Surviving the siege
In 1941 Dennis Middleton was on the frontline, defending Tobruk against fierce Axis assaults. He recorded his incredible experiences in a memoir, which reveals what day-to-day life in the siege was like
Dennis Middleton penned his memoirs of the desperate fighting at Tobruk
My father, Dennis, joined the Territorial Army before the start of World War II because he knew war was coming. He told me he had never believed Chamberlain’s claims of “peace in our time”. He chose to join the artillery. Memories of World War I were fresh enough to dampen enthusiasm for the infantry. He went to war a few months later, telling his mother he would be back in a couple of years. In fact he was to be away for five years.
Dennis was posted to North Africa and the Middle East and saw action in the last six major battles of the desert campaign. He was among the few to serve under Wavell in the early days and under Bernard Montgomery after that. He was at the siege of Tobruk from beginning to end. His best friend was killed and he himself was captured, only to be freed by the British Army six days later. There was plenty of action.
However, this is not just a military story. It’s the story of an ordinary young man of 21 who experienced extraordinary times. It tells of jokes and japes, horror and comradeship. It’s a straightforward and unsentimental tale, intelligent and gently humorous, just like my father. My father rarely mentioned the war. However, in the mid 1990s he hand-wrote his memoir as a record for himself and our family. I publish the memoir now to share his story. His experiences were shared by many of his generation – experiences my generation has been spared and I hope and pray my children will be spared, too.
“I entered 1941 at the Middle East Signal School. Course No. 14 was for both officers and NCOS and ran for six weeks, so at the end of it I felt I really knew my job. Maadi was at the end of 12 miles [19 kilometres] of electric railway running into Cairo city centre, so I was easily able to get into town in the evening or at weekends. The station was a mile or so from camp so, if possible, one got a taxi. Since taxis were scarce the drill was to jump on the running-board of one going in the right direction. On one occasion I even rode the whole way on the luggage grid. A bit tricky going round corners! The course contained Australians and New Zealanders, which added to the social side. By the time it had ended, the South Notts had left Matruh and handed in their guns.
“It must have been at this time the Army apparently thought my regiment was up the desert because I was put on a very small ship in Alexandria which slowly chugged its way up the 800 miles [1,285 kilometres] of coast to Tobruk. There I tasted, for the first time, the terribly salty Tobruk water and thought the cooks had made a mistake and used sea water for the tea. After a day or two in a transit camp, my proper destination was discovered and I joined the same ship to chug all the way back again, this time with the holds full of hundreds of Italian prisoners. I finally found my way to the regiment…
“On 3rd April orders suddenly came to return to the Western Desert. We had already been equipped with 25-pounders but now stores poured in. Other units were ordered to give the South Notts anything they wanted. News of Rommel’s attack 1,500 miles [2,415 kilometres] away had become common knowledge and on 5th April we set off westwards. We bivouacked the first night at Mena Camp, a few miles north of Cairo. Pete Birkin the battery commander came round and let it be known that the military police in Cairo had been requested to be kind, on this our last night before going up to meet Rommel, and trucks were laid on to take us into town…
“On Sunday morning we set off westwards up the potholed coast road, and on Tuesday reached Sidi Barrani. It had almost 50 mud huts, and here was where Mussolini had earlier reported the trains were running again. As the convoy was passing Buq Buq, despatch riders rode down the column showing boards on which were chalked the words, ‘close right up’ and ‘drive as fast as possible’. It appeared orders had just been received to get to Tobruk as quickly as possible, and we were told, ‘There have been German tanks between here and Tobruk this morning.’ We were the only vehicles going west, streams of traffic were travelling in the other direction. We wound up the escarpment to Fort Capuzzo and the wire…
“It was a terribly difficult journey being towed in pitch darkness, and I had to keep on glancing to the side to relieve the strain on my eyes. As we approached Tobruk we could hear bombing and shelling from 20 miles [32 kilometres] away, and at last we crossed the perimeter fence long after midnight. Soon after, barbed wire was drawn across the road and the last belt of mines was laid. We still did not pull up until the column met a crowd of vehicles and guns coming from the opposite direction. Three regiments met at a crossroads and stayed there until morning.
“Morning dawned with a blinding sandstorm and there was immediately an alarm that we were about to be attacked by tanks. The wagon line officer, Lieutenant Newman, obviously inspired by exploits in the Spanish Civil War, passed down the line of vehicles saying in his rather squeaky country voice, ‘When the tanks come, stick the crowbars in their tracks…’ The prospect of approaching a tank in the open desert at close quarters armed only with a crowbar seemed to appeal to nobody, and I did not notice anyone getting crowbars out. Fortunately at midday the flap was over and our guns went into position two or three miles [3.24.8 kilometres] south of the crossroads.
“The defended area at Tobruk was larger than people imagine. The perimeter wire ran in a half-circle for about 30 miles [48
“THE PROSPECT OF APPROACHING A TANK IN THE OPEN DESERT AT CLOSE QUARTERS ARMED ONLY WITH A CROWBAR SEEMED TO APPEAL TO NOBODY, AND I DID NOT NOTICE ANYONE GETTING CROWBARS OUT”
kilometres] from coast to coast, with the town and harbour in the centre, on the shore, of course. Outside the wire was an old anti-tank ditch, and inside was a concrete defensive post with underground shelters every half-mile or so. These posts were numbered from the west. Because there was virtually no variation in height near the wire there were several steel observation posts and towers. The posts comprised a small crow’s nest at a height of about 15 feet [4.5 metres]: the towers were much larger and higher, perhaps 50 feet [15 metres], with the ladder concealed behind a roll of scrim (open fabric). Some observing officers used them, some found somewhere on the ground, but they looked, and were, terribly vulnerable. Glad to say, I never sat on top of one, like a coconut on a shy.
“We were one of four Royal Horse Artillery regiments – two regular, two yeomanry, and a field regiment. The infantry were the 9th Australian Division, and there were a few odds and ends.
“It was now Good Friday, 10th April, and shelling had been exchanged for 24 hours. At 3pm an attack came in on our left from enemy tanks which broke through the wire, but at dusk they withdrew after eight had been knocked out by fire from the whole regiment. It must have been about then I was manning an observation post in a shallow slit trench near point 29 with Lieutenant Timms. It was an exciting exercise trying to direct fire on to enemy vehicles and guns, but terribly difficult through the mirage seen through binoculars, and blowing sand. It was Timms’s first time at an observation post (mine too, but he didn’t know that) so most of the orders were given by Bombardier Middleton.
“Next day some enemy infantry had obviously got into the anti-tank ditch, and if I popped my head up for air a rifle shot would be fired with the bullet zinging close by. If I had to get out of the trench and go back to our vehicle down by the hill it was a matter of running the gauntlet. The Northumberland Fusiliers, machine gunners, were also behind the hill and we got them to silence the enemy riflemen.
They were firing over our heads (like artillery) but the trajectory was terribly close to us and some shots hit the ground very near us and ricocheted on, so we had to stop them. We spent 48 hours at this observation point, which meant I went for three nights without sleep, and when we were relieved I was so tired while waiting for the truck that I lay down on the ground and went straight to sleep…
“It was now Easter Sunday. On the gun position, the information coming down from Lieutenant Bennet at his observation point was relayed to us. Our telephone lines had been cut but the infantry line was still working and orders came to our troop through the two headquarters. He was with the Aussie infantry in point 32 when the German infantry broke through the wire and German tanks were all around him in his Bren carrier. He described the Jerries using flame throwers, and they were so close that he gave the order ‘Target ME – fire!’ The gun position officer’s assistants feverishly worked out his exact position and the guns fired.
“The Aussies stayed in their trenches, the observation post party kept their heads down in the corner, and the German infantry were cut up and chased from the gap in the wire.
The enemy tanks went on. While all this was happening, a terrific air battle was in progress with 15 Germans brought down for the loss of three of our Hurricanes. The sight of a plane diving vertically to earth became commonplace Easter Sunday! Artillery duels continued.
“I accompanied an officer to an observation post in front of a small mound near the wire where we were completely overlooked by the enemy. We did a bit of shooting and then enemy shells bracketed our observation post. We were in a slit trench about three feet [0.9 metres] deep, two of us, with our driver and the truck in a mere scrape behind the mound. The enemy quickly got the exact range, then plastered us continually for 20 minutes. I suppose between one and two hundred rounds were fired, then they stopped, obviously thinking we were knocked out.
“In front, at one point, a spent splinter had hit me on the cheek, but barely drew blood, and one or two shells had landed on the very edge of the trench. I must admit I felt our survival was miraculous. When we were certain the shelling had stopped we nipped round the back of the mound, expecting to find our driver dead. But no, despite his only being in a scrape he was right as rain. However, our observation post was obviously untenable, so we got in our truck and moved.
“As April went on Stukas were active daily over the town and harbour, which we were able to watch with equanimity from a few miles away. Then one day they suddenly turned their attention to the gun line of 425 Battery. I was up at the observation post, saw the raid from a distance, and returned to hear with foreboding that three senior NCOS had been killed. One was BSM Smedley, a sergeant major of only 21, and yes, one was Phil Collihole. I collected his steel helmet, which had a jagged splinter hole in the back.
“We had been very close since the war started, and up to a fortnight before when the battle began we had been able to exchange a few flippant remarks every day. His death left a big gap, and I wrote to his wife as soon as I could. However, there was no time for this now: I was promptly promoted to lance-sergeant and put in his place in charge of battery signals. After this raid Lord Haw Haw [William Joyce] announced over German radio, ‘All guns in the Palestine area of Tobruk have been knocked out,’ but in fact Battery 425 was very much in action. My 23rd birthday passed unnoticed.
“When the battle had started 11 Hurricane fighters had been left for the defence of Tobruk fortress. Every day we saw one or more shot down, and every day fewer and fewer were able to scramble. Towards the end of April just one was left, and I saw him plummet from 10,000 feet [3,050 metres] to crash into the ground a few hundred yards away. He was
“IT WAS AN EXCITING EXERCISE TRYING TO DIRECT FIRE ON TO ENEMY VEHICLES AND GUNS, BUT TERRIBLY DIFFICULT THROUGH THE MIRAGE SEEN THROUGH BINOCULARS & BLOWING SAND”
Flying Officer Lamb, a Canadian. Earlier I saw a German plane hit and the pilot descending by parachute. We watched him land and said, ‘Let’s go and do him in.’ We grabbed rifles and actually jumped into a truck. But after a few minutes sanity prevailed, and we left him for someone else to pick up.
“On 30th April the Germans made another attack, broke through the wire and captured several posts, thereby establishing a salient within the perimeter, which they retained throughout the siege. Our counterattack was unsuccessful. So ended three weeks of battle, a very wearing experience. The Germans retained their salient but got no further, and things quietened for some weeks, except for nightly bombing…
“In June there was a relief attempt from the frontier. It failed. This was disappointing. About this time a third troop was formed with old
1914 howitzers taken from the 51st Field. It was christened Glamour Troop, after Ian Sinclair commanding it. I laid a phone line to it which was always thereafter called the Glamour Line. Since I extended it to A&B troop observation posts, it duplicated the posts’ ordinary lines, forming a belt and braces job. It was thus very useful when the cry came from a battery telephone exchange, ‘a troop’s line’s gone!’.
If I felt it was a difficult assignment I would go myself, taking another man with me.
“Usually it involved walking up the line, plugging in with a field telephone at intervals to make sure we hadn’t missed the break. Often it had broken because of shellfire: sometimes because a tank had crossed it. Sometimes it ran across a minefield but, fortunately, this didn’t matter very much because many were old enemy anti-tank mines and, in any case, the sand usually looked slightly different where the mines had been sunk (though not visible at night)…
“The water ration was half a gallon [2.3 litres] per man per day. This provided a pint [0.6-litre] mug of tea at breakfast, dinner and tea which used three pints: the cookhouse kept half a pint per man for cooking and washing utensils: and each man had one pint for his water bottle every other day. There was thus nothing for washing either oneself or one’s clothes.
The water too was salty, nearly as salty as seawater, so the tea was nothing like you have ever tasted…
“Food was monotonous to a degree. Sometimes there was no bread, and we had biscuits. Usually there was bread, but because the flour was thick with weevils the bread had lots of little black bits in – dried weevils. Not that it mattered – one couldn’t taste them.
The other staple was bully beef, sometimes MV (meat and vegetable in theory but actually pretty disgusting). So the menu every day was like this, for over eight months:
Breakfast: Biscuit porridge and tinned bacon boiled in the tin, making it soggy and greasy. Dinner: Bully stew or MV.
Tea: Pilchards or jam.
A pint of tea with each meal.
“Just occasionally there was a tin of fruit. I remember to this day that a tin of pineapple was the ration for eight men, and contained 44 pieces. I carefully dished it out at five and a half per man. And I have never eaten a pilchard since! Nevertheless, to get a meal under one’s belt was a great thing: one was then ready for whatever might befall, and I retained this feeling for many years.
“I used to control the cigarette ration of 50 a week. To help make them last, two or three men would give me their ration to keep, and would ask for cigarettes as they wanted them. They knew I only smoked 30 to 40 a week and they ran no risk of me being tempted by theirs.
“By August we were rationed to 10 rounds per gun per day, which only provided for a few minutes’ firing at dawn and dusk, and although during the period of the siege the Germans would think up some attack every few weeks, there were long periods of quietness. During one such period, since leave was impossible, a rest camp was established where I spent three days. We would take a truck and go for a swim in the afternoon, but apart from that there was nothing to do, and I lay all day on my bed (i.e. my blankets on the ground). The inactivity made me feel ill, and I was glad to get back to work.
“However, we did entertain ourselves.
Battery HQ was in a large cave, where we had periodical concerts. We had what would later be called a skiffle group, who included Driver Walker slapping a homemade double bass made out of a packing case and wire (when I next saw him 25 years after the war it was as chairman of a public company!) Many people used to sing, but particularly enthusiastic were the cries for a particular gunner to sing Mexicali Rose, which he did in a falsetto voice…
“Some time in autumn, surprisingly, we began to receive a daily rum ration. Geoff Douglas, a battery clerk, decided very sensibly that while one tot of rum was not much good to anyone, if we saved it up for one week we could have a party. We rewardingly formed the Saturday Club, whereby each Saturday evening four or five of us played auction bridge, which we had just learned, and drank rum. This went very satisfactorily for two or three weeks, and a Saturday then came when we had saved a lot of rum. At the end of this evening we came out of the sandbagged dugout half cut to find Major Peter Birkin outside, absolutely furious. As I told him, I had made proper provision for the manning of the telephone exchange, there was no barrage planned, and so on, but he was unappeased. Next morning we lined up before him, and he said fiercely that unfortunately we were his senior NCOS and he could not possibly do without us in action, otherwise we should have been up before the colonel. So I was unexpectedly saved…
“At the end of August most of the Australians were relieved, and replaced by Poles and some British infantry: we were supporting the Polish Brigade. They were charming and brave people – as effective in their frequent night patrols outside the wire as the Aussies had been.
“I RAN, SEEING THE LINE OF BULLETS KICKING UP THE SAND AND APPROACHING AT A TREMENDOUS RATE. I MADE IT WITH A SECOND TO SPARE”
“They were much taken aback by the water situation: in the first place they used a week’s supply in three days and had to be given extra, which annoyed me intensely. Secondly, they could hardly credit the taste: some tried to improve it with jam, but without success.
“Actually, although we did not know it at the time, only five units saw the siege through from end to end. The South Notts was one. An Aussie infantry battalion was another: they were due for relief in October but could not get out before the full moon came round again.
“There was always bombing of course, chiefly of the port but also on the gun positions and elsewhere. It was usually at night, during the fortnight of the moon, but also by daylight, since we had no fighters whatever, and antiaircraft fire did not achieve much. I was once caught out in a daytime raid when I realised that a squadron of enemy bombers was heading direct for me with all machine guns blazing. They were terribly near and low and I had to decide in an instant whether to lie down or run 50 yards [45 metres] to the nearest dugout. I ran, seeing the line of bullets kicking up the sand and approaching at a tremendous rate. I made it with a second to spare.
“One night the old Italian ammunition dump was hit. It was little loss to us though we did use a few old Italian guns as what we called Bush Troop, and the ammo went on burning and exploding for hour after hour, providing the most spectacular firework I have seen, for 24 hours.
“By this time we had picked up a great deal of old Indian Army language, chiefly Urdu, to which we had added many Arabic words, so the 8th Army’s conversation was quite distinctive.
“November was bitterly cold and we had changed back into battle dress. We knew the breakout would soon come and all NCOS had the plan of attack explained. We were to break out and join up with the rest of the 8th Army coming up from the Egyptian frontier. My job was to ensure the communications from Ops to guns, this time chiefly by wireless. On the 20th the code word was given, and at 6am next morning the Black Watch were lined up on the start line in the anti-tank ditch. My information came from Bombardier Keeton, who was in charge of the line-laying 15 cwt truck. It was completely unarmoured, although heavily sandbagged, but travelled with the first wave of tanks, immediately behind the infantry, laying out the line as it went.”