Armour & Machinery in the Middle East & Desert - Pictures

dbf · Feb 17, 2014

(For those who haven't seen my original post, and before this excellent thread gets derailed, "That officer" was Jellicoe)

I take your point but to be fair, it's an extract from a much longer interview, with no clue in the text as to his light/very self-depricating tone when dealing with serious issues. I suspect he meant relatively few, rather than none, they were patrolling in the desert after all, not in highly populated areas. He himself was shot and wounded by men who he later thought were Sanussis, and who probably had mistaken his patrol for Germans, so he knew there were people living there.

The point still stands though, there was, by many accounts, a different feel towards the enemy in N. Africa at that time.

The interview continues...

We were always tuning in to the German radio to hear Lili Marlene.

In English or in German?
Well, usually in German, yes. Though certainly I had no feelings of personal animosity, I was extremely keen that the Germans should be defeated but I didn’t come into contact them - actually physical contact much with them then. We were then involved in the November ’41 offensive, 3rd Guards Brigade [n.b. 22nd/200th/201st Guards Brigade] under John Marriott, Brigadier Marriott.
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I have no doubt he was aware of the repercussions for all should the Nazis have won.

Can you tell me what the atmosphere was like then, was there any kind of feeling that ... of a European crisis, that a war was coming?
I was extremely apolitical in those days and certainly I didn’t - one was interested - I mean I remember when I was at Winchester I’d been interested in what was the Abyssinian War. But quite frankly as far as at least I was concerned I was more interested in my friends and having a good time and playing golf, occasionally doing a little bit of work - very occasionally - and I was not sort of - I didn’t feel tremendously involved in what was going on. One had a more than passing interest perhaps in the Spanish Civil War and I’d been in Germany for my sort of gap six months, therefore I had some interest in what was going on: Nazism and the rise of it and all the rest of it. But quite frankly I was not deeply involved and I don’t think a great many of my friends were but the great exception was, and what I am saying is subject to this, was Munich. I think I became politically and internationally much more aware at that time, than I had been beforehand. I felt very strongly about it. I remember going to stay with a great friend of mine Archie John Wavell, the son of the Field Marshal, to stay with General Wavell as he then was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Wavell. I think he was Southern Command in Salisbury, and I remember feeling very strongly, right or wrong about Munich: deploring it, feeling very ashamed of it and I think a lot of my friends felt this.

I had three very close friends at Cambridge. Mark Howard, the elder of the three Howard boys living at Castle Howard and he then, or shortly afterwards, went on to whatever it’s called, the Supplementary Reserve of the Coldstream Guards and I think that may have had something to do with me choosing the Coldstream as a parent regiment and he was killed just before the Bocage.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2326759/
HOWARD, MARK PAUL GEOFFREY
Rank: Major
Service No: 72092
Date of Death: 02/07/1944
Age: 26
Regiment/Service: Coldstream Guards, 5th Bn.
Grave Reference: VIII. F. 6.
Cemetery: BAYEUX WAR CEMETERY
Additional Information: Son of Geoffrey William Algernon Howard and of Ethel Christian Howard (nee Methuen). B.A. (Cantab.).
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/history/articles/10323148.War_wounds_of_a_stately_kind/?ref=rss

And another great friend was somebody called David Jacobson and he was also much more politically aware than I was. A very remarkable person, he was killed - he joined the Tower Hamlet Rifles, the Territorial part of the Rifle Brigade, and he was killed in the first retreat in ’41, in the desert, near Derna.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2116389/
JACOBSON, DAVID HERBERT
Rank: Lieutenant
Service No: 97076
Date of Death: 07/04/1941
Age: 23
Regiment/Service: Rifle Brigade, 9th (lst Bn. The Tower Hamlets Rifles) Bn.
Grave Reference: Joint grave 15. H. 6.
Cemetery: HALFAYA SOLLUM WAR CEMETERY
Additional Information: Son of Ernest Nathaniel Joseph Jacobson, C.B.E., and Gladys Welcome Jacobson, of Little Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. B.A. (Cantab.). Scholar of Trinity College. King's Scholar of Eton College.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tVC8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA181&lpg=PA181&dq=david+jacobson,+killed+1941&source=bl&ots=E3kNdsZHVZ&sig=36cvoZxLM_m_co2E-SysXxYfbSo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xx7wUu2LIMPR7AaT44HwBQ&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=david jacobson, killed 1941&f=false

But somebody else who was my third very close friend there was somebody called Peter Pease and he joined the Air Squadron at the time. So I think those - I think all those three people in fact did something at that time, partly because they felt very strongly involved. Peter Pease was shot down over Maidstone on the great day of the Battle of Britain - when was it, the 15th September ‘40.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2409316/
PEASE, ARTHUR PETER
Rank: Flying Officer
Trade: Pilot
Service No: 72447
Date of Death: 15/09/1940
Age: 22
Regiment/Service: Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 603 Sqdn.
Grave Reference:
Cemetery: MIDDLETON TYAS (ST. MICHAEL) CHURCHYARD
Additional Information: Son of Sir Richard Arthur Pease, J.P., D.L., M.A., 2nd Bart., and of Lady Pease (nee Kissel), of Richmond.
http://www.bbm.org.uk/Pease.htm

I in fact I lost all my three close friends at Cambridge during the war and another great friend, Archie John Wavell he was killed in Kenya shortly afterwards in the Mau Mau.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Wavell,_2nd_Earl_Wavell

But apart from that, well, I think the great awakening for me was Munich. Until then I was certainly not conscious of a tremendous interest amongst my contemporaries, mainly because I was for some reason not very politically involved at that time.
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TTH · Feb 17, 2014

dbf said:

I take your point but to be fair, it's an extract from a much longer interview, with no clue in the text as to his light/very self-depricating tone when dealing with serious issues. I suspect he meant relatively few, rather than none, they were patrolling in the desert after all, not in highly populated areas. He himself was shot and wounded by men who he later thought were Sanussis, and who probably had mistaken his patrol for Germans, so he knew there were people living there.

The point still stands though, there was, by many accounts, a different feel towards the enemy in N. Africa at that time.
Click to expand...

Oh, I know you are reporting a commonly held feeling at the time. I certainly didn't want to derail or hijack the thread, which is indeed excellent. I have found a few nice shots of the French in North Africa, which I plan to post here.

Owen · Feb 17, 2014

As the Grant & Lee have been mentioned , here's both in British service.

Grant and Lee tanks of 'C' Squadron, 4th (Queen's Own) Hussars, 2nd Armoured Brigade, El Alamein position, Egypt, 7 July 1942.

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA. © IWM (E 14054)IWM Non Commercial Licence

A Grant, Lee and Stuart tank, El Alamein position, Egypt, 9 July 1942.

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA. © IWM (E 14120)IWM Non Commercial Licence

Grant and Lee tanks of 'C' Squadron, 4th (Queen's Own) Hussars, 2nd Armoured Brigade, El Alamein position, Egypt, 7 July 1942.

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA. © IWM (E 14053)IWM Non Commercial Licence

von Poop · Feb 17, 2014

I may actually be addicted to IWM collections.

Bikers:

THE BRITISH ARMY IN TUNISIA 1943. © IWM (NA 621)IWM Non Commercial Licence

Halfaya Pass. © IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 3403)IWM Non Commercial Licence

THE BRITISH ARMY IN TUNISIA 1943. © IWM (NA 2315)IWM Non Commercial Licence

THE CAMPAIGN IN NORTH AFRICA 1940-1943. © IWM (E 1390)IWM Non Commercial Licence

ROYAL AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA, 1939-1943.. © IWM (CNA 159)IWM Non Commercial Licence

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA 1941. © IWM (E 3251)IWM Non Commercial Licence

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA 1942. © IWM (E 16691)IWM Non Commercial Licence

THE ROYAL NAVY DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: OPERATION TORCH, NORTH AFRICA, NOVEMBER 1942. © IWM (A 12708)IWM Non Commercial Licence

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA 1942. © IWM (E 12941)IWM Non Commercial Licence