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Three: In Pursuit of Rommel (Libya), November 1942-February 1943
- Fordham University Press
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Three IN PURSUIT OF ROMMEL (LIBYA), NOVEMBER 1942–FEBRUARY 1943 [13.58.82.79] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 02:53 GMT) Saturday November 14, 1942 Gambut [Libya] Again I’ve just missed the RAF advance party. It’s hard to get anywhere traveling in convoy. We broke camp at 6:30 this morning after a cup of hot coffee for breakfast. I rode with Keith Siegfried who shepherded the convoy. We reached Halfaya Pass at 10 a.m. and never have I seen such a traffic jam. Almost as far as I could see the plain between the escarpment and the sea was filled with trucks, tanks, cars and everything on wheels, waiting to get up the winding steep Halfaya Pass road or over the Solum Pass some five miles further west. The First Armored division was creeping up Halfaya in clouds of dust and exhaust fumes. They seemed to creep along at a snail’s pace. It didn’t look like we could get through for hours. The army had priority and so we had to sit. Keith and I lunched on a can of vegetable stew (cold) and a hunk of cheese. After two hours in the hot sun Keith said ‘‘to hell with it.’’ He lined up his trucks and broke into the convoy line. We went crawling up Solum Pass. It had been bombed or dynamited at one place but repaired. At the top of the escarpment we stopped to look back at the plain below us. For miles and miles we could see the convoys packed by the roadside. And others were coming up. The plain was littered with abandoned German equipment, destroyed vehicles, clothing, hats and shoes. I don’t believe I ever saw such a bleak, desolate land except for the Sahara. Little white crosses marking German and Italian dead dotted the sand. ‘‘God, what a place to have to die in,’’ Keith said. He was right. We made better time on top of the escarpment—and we heard later the Germans came over after we’d passed Halfaya and bombed the concentration of vehicles. We rolled into the dusty advance headquarters site at 5 p.m. This time I dug a slit trench but I didn’t have to use it. Jerry didn’t pay a night call. Still, it was the same story over again. The RAF unit was up ahead. I got a good little yarn from Strickland. Lyman Middleditch’s DSC caught up with him. Brereton, Strickland and Cunningham went to the 60 combat reporter advance American base to present the award. Middleditch had gone off in a jeep to look over a damaged German plane. He came walking up for the ceremony in his flying clothes with toilet paper streaming from one pocket. After the medal was pinned on his jacket, he took off on an operational flight. Late this evening the Yank photographer, ‘‘Slim’’ Aarons , came in with General Andrews. He (Slim) and I—not the General— will go up together tomorrow. We broke camp at : next morning, November , and after a hurried breakfast of coffee and chocolate bars, our convoy headed for Gambut, the site of the next advance air force headquarters. We reached the plain below Halfaya (Hell Fire) pass at a.m. and our convoy was halted by a bad traffic jam. The plain between the escarpment and the sea literally was one huge parking lot jammed with vehicles of all descriptions waiting to get up the winding road through Halfaya Pass or through the Solum Pass a few miles westward. The British First Armored Division was creeping through Halfaya in clouds of dust and exhaust fumes. The armor had right-of-way and no other vehicles were permitted on the roads until it had passed. Beyond Solum Pass, we drove across the flat, dreary plains into Libya and at dusk arrived at Gambut where I found my old friend, Sergeant George (Slim) Aarons, photographer for Yank magazine, who was on his way to join the same outfit I was chasing. Sunday November 15, 1942 Tobruk [Libya] Slim and I found a RAF film unit going to Gazala so we hitched a ride. The headquarters outfit is moving too slow for us. It was blowing up a blinding dust storm when we left. The dust coated our faces, gritted on our teeth, filled our hair and rasped our eye balls. We drove to the landing ground first and the...