Battle for Sbiba (Feb 16-22, 1943)

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I shall be in the UK in May - where will you be ?


I too will be in in the UK - for a longer period than usual for my first visit this year.

My diary has a note to contact both you and Ron in my calendar early in April. Great to have the Three Muskateers together again!

All good wishes to you and yours,

Gerry

 

Gerry - Look forward to that as I shall be in London as of 2rd May - then dodging around a bit at Bournemouth 6-9th - Nottingham - Stockton - Wolverhampton 16th - 28th - back to London - so best time for me will be 10th - 15th May in London leaving around 30th may......

phaeton - the 4 - 17 pounders were actually landed along with 78th Div at Algiers in Nov '34 - and a teaching seminar was held - then a call from 8th Army saw them whistled down to Medenine where they were knocking out Tigers left right and centre - then back to the Uk for a new platform - next they appeared in Sicily with a Canadian arty mob - who lost them all at the Gustav Line - never did see many after that except for a demo which knocked a PZ1V turret 50 yards from a range of about 300 yards - never did see them again - they all went to NW Europe I guess. !
Cheers

 

Was meant to post this about half a hour ago... but I had a 5.8 earthquake in the middle of writing this.

Anyway, thanks for the locations and the help again with the diaries. The big convoy in November was KM3, which brought 2 Bns of the 1st Guards brigade, so maybe they were brought up in that?

Because Sbiba's locatrion is given I now have a fairly good idea where the other locations are even with visiting the british library for the original maps. So I've added them to the map here
Note that MEFTA ridge is to the left of Sbiba.

They mention the west hand side of the ridge, but it seems very far north to me so i'm guessing that the point mentioned is the north end of the feature, which on average is about three miles away; which is right. A google arial search shows a number of likely umarked leading to the ridge.

*edit* i think the ridge may run left to right not north to south.

 

Not the only one Gerry; slightly OT but here's a good quote of other things going missing from the boat:

".. spent the day sorting out all my personal kit, which has arrived with the batallion transport from Bone. My good suitcase is absolutely ruined but all the stuff is there, while some chaps have had evcerything destroyed or looted."

"Our kit had been soaked for days in sea water and rain at the docks, where there was also a scandelous incidence of pilfering. Poor tom jackson opened his valise to find his kit gone, and the space stuffed with straw.