Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7: SUBALTERN
This Chapter covers my time as a Second Lieutenant in an Anti-Tank Regiment from my commissioning in August 1941 to my voyage in a troopship from Glasgow to Suez in the summer of 1942. That long voyage round the Cape separated my two years of training in Britain — it seemed longer, much longer — from the following three years spent mainly in action, fighting the German Army in Egypt, Libya, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany.
My first year as an officer jumbles into confused memories after more than half a century. It was marked by no great events. We moved about a lot — from somewhere in Hampshire under canvas, to Romsey, to Aldershot, to Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire, to Inverary for training in combined operations, to Newcastle for final training before embarkation in the Firth of Clyde.
In place of a connected narrative for this period, I can do no more than record some general recollections and a few isolated incidents.
At first I didn’t enjoy being an officer. I didn’t like ordering people about. I missed — and continued to miss for the rest of the war — the comradeship and equality of life in the ranks. I had never served as an NCO: even a short spell as Lance-Corporal or Lance-Bombardier would have eased the transition.
Under canvas in Hampshire, in a field near Stockbridge. Wet. The loneliness of the newly commissioned subaltern. The task of commanding a troop of gunners, nearly all older than I, most of them more knowledgeable about anti-tank warfare and two pounder guns.
Time off one weekend to visit my old school St.Paul’s, now evacuated from London to Wokingham for the duration of the war. I rode there on a regimental motor-bike, spoke to some of the masters and older boys, and felt important in my officer's uniform with second lieutenant pips on my shoulders.
21St October 1941. My twenty-first birthday. I decided to celebrate by a solitary visit to a symphony concert in Winchester, fifteen miles away. I borrowed a regimental bicycle. It was a flat ride up to the top of a long steep hill leading down into Winchester. Then I realised the brakes didn’t work. I slowed down by shoving my feet against the spokes. At the concert I met Cambridge friend Christopher Milne disguised as a Lance-Corporal in the Royal Engineers. (I learned later that he had resisted the efforts of his distinguished father to get him an instant commission) (Christopher Robin of the Winnie the Pooh books of AA Milne). With him were eight other Lance- Corporals from his unit. After the concert I took them all out to a local café for egg and chips. We kept a wary eye open for the Military Police, since officers were not allowed to go out with NCO's.
(Christopher did earn a commission later. He was wounded in Italy, after commanding the bridging unit at the Volturno crossing. We must have been within shouting distance of each other. He recorded his war experiences in the second of his autobiographical volumes. His retrospective view of what the war meant to him is remarkably similar to the view I give in my final chapter.)
We moved to Romsey. Billeted at Home Farm on the Mountbattens’ Broadlands estate, taken over by the Army. Officers’ Mess over a shop in the outskirts of the town. A two mile bicycle ride back to our billets at night through Broadlands Park. No lamps allowed. Huge cows from the Broadlands prize herd sometimes slept across the route. Luckily they were white and hove into view just before you collided with them. Church parade in lovely Romsey Abbey, a rewarding experience even for an atheist. Cross-country running to keep fit — I could outrun everyone in the troop except for one sergeant.
My fellow officers in the Battery. The Battery Commander was Major Geoffrey Armitage, ambitious regular soldier, wartime promotion at the age of twenty-four. Very good-looking in an almost feminine way. A martinet with a strong vein of sarcasm. Always ready to humiliate an officer or NCO in front of their subordinates. I had been trained never to do this and I hope that I never committed this cardinal sin in my next four years as an officer, nor indeed its equivalent in later civilian life. I hated and feared him then. We came together again in my Desert Rat regiment in the last months of the war. He had mellowed, while I had had most of my rough edges knocked off and felt as much a regular soldier as anyone else. We got on all right then, to our mutual surprise.
The Battery Captain (second in command) was Captain West who had been a regular quartermaster-sergeant. He was tremendously old, probably over thirty-five, said little, smiled cynically. Sometimes shook his head about the Major, and said you can’t put an old head on young shoulders.
Fellow subalterns. John Barnett tall, fair, calm, competent, experienced, late twenties. The only one of us not to be given a bad time by the Major. Peter Stagg, about my age and equally unmilitary. Once found in bed (later, in Aldershot barracks) with his fiancee, by his batman — cheerful little Carey — who imperturbably went out and returned with a second cup of tea. McCoy, a slapdash youngster who did more things wrong than the rest of us put together, and later on led his troop of guns into the softest sand in the whole of Libya: they had to be winched out. Tamblin, old enough to have had a proper job before the war, as a schoolmaster I think, very skilful at playing the military game. Once, on an exercise, he was told off by the Major because his sergeants had not been supplied with maps. Instantly he turned to the nearest sergeant and told HIM off for failing to demand a map: even the Major was impressed with this grasp of military tactics. Later we were joined by Berkoff, a cocky little man who addressed Geoffrey Armitage in the Mess as Major instead of the socially correct ‘Sir’. Berkoff was a strict inspector of the guard when his turn came as Orderly Officer, finding something amiss with the turnout of every man. I thought they would resent his severity, but in fact they admired him for it. He was always impeccably turned out himself.
Winter in Aldershot. A grim Victorian barracks in the midst of acres of identical buildings. One of my men blew his brains out with his rifle. He had never looked happy. I expect Aldershot was the last straw.
One bitter winter day we had to line the streets when King George the Sixth paid a visit to a neighbouring regiment. We waited around for hours, shivering in the cutting January wind. At last the royal car drove past, the King comfortably seated with a rug over his knees. A thin compulsory cheer rose from the reluctant troops.
Each officer had a batman to look after his kit. Batmen were usually unmilitary types who served in the Mess when they were not looking after their officers. A sinister man called Pickard was wished on me. He was obsequious in manner with a soft ingratiating voice, gaunt and threatening in appearance. He had the sort of crumpled face that a cartoonist would give to a hardened criminal. He seemed anxious to protect my interests but I have little doubt that he stole my binoculars. For this loss I received an official reprimand from the Colonel. I found out afterwards that Pickard had done time. Still later I found that my Army record, including the reprimand, had followed me into civilian life. I was asked about it at my interview for the Civil Service. The Selection Board must have decided that this minor crime did not disqualify me from a career in Whitehall. The whole incident would have been much more serious if Pickard had relieved me of my Smith and Wesson 38 revolver, which I now had in place of my previous best friend, the Lee Enfield rifle.
To begin with I was assigned to John Barnett's troop as a sort of supernumerary subaltern. I had to work with his Troop Sergeant, Sergeant Tipping, a smart fast talking young man from Watford, who made not the slightest attempt to conceal his utter contempt for me. It might, of course, have been nothing personal — just his normal attitude to newly commissioned officers. I was greatly relieved when I was given my own troop — P Troop — formed from a new intake when the government raised the age of conscription to forty-one. This desperate measure brought into the Army masses of unwilling recruits. Most of them were in poor shape physically. Many possessed a mental prowess that was nothing to be admired. One rather popular recruit, Shippey, was illiterate and would these days be described as suffering from learning difficulties. Someone had to read aloud to him the daily regimental orders, as otherwise he could not be charged with disobeying them, which he habitually did.
The troop consisted of four two-pounder gun crews of six: myself, driver, and batman; my troop-sergeant: and four drivers for the 30 hundredweight trucks on which the guns were transported. The two-pounders fired high velocity, so-called armour-piercing shells that might have slightly dented some of the German tanks used in the early stages of the war. They would have made even less impression on the Mark III tanks which were now the standard equipment for German armour. To get the guns into action, they first had to be unloaded from the trucks. The gun crew had to let down ramps, roll the gun down and into its chosen firing position, and yank off the wheels so that the gun could rotate on its mounting. The yanking, both to get the gun into action and to replace it on its wheels afterwards, was performed by numbers 5 and 6 of the crew. Preferably they had the build of Rugby forwards. In my troop it was not easy to find men of the right build or strength. The lifting had to be done with feet together in order to avoid rupture or back injury, as the weight was considerable. If you spotted a gunner beginning to lift with his feet apart, you instantly put him on a charge. If you didn't spot him in time, he might finish up with a rupture as well as seven days CB (confinement to barracks).
Of the rest of the crew, the number one was the sergeant in charge, responsible for the siting of the gun under orders from the troop commander and for giving the order to fire. Number two opened and closed the breech , three looked through the gun sights and rotated the gun on to its target, four helped five and six with the ammunition.
My new troop sergeant, my second-in-command, was Sergeant Scarlett, a complete contrast to Tipping. He had been in the Army in India for eighteen years. Once a month he retired to his bed for three days with a recurrence of malarial fever. He was a big man who looked as if he was carved from solid wood. There was evidence to suggest that his head was indeed made from that durable material. He became flustered when under pressure or when forced to accommodate more than one idea or instruction at a time. However, he was a good-hearted man who adopted a paternal attitude to me; we got on very well. His relations with the four less senior, but rather brighter, sergeants who headed the gun crews were more wary. He suspected them of trying to take the mickey out of him. Often they did.
There were changes in the gun sergeants during the eighteen months that I commanded the troop — I don’t remember them all. Most of them were regulars who had joined Army in the 1930's, some under the pressure of unemployment. The finest soldier was Sergeant Behan, a burly, grizzled Irishman who was admired and respected by his crew. His only fault was a tendency to get violently drunk when opportunity offered, and on those occasions to assault military policemen. Several times he was reduced to the ranks for these offences, but invariably was promoted again because of his outstanding ability. Regan was another Irishman: clever and well educated, he always adopted a conspiratorial air when we spoke together, as if he and I were a cut above the others. He was good at his job and it was a sorrow to me when he too was reduced to the ranks after a drunken episode. Garswood, an ex-miner from Nottinghamshire, was the most reliable. Slow spoken, with big liquid brown eyes, he was an attractive man. I would have liked to have him as a friend if our difference in rank had permitted. Sergeant Bakewell, from a civilian background, showed promise until he also was reduced to the ranks - instantaneously — for dangerous behaviour at a shooting range on Solway Firth. Targets of mock tanks were towed behind trucks, at a safe distance behind, and Bakewell was aligning his gun on the truck instead of the target when spotted by the Major — a natural mistake but not one to be encouraged as we were always short of drivers.
We went on lots of exercises, rehearsals for war so to speak. Sometimes we did this as a Battery, sometimes as part of a larger unit with infantry and tanks. The Major would dash around the embattled countryside and allocate to each troop a section of the front to be covered. As a Troop Commander, I would then have to carry out a hasty reconnaissance (a ‘recce’) of my front in order to deploy my four guns. For each I would choose a site that was best suited for the destruction of the hypothetical German tanks remorselessly advancing across Hampshire or Dumfriesshire. We had been trained to site our guns so that they enfiladed the enemy armour. In other words you didn’t point your guns forward, as you might have expected, but sideways or even slanting backwards. You did not engage the enemy until they were alongside or behind you. You therefore chose sites for your guns that were concealed from the enemy by a suitable small hill or large bush. You also sited them so that they could give mutual supporting fire.
The reason for these tactics was that the German tanks were so heavily armoured against what you might call a full frontal that even if you hit them the shells would just bounce off. Actually the armour at the sides was also strong enough to repel our little two-pounder shells, but at least you would have a better chance of hitting a track or some other vulnerable point.
In spring 1942 the regiment moved up to Lockerbie in Dumfriesshire, near Thomas Carlyle's birthplace at Ecclefechan. We lived on a large country estate, with our tents pitched in a valley alongside a fast-flowing river. Nearly all our time now was devoted to exercises, one at least involving the whole Division, mingled with gruelling cross-country marches to toughen us up. I remember one march of 34 miles across the Dumfriesshire hills, in FSMO of course, carrying 56 pounds on our backs plus rifle and ammunition. In April the Regiment drove up the Ayrshire coast to Inverary which was the centre for combined operations, that is for invasion training. We loaded our guns and vehicles into flat-bottomed Maracaibo craft — ships which sailed on the lake of that name in Venezuela. Later the Maracaibo craft were superseded by the purpose-built LCTs (Landing Craft Tank), LSTs (Landing Ship Tank), and LSIs (Landing Craft Infantry).
There was a long ramp leading steeply from the shore to the belly of the ship, with a short flat section half way up. My truck was following one of the guns loaded on to 30 hundredweight trucks (and pointing backwards) when the driver in front put on his brakes and began to slip backwards on the wet steel. The barrel of the two pounder approached the heads of my driver and myself with uncomfortable speed. A painful collision was averted when the truck driver slewed his vehicle round. It came to rest a few inches away from us, jammed against the side of the ramp.
Before dawn next morning we reversed the operation. My troop drove down the ramp to land on a shelving sandy beach on a small island. For some reason that now escapes me, I was required to jump into five feet of bitterly cold sea water at five o’ clock on an April morning, and drive thirty miles on a motorbike in my soaking wet clothing, presumably to reconnoitre my gun positions. Later in the war I took part in two real invasions, the first at Salerno, the second in Normandy. Neither was anything like as uncomfortable as the Inverary invasion.
These exercises were not only unpleasant — they were dangerous. The Division could lose four or five men killed in the course of a major exercise. The most common cause of fatal accidents was night driving. We drove long distances at night without any lights except for low powered bulbs illuminating the differential cases under the vehicles in order to assist driving in convoy. The differentials carried an identifying sign painted on a white background so that you wouldn’t follow the wrong vehicle.
In May 1942 the Regiment drove down from Scotland across the splendour of the Northumbrian moors. A Sergeant sleeping in the front seat while his truck was on the move was put on a charge. I thought this was rather hard on him as all his driver had to do was to follow the truck in front. We settled in temporary quarters at Gosforth Park racecourse just outside Newcastle. Here we were issued with the new six-pounder anti tank gun in replacement for the pathetic two-pounder. We prepared for embarkation to an unknown destination, presumably one in the path of the German armies advancing across North Africa, or of the Japanese driving ahead into south-east Asia.
The six-pounders had just emerged from the munitions factory and did not appear to have been tested on the range - that was our job. For this purpose we drove over the moors to the Otterburn firing range — still in use by the Army fifty years later. Artillery ranges need to be in remote areas, especially for anti-tank firing as the high velocity shells can ricochet for long distances. We had fired our two-pounders out to sea at Lulworth Cove in Dorset and across the Solway Firth (where Sergeant Bakewell had nearly shot the driver towing the target).
At Otterbum we immediately found two faults with the new guns. First, there was not enough protective cushioning on the eyepiece through which you sighted the target. The violent recoil left many of us with a black eye. Second, the trigger mechanism needed a hard pull to fire the gun. It was difficult to fire without disturbing the smooth sweep of your traverse. We were amazed that these faults had not been identified during the development of the weapon, but fortunately they were simply and quickly remedied.
Shortly before our expected embarkation, the Colonel sent for me. He told me that the War Office had invited me to join a unit for secret duties. I had no idea at the time but this was for posting to the decoding unit at Bletchley where mathematicians were in great demand and where nearly all my fellow maths graduates were to spend the war. I never considered for a moment that I should desert my fellow gunners on the eve of embarkation. I replied to the Colonel in this sense. He nodded approvingly. This went some way towards removing his initial disfavour. However, my Battery was about to leave his command.
Rumour and excitement thrived as evidence of early embarkation built up. Our Battery was detached from the anti-tank regiment and put under command of the 111th Field Regiment which already comprised the usual three batteries of 25-pounders. We were issued with tropical kit — a sure sign, said the more experienced soldiers, that we would be sent to Archangel or Iceland. Our guns and heavy equipment would be shipped separately — not much of a clue as to our destination. Equipment was routinely loaded on to ships that braved the German and Italian air dominance of the Mediterranean, while troopships went round the Cape to Egypt and all points further east.
At half past five one morning in mid-June we marched through the streets in our tropical kit, knees exposed to the cool air of the summer dawn. Slung over our shoulders were our solar topees, symbols of the British Raj, now designed to protect the soldiers of Britain's citizen Army from the dangers of the midday sun. (In the event they were abandoned in their thousands on the field of battle by soldiers who found no use for them.) We caught a train to Glasgow. In the Firth of Clyde we embarked on the Awatea (sunk later in the war) a fine ship of 22,000 tons which did peacetime trips between Australia and New Zealand before the task was taken over by airplanes. ("The TSS Awatea was indeed the finest New Zealand liner ever to be built.") The liner had a peacetime passenger load of one thousand. Five thousand troops were loaded on to the ship. Twenty other troopships lay at anchor in the Firth. On 22 June a convoy of one hundred thousand troops left Clydeside, escorted by the battle-cruiser Malaya and four destroyers. The convoy, sailing under sealed orders, headed due north-west. “We told you so” said the old hands, “Iceland!”