End of the Beginning

General Messervy’s armour was in no position to resist Operation Venezia. Three regiments were dispersed across the desert, each with about sixty tanks. One was surprised and destroyed in its camp, the second was bypassed by the advancing panzers and the third deployed just in time to line up against the two hundred tanks of 15 Panzer Division. The British tank crews fought extremely fiercely and gave the enemy an unpleasant surprise. The Germans knew little about the new American Grant and its powerful 75mm gun. For a moment their attack stalled, the leading vehicles ablaze. But they sized up the threat, swept round the flanks and brought up their 88mm guns. Most of the Grants were soon burning. Meanwhile,Ariete Division attacked Bir Hacheim while 21 Panzer and 90 Light divisions drove on. Rommel’s great offensive was going to plan, and still the British generals hadn’t realised that this was no feint, but the real thing.

The next nearest tanks in the piecemeal British deployment were those of 22 Armoured Brigade, part of General Lumsden’s 1 Armoured Division, which included the mobile artillery batteries of the South Notts Hussars. When it became apparent that there was a genuine threat in the south, Lumsden was ordered to help Messervy. He complained that his men were not ready and orders reached his units only slowly. Harold Harper and the rest of the signals truck bridge school were farthest south, astride the ‘barrel track’ from Bir Hacheim, up which 21 Panzer Division was advancing at top speed.

Harper was peering at the horizon, although the amount of dust in the air made it hard to see more than a hundred yards. He was in his armoured car with Ivor Birkin. Ahead, half obscured by the dust cloud, was Ivor’s brother Gerry’s car.They were both searching for the tanks that their gun battery was due to support. They were supposed to be near a barrel painted with the number 701, but they seemed to have disappeared.

Gerry Birkin’s car stopped. Another three hundred yards ahead were tanks, but they didn’t look like British ones. Birkin began to make calculations ready to radio back to the battery. If he was quick he could get fire down on these panzers before the Germans knew anything about it. He climbed down from the turret and asked his driver, Bobby Feakins, to check the figures. Feakins climbed up to the turret just as a shell landed behind them. ‘Whoops!’ said Birkin. They had not gone unnoticed after all. Feakins thought he saw a shape moving towards them in the dust. ‘Sir, quick!’They swapped places again and Feakins quickly revved the engine and started to turn away from the danger. He heard a noise, turned, and as he did so what was left of Gerry Birkin collapsed all over him. An armour-piercing shell had gone straight through his stomach. The same shell had beheaded two of the radio operators sitting behind. The third operator was screaming into his radio and, like Feakins, was covered in blood and worse. Feakins realised that some of the blood was his own. His first thought was that the armoured car was still a sitting duck. He slammed it into reverse gear and tried to press hard on the accelerator, feeling the strength draining from his leg as he did so.The car shot backward and with a great crash fell straight into a slit trench, where it stuck fast. Feakins pushed past Birkin’s body and lowered himself from the vehicle. He found that he had inadvertently run over the surviving radio operator, who had jumped from the back of the vehicle just as he reversed. Both his legs were broken.

Harold Harper and Ivor Birkin were still edging forward through the dust:

We were driving slowly, at about 10 mph, and we’d only gone about half a mile when we heard this very panicky garbled message on the radio. There was obviously something wrong ahead. Ivor and I climbed out of the turret, jumped down and ran over to Gerry Birkin’s car.

As Harper approached he saw the signaller burst from the back of the vehicle, saw him run over and then saw Bobby Feakins climb out and hang on to the back door.

We ran to the driver’s door to find out what the trouble was. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.There was Gerry lying there, obviously dead. I ran round to the back to get the signallers out. When I opened the doors, there they were sitting with their microphones still in their hands but they hadn’t got any heads. Their intestines and things were poking through what was left of their upper bodies and their heads were lying on the floor.

Ivor Birkin was utterly distraught and Harper couldn’t make him leave his brother, despite the obvious danger.‘I said,"Come along, sir, you must come back." He said, "No, you get back."’ Harper obeyed the order and ran back to fetch the other armoured car.

I had just ordered the driver to turn. I pressed on his right shoulder to make him turn right and out of this great cloud of sand came one of our own tanks, a bloody great Grant, and it hit us head on. By this stage the whole of the desert around us was one great cloud of dust. We bounced back and the engine burst into flames. So we had to jump out. We dashed over to where Ivor Birkin was and told him what had happened. There we all were, stranded.

21 Panzer Division was now headed straight for the rest of 520 battery.