Events in North Africa - June 1942

	This page: overview & general experience.
	Experiences on the Gazala Line.
	Experiences on the Gazala Line cont., a naval viewpoint.

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Up until the beginning of 1942, the North African campaign had been characterised by swift advances by both sides, followed by equally swift withdrawals. In May of that year the Allied forces were based in a static series of 'Boxes' on the Gazala line awaiting an anticipated attack. Rommel was determined that this time his forces would capture Tobruk and continue to Cairo, Alexandria and the Suez Canal. His problem was a lack of supplies and the further his troops advanced, the more acute the need to capture fuel, ammunition and food became.

Despite strong resistance at the end of May, Rommel's Afrika Korps overran the 150 Brigade Box which blocked his supply route and attention was then focused on the Free French forces at Bir Hacheim, the southern-most Box. Forces in the remaining Boxes were ordered to withdraw as the Armoured Corps could no longer offer any hope of protection. Amidst scenes of confusion the troops fell back towards Tobruk, but it was captured 21 June, with Rommel taking over 30,000 prisoners as well as vehicles and valuable supplies. By 22 July the Afrika Korps had reached the limit of its advance and both sides dug in. It would take until October before Allied forces had recovered and re-equipped sufficiently to launch a sustained attack.

For those serving in the Western Desert it was a totally new and strange environment and the difficulties of day-to-day living are well documented in a memoir by James Bostock a Signaller in 9^th Bn DLI:

About our most pressing problem was the shortage of water ... The trouble was that during the movement of fighting forces up and down the coastline the few water-wells, such as they were, had been well salted several times by the Germans and by our own forces, to deny the water to the enemy... Groups of men living in neighbouring fox-holes would save up what little might be left in their water bottles at the end of the day, pour the dregs into half a petrol tin kept for the purpose, and boil this over a fire made by half-filling another petrol tin with sand, soaking it with petrol and setting light to it. We could get dry tea from the cookhouse but of course there was no milk, not even condensed, nor any sugar. We got over the latter problem in a somewhat unusual way.

About once a fortnight a NAAFI van, greatly daring, would creep up from civilisation, wherever that was, and sell sweets, cigarettes, chocolates and tins of beer. We would buy boiled sweets so that when we made the concoction called tea we could solemnly ask ourselves, "What do we sweeten it with tonight chaps? We had lemon drops last time. How about pineapple tonight?"...Another casualty of the continual heat was the bully beef, which was about all we had to eat with "hard tack", or biscuits like tiles with no taste at all. When the tin of bully beef was opened in the heat of the day it slopped out into one's mess tin like lumpy stew, and was immediately coated with a film of sand - there was always a dusty breeze blowing. Not only sand; the stuff was immediately attacked by flies, so persistent it was impossible to wave them off. The flies were a nightmare, bringing sand-fly fever and desert sores; which were ulcers made by the flies' tiny maggots eating holes in one's flesh, very painful and only cured by having a white powder called sulphanilomide poured over it by a medical orderly and covered by a dressing. I have the scars on my legs and arms to this day.

The only way we could approximate to an overall bath, shower or rub-down was as follows: Two chaps were involved. One stripped off and had a bar of soap and a flannel within handy reach. The other poured water very sparingly from a water bottle into the open palms of his companion, who smoothed it over his body using an occasional rub of the soap. It is truly surprising how little water is needed, used in this way, to cover oneself completely with lather and wash it off with the flannel...

After some months in these desert conditions one's shirts got dark with sweat each day. There was no hope of washing them, water was much too precious. The shirts got darker and encrusted with dust and eventually disintegrated. At this point it was usually possible to get a replacement shirt from the quartermaster.

The climate in the desert doesn't change a lot. One day is much like another. One gets used to the heat, and during the many months I spent in the desert we had no rain at all. The surface is covered with a thick layer of dust which rose in choking clouds when a vehicle went by. Occasionally a strong hot wind blows, and this can be acutely painful, as the blown sand scratches one's face, arms and knees like sandpaper, leaving these areas red and sore.

	This page: overview & general experience.
	Experiences on the Gazala Line.
	Experiences on the Gazala Line cont., a naval viewpoint.