Three Kings

By noon the column had come up on a low ridge overlooking the road to Benghazi to the north, a place called BedaFomm. Combe was elated to see that he had beaten the Italians to this place, and he busily set about arranging his small contingent into a blocking force. His few Bren carriers were out of petrol, so he left them behind and brought up his infantry.

“Get the lads dug in along this line,” he said. “We’ll position the artillery and AA guns behind.” He sent one small group up with a few crates of landmines and had them lay down a makeshift mine field, but that was the defense. He had a few mines, a single battalion of British infantry, and the handful of guns and armored cars against anything the Italians had left.

As it happened, he had beaten the Italians to this place by a bare two hours, for his troops soon saw the dust rising from an approaching column. It was led by the 10thBersaglieri, which blundered into the shallow minefield and stopped with some shock and surprise. They quickly pulled themselves together, however, and organized a strong attack, determined to open the road again for the long column behind them.

Combe opened up on them with his 25 pounders to break up the attack, his gunners putting down disciplined fire on the enemy as they advanced. The Italians fell back, and Combe looked at his watch. He had received word that O’Connor had put together a supporting force of anything else that could move inCreagh’s 7th Armored division. They had been following the tracks his own column had made to navigate their way west, and by 4pm the lead elements arrived from 4th Armored Brigade, just as the Italians were putting in yet another strong attack.

Nearly out of fuel, the few cruiser tanks and Bren carriers that could still move charged boldly forward against what appeared to be an endless column of Italians. Combe began to open up with his 37mm flak guns, and a 40mm Bofors, setting several Italian trucks on fire and causing a panic on the jammed coastal road. Trucks veered away, plowing into heavy sand and bogging down as they came under fire. There were some 20,000 Italians clogging up the road, with fighting troops mixed in with support services, airfield crews, and civilians from Benghazi.

One British squadron of three cruiser tanks, a Bren carrier and one truck mounted 37mm AA gun took off north, running parallel to the coastal road and blasting away at the Italian column for all of ten miles. They stopped to fetch ammo from the supply truck and found out just how far afield they were, a handful of men stinging the long python that might turn on them at any moment. So they simply turned around, firing at the enemy all the way south again, until they had returned toCombe’s main lines to report the column seemed endless.

If the Italians had massed their fighting troops and made an all or nothing attempt to break through, they would certainly have prevailed. Hadthese been German troops, or Japanese, they would have brushed the scanty blocking force aside with no trouble. As it was, the British were determined to stop them, and the Italians were not as determined to break out, even though they tried gallantly in several attacks, the last a formation of nearly 100 light and medium tanks.

On they came, the tracks rattling, guns barking at the thin lines of the 2nd King’s Rifle Battalion blocking the way. The British troopers opened up with their Vickers MGs, but it was the 25 pounder artillery that would have to do the job if they were to hold. The artillery crews leveled the barrels of their field pieces and began to pour well disciplined fire on the advancing tanks. Blasting away at them as they charged bravely forward.

“Where’s our bloody tanks?” an artilleryman shouted over the din of the firing?”

“Back there,” the Gunnery Sergeant thumbed over his shoulder. “Out of bloody gas. Now load and fire, boyo, because that barrel is all that’s between you and those enemy tanks!”

The British had nipped at a part of the flank of the Italian column, capturing about 800 prisoners there, mostly service troops. But, as fate would have it, there were three fuel trucks in the column, and several Tommy’s got them back toCreagh’s 4th Armored where the tanks were hastily filling up with the much needed fuel. That was a fortunate find, for the supply column on its way from Bardia with more fuel had run into a sand storm and was now completely lost.

“Nice of the Italians to make the delivery just when we needed it most,” said a tanker. It was just another barb in the Italian 10th Army’s side, a force that was now in the last desperate throes of the most ignominious defeat in the history of Italian arms.