Three Kings

Terror was still raining down heavy rounds on the retreating columns of Italian infantry and trucks, raising havoc as they hastened to the safety of their fortified ports at Bardia and Tobruk further west up the coast. Using the superior firepower of his 25 pounder artillery, O’Connor was able to blast his way forward, eventually takingHalfaya Pass and pushing on throughSollum, Now, confronted by an anti-tank ditch and miles of wire and bunkers outside Bardia, he was forced to wait for the Australian infantry. If he took Bardia, he knew the psychological shock of that loss would likely send his enemy on a headlong retreat to Benghazi far to the west.

Lieutenant GeneralAnnibaleBergonzoli's XXIII Corps was digging in, occupying the strong defenses of Bardia with all the troops he could gather as they retreated up the coast, still harassed by British naval gunfire. Mussolini knew the man personally, calling himBarbaElettrica, “Old Electric Beard,” because his whiskers and handlebar mustache jutted so wildly from his face. He sent him a message urging him to hold Bardia at all costs. Bergonzoli’s reply was brave and confident: “We are here in Bardia, and here we will stay.” He would soon command a force of 40,000 men there, making ready behind a double line of fortified concrete positions.

The task of taking the place with such a small force at his disposal seemed impossible, but O’Connor had no hesitation. He knew that it would need a combined assault by infantry, tanks and artillery to do the job, and he gathered all his remaining Matildas in the 7th RTR and planned to use them as an armored battering ram against the enemy line.

The engineer sappers of the Australian 16th Brigade finally came up in their trucks, inexperienced, but determined, tough men of the Australian bush who were accustomed to harsh desert conditions. They began unloading equipment, only to find that cases of much needed wire cutters were nowhere to be found. Orders were sent back to find them, and the infantry began to dig in to set up positions for their 3-inch mortar teams when it was discovered that none of the mortars had sites!

“How are we supposed to fire the damn things if we can’t sight and register on the targets?” A gritty Sergeant put a plain enough point on the dilemma, and a young Lieutenant scratched his head, then found the nearest jeep he could get his hands on and started back down the road to look for the missing mortar sights. He would have to go all the way to Cairo to find them, where the crates sat in a warehouse, overlooked in the hasty forward movement of the brigades.

O’Connor took advantage of the time to finalize his attack plan and call for both air and naval support. That night Bardia would be visited by Wellington bombers of the R.A.F., which put in a strong attack to soften the enemy defenses, dumping all of 20,000 pounds of bombs. As the night wore on, the Royal Navy put in the second act, with the monitor Terror returning to pound the port defenses in the dark hours before the assault. At one point an old British river gunboat, the Aphis, had slipped into the bay off Bardia, right into the harbor itself, and it was firing away at anything that moved on the shore, with an impertinent and daring display of bravery.

“Look there,” O’Connor pointed. “If the Navy can get inside the enemy’s camp like that, then we’ll scratch our way in too!”

GeneralIven Mackay of the Australian 6th Division was already looking over the ground. Selecting points that seemed suitable for an assault. As dawn came the looming shapes of the big engineers moved like grey shadows over the lunar landscape. These were big, muscular men, and their appearance intimidated the defenders when they saw how doggedly they came forward, moving up to prepare the way for the assault even under sporadic machine gun fire from the bunkers. O’Connor countered this by ordering a heavy covering artillery barrage to suppress the enemy guns. Then the shovels and wire cutters went to work, the aim being to fill in a section of the anti-tank ditch for the Matildas. Bangalore torpedoes were pushed under the wire to blow gaps and detonate hidden mines, difficult and grueling work under enemy fire, but the Aussies persisted.

It was not long before O’Connor could order up his battering ram, the tanks of the 7th RTR that had led his assault many days ago against the Italian encampments. The men were tired, some near exhaustion as they pushed along the narrow road, nerves jangled by the grating clatter of the tank treads. The Australian infantry had punched through the outer defenses, like ghoulish specters, their rifles and bayonets a frightening shock to the inexperiencedBlackshirt militias on the front line. The Italians wanted nothing to do with these brawny, hard looking men, and began to surrender in droves.