interpret any such news in a grimmest sense possible. This rule has rarely let me down. ‘Did you spend much time in Russia?’ I asked.

‘My division fought there since ‘41,’ he said, ‘and I joined it spring of ‘42. We fought for several months last year.’

‘At Stalingrad?’ asked Stanley.

‘Not at Stalingrad, or I wouldn't be here,’ said the German reasonably. ‘I’d be shivering in some Siberian cage. But we had it almost as bad. We gave Ivan a bloody nose, but he just kept coming and eventually we were down to a thousand men.’

‘In the whole division?’ asked Peter.

‘In the whole division, and other had it worse. If you hear me groaning in my sleep, gentlemen,’ he said, looking sombre, ‘I will be dreaming about the mortars. We retreated through the forest, fighting off one ambush after another, for days on end, it felt like, and always, always the mortars. We’d get through one fight and have a half an hour’s peace, then we’d hear that coughing noise again...’

‘Mortars are poor men’s artillery,’ I said. ‘What can you say about the place in general - how poor is it really?’

He looked at me a bit pityingly. ‘Poorer than Poland, and that’s saying something, I can tell you,’ he said.

‘You had all the better kit, then,’ said Stanley.

‘Much good it did us.’

‘You’ve got better kit than we have,’ said Stanley, pursuing his point.

‘Have we? News to me,’ said Hans. This was an unfamiliar perspective; our troops took it for granted that the German equipment was better than ours, hence our defeat in 1940.

‘You’ve got the Tiger tank, and the 88,’ protested Peter. ‘I mean, in the air we have the edge. But on the ground you guys do. Don’t you?’

‘The 88’s a fine gun, but we don’t have many, and for that matter you have similar. What about your English field-gun? We hate it just as much.’

Stanley looked unconvinced. ‘We’ve got nothing like the Tiger, though,’ he said. ‘Our lads wet themselves when one of them’s around.’ This I knew to be true: I had heard similar sentiments from our own men, stories about how an entire battalion in XIX Corps, an experienced unit and no mere green troops, had run from a single tank near L’Aquila.

Hans smirked. ‘You know how much time they spend in the garage? My old friend Berndt, he’s a cheerful fellow. Never let anything get him down, not bad weather, not our idiot colonel, not the god-awful rations, not even that time we spent four days sitting in a railway siding getting occasionally bombed. Then they issued us with Tigers. A month later he was a nervous wreck. “Hans,” he said to me, “can’t we get proper tanks again?” He said that a couple of months ago. I hope he’s survived.’

‘But they can shoot up a Sherman, no problem,’ insisted Stanley.

‘Say they do, and you have five more to replace it,’ said Hans. ‘I understand how it goes, they wanted to make the Tiger scary, and they did. But I would prefer to have a tank that can actually move.’

He lit a cigarette with great insouciance. I tapped the sign that said ‘VIETATO FUMARE/ DEFENSE DE FUMER/ NO SMOKING’. He shrugged. ‘I appear to have forgotten how to speak English,’ he said, in English. ‘What are you going to do to me - lock me up?

 

[NotBigBrother]

a great Roman family; wonderfully civilised and dignified people, though with ancestors whose shameless wickedness had stained many a page of history.

I guess, that means they are a classic great Roman family.😏

 

[marathag]

The conversation turned to other common experiences. ‘Sunny Italy, they call it?’ said the German, whose name was Hans, I think. ‘Goebbels himself could not come up with a more audacious lie.’

My Dad, who was in Italy, often had a derisive snort when the TV had Travel Advertisement 'See Sunny Italy'
He'd say, 'See Italian overcast and experience Mud'

 

[Some Bloke]

Everything's better with orangutans.

 

[spkaca]

Just a brief comment or two. Thanks to all who voted in the Turtledoves. This thread isn't dead, just resting. Once RL permits, it'll be back, hopefully later this month, though possibly next.

 

[spkaca]

Extract from A Pilgrim to Mount Lebanon, by Marc Malik


…The higher-ups seemed to remember our existence finally. A fresh regiment from Syria took our place with the Mountain Goats for the big push, while we left the hills - so familiar to us now, and curiously dear after so many months - and marched back down to Piraeus. The men talked eagerly of the prospect of home leave.

That was not to be. The view taken by the generals was that since the metropolitan troops could not get home leave, neither should we. There were no mutinies or other disorders in the Regiment du Liban, unlike in some units, but there was plenty of grumbling. Certainly we had much sympathy with the way the wishes of the troops combined with the demands of politicians, in Algeria and elsewhere, created a truly serious moment for the Algiers Government at the very end of ‘43. The upshot was that M. Mandel became Prime Minister at last, but curiously he seemed to have less power than before. M. de Gaulle was clearly the coming man, despite - or perhaps because - the opposition of the Americans.

We celebrated Christmas on a troopship, one of the fine American ones given under Lend-Lease, anchored off Crete. We heard Mass, ate well (for most of the men it was the first time they had ever eaten ice-cream) and passed the bottle round. The next day, we got under way while it was still dark. I saw the sun rising behind the stern of the ship, and knew that our road home would be longer than we wished.

*​

Extract from War in the Middle Sea, ch.21

…as 1943 progressed the KKE had begun to take a larger role in Greek politics. On the insistence of Mr. Cripps, the MEA finally accepted their participation, but neither Royalists nor Venizelists showed much enthusiasm for the prospect. ‘The fact is we have brought these people in ultimately because London wants to keep Moscow happy,’ complained Mr. Koryzis in private. Mr. Cripps took a different view in his messages to the Council, emphasising the effect KKE participation might have in resolving long-running labour disputes in Piraeus. Mr. Churchill showed no enthusiasm either, but accepted the result tentatively. ‘In the end, we believed that the experiment was worth a try,’ he wrote later…

The fall of Rome freed up resources for the Greek front, but only enough for a single limited thrust. ‘Clearly we cannot look to gain any distant objective in winter weather,’ commented De Gaulle. General Magrin-Vernerey, who had recently taken command in the theatre, had to choose between two plausible alternatives: an attack in the west, with the objective of taking Vlore, or in the east, with the goal of liberating Salonika. Magrin-Vernerey, backed by Algiers and London, realised that whichever option he chose would have political implications, and he insisted on the whole-hearted support of the Greek government. A sharp disagreement followed within the MEA government in Athens, which in part reflected the ongoing tensions between Royalists and Venizelists, but also reflected the increased influence of the Communists.

The Salonika option prevailed. ‘The Government,’ wrote Mr. Koryzis, ‘could in the end hardly pursue the Albanian campaign while our second city suffered under the heavy hand of the Axis.’ The British corps in the eastern sector, in the General’s opinion, lacked the strength to perform the operation itself, so he transferred Greek II Corps, freshly equipped with American armour and artillery, into the Olympus sector. The RAF received reinforcements from Italy for the operation, and the RHAF employed its latest American P-38 and B-26 aircraft.

The Germans for their part had anticipated the offensive. All their available mobile forces had gone to feed the colossal autumn battles in the Ukraine; they could therefore only adopt a static defence, albeit one much aided by the terrain. ‘The politicians look at the map and ask why we make such heavy weather of forty or fifty miles,’ complained General O’Connor. ‘They ought to appreciate that a lot of that is vertical, and the flat land is mostly marsh.’ General von Arnim, defending this terrain, employed minefields on a vast scale.

The defence had two Achilles heels, however. Von Arnim, having fewer divisions than he wanted, had deployed two Bulgarian corps, mainly in the highland sector of the line. ‘These troops were dogged in defence and no pushovers,’ wrote O’Connor, ‘but they lacked modern equipment for the most part. The Germans had given them much captured French equipment, which had been adequate in 1940, but which we now outclassed. Also the Luftwaffe dedicated its efforts to protecting itself, the German ground forces, and the Bulgarians - in that order. The Greeks therefore enjoyed air superiority in that sector.’ The Bulgarian government, moreover, did rather little in the way of logistical support for the front. ‘While the attack impended, I spent half my time in fruitless meetings in Sofia asking for more supplies,’ wrote von Arnim later. This buck-passing ensured that both von Arnim and Sofia had a scapegoat to point at, but did little for the Bulgarian forces at the front, many of whom now faced a winter battle short of food and clothing.

The other weakness was the need to guard the long and complex coastline of the Chalkidike. The embarrassing fall of Samothrace, along with the evident Allied skill in amphibious operations, rendered the Germans nervous for this area, an anxiety which British deception operations sought to accentuate, successfully. ‘We estimate that the Germans have kept no fewer than four divisions in the region,’ wrote O’Connor to Magrin-Vernerey. ‘Without this factor, we could hardly expect success.’

…even with all these advantages, the Allies initially struggled. The offensive was postponed repeatedly due to poor weather, and two days after it began, a sudden storm turned the rivers to torrents and halted all flying. General O’Connor, dismayed by heavy casualties, suggested cancelling the operation altogether. Magrin-Vernerey, however, was less daunted by the poor weather. ‘We had it worse in Narvik,’ he said, and insisted on pressing on. His determination was rewarded on December 15th. Clear weather returned, and with heavy air support the Greek II Corps broke through the Bulgarian line in the north-west, causing the Germans to pull back their right. The Hoplites followed this with a heavy blow in the centre, which threatened the German supply line to the north. For von Arnim, this was enough, and just before Christmas he skilfully pulled his forces back north and east to avoid encirclement. Renewed snow prevented the Allies from cutting off this retreat, but did not stop their steady advance. ‘Much has been written,’ commented Magrin-Vernerey after the war, ‘about my supposed failure to annihilate German 16th Army. I only invite such commentators to consider the map, the weather, and the ability of the Germans in conducting fighting retreats.’

General O’Connor did briefly consider halting the Hoplites, in order to allow Greek II Corps to reach Salonika first, but decided not to: ‘many of these men have fought and suffered on this front for two and a half years,’ he wrote to Magrin-Vernerey, ‘and many of their friends will never leave this country. I have held Salonika before their eyes for too long to deny it to them.’ Both Magrin-Vernerey and Mr. Koryzis expressed their complete approval. Thus 2nd Armoured Division completed its Greek odyssey; not long after, the men of the formation returned to Britain, handing over its much-scarred but beloved Churchill tanks to the Greek army.

The liberation of Salonika, despite the cost, came as further welcome news to the Allies, coming as it did soon after the recapture of Kiev and the fall of Rome. It also had repercussions closer by. Tsar Boris of Bulgaria had died a few months earlier, and the country was now in the hands of a regency council. ‘After Salonika, we thought only of how to extract ourselves from the Axis,’ wrote Prince Kiril. ‘The only question was how.’

 

[Driftless]

I always enjoy the individual viewpoints in this TL, especially as they are told as excerpts from memoirs or personal letters. That individual touch adds a definite feel of realism to the tale.

 

[Geordie]

I wonder if the Bulgarians will prove more fleet-footed in their attempt to change dance partners in this TL? I can't imagine the Germans will take such a threat to Ploesti and the whole southern flank of the Eastern front without great prejudice.

 

[diestormlie]

I always enjoy the individual viewpoints in this TL, especially as they are told as excerpts from memoirs or personal letters. That individual touch adds a definite feel of realism to the tale.

I especially the appreciate the letters, even moreso when [DELETED BY CENSOR].

 

[spkaca]

Part 15. Vol de nuit


Extract from ch.9, A Life for the Sky, by Werner Molders

As 1943 drew to a close the news from the great world outside was mostly bad for Germany. Of course most of what we heard was from the French guards and newspapers which always accentuated the positive for them. But even so things were clearly bad. Occasionally fresh prisoners came in who could give us details. In ‘43 a lot of them were U-boat crews who all said the same thing: the Allies seemed to find them whatever they tried, presumably because all the Allied ships and planes had radar, better radar than ours. Once we even heard explosions out at sea, and the U-boat crew survivors arrived in the camp the same day, telling how they had been hunted by planes for days on end and then forced to surface and surrender by a French destroyer. Other prisoners came in from the Italian front, again with tales of woe about Allied air power. In December I had a conversation with Hans, an officer recently captured in Italy, which stuck in my memory. ‘The latest rumour is that Bulgaria seeks to change sides. Consider the sheer diplomatic skill of our Government,’ he said. ‘Soon we shall have Greeks and Bulgarians, Poles and Russians, not to mention English and French, all forgetting old grudges, united in despising us. Is this not the quintessence of policy?’ ’

Some of us had dared to hope that Japan could keep the Allies busy for years, but by late ‘43 it was clear the Allies were powerful enough to fight two wars at once, invading Borneo and New Guinea even while they pushed forward in Italy and took Rome. In the East the Red Army had retaken Kiev, a clear sign of impending defeat there. The guards had become triumphant and sarcastic towards us.

What made us truly go cold though were the stories about the British bombing of Germany. All of us were scared for our families, and I very much wanted to get home and defend my country, even if, as we all believed, we could not win. Like Hans, we had long doubted the wisdom of our national policy. For that matter many of us now doubted the justice of our cause - the stories about the persecution of the Church, about the treatment of the Italians, and about cruel things in the East, all troubled us - but still, it was our families in danger...

Our plans had progressed somewhat. Karl had got permission to run a small library, and we managed to get access to some books that had maps and diagrams. That meant we could work on the navigational problem. We had also put much effort into learning English, including a lot of technical English. Reinhard, a suave and handsome devil, did his best to charm the locals, and set up some petty trades that brought us some valuable supplies and - more valuable - information.

Back in January ‘43 the big boys had held their big conference on the island, and planes had flooded in. The build-up of French and American aircraft continued through the year, so that they had to extend the main airfield and build some satellite ones. In truth I don’t know why so many planes had to be in Martinique. One story I heard from the guards was that the General in command of the air forces there resisted any transfer elsewhere, because he had become infatuated with a woman of the town. I doubt this story: the French do love to seek explanations in terms of cherchez la femme. Whatever the facts of the case, there were many aeroplanes sitting about the island, some of them in rather makeshift satellite fields, and what with the improved war situation (for them), security had grown somewhat slack, both at our own camp and on the airfields…

We put our plan into operation at Christmas, when the guards were mostly drunk or distracted. We pretended to hold a prisoners’ party, and amidst the commotion the three of us hid in the laundry truck. Our false papers and civilian clothes then got us onto a satellite airfield not long before dusk - later than we had hoped, because of various small difficulties. (I do not enumerate them, as even now they might get some people into trouble.) On the edge of the field a couple of Douglas bombers were being warmed up by a pair of bored ground crew. One of these we distracted, and the other we bluffed into being sent on an errand, so that all that remained to do was to remove the chocks, taxi to the runway and take off - despite the warning flares we received. A minute or two later, as I retracted the landing gear, I saw one reason for the warnings, as a plane came in to land on the same runway we had just used. Another minute and we could not have escaped.

Of course, we did not altogether enjoy our position. We had taken flight, and felt great joy at doing so, after over three years earthbound; but our navigation could only be approximate, dark had fallen, there was no moon, and we soon realised that our fuel situation was perilous. Our course, roughly south-west, took us over the sea, we had small hope of survival if we did not reach land. We had no parachutes. One step we quickly took was to throw overboard the rear guns and ammunition. We then spent some anxious hours scanning the sky for signs of pursuit.

Finally we made out lights, first a few, then many: the coastal settlements of Venezuela. Once we flew over them I began to descend, and looked for a decent landing place. I may say this frightened me more than anything else I ever did, worse than being shot down. On that occasion everything happened so quickly I had no time for thought. Now I had too much time to imagine what might happen.

Once again my guardian angel helped. Ahead we saw a long straight stretch of road by the coast, where a broad stretch of beach was lit here and there by the lights of vehicles, and I decided to go for it. Down we went, I shouted to Reinhard to lower the wheels, and in no more time (as it seemed) than it takes to write, they touched, though we were still going terribly fast. If I had not had that experience before with that particular type of aircraft, we would certainly have crashed. As it was, I could not keep the plane straight, the landing gear collapsed and we skidded along out of control for an eternity. They build good planes, the Amis: though we were thrown about like so many rocks in a waterfall, the plane held together, and we all made our escape from the smoking wreck, with plenty of bruises as souvenirs, Reinhard with a bleeding scalp and me with cracked ribs. We had to drag Karl out, he kept saying, ‘just what I wanted for Christmas, a broken leg,’ though it turned out not to be broken.

A few minutes later the plane caught fire, though we had all got some distance away, and I felt a pang that our good servant should end so. On the other hand, it might be counted as an aerial victory to deprive the enemy of it.

Some burning debris from the plane had blocked the road which ran close by. Shortly after, a car heading to Caracas pulled up and the driver swore at us in Spanish for several minutes: we tried to calm him down, but he was the worse for drink, and very angry that he (and his attractive companion) would now miss his party. ‘Welcome to freedom, Werner,’ said Karl.