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Memory Lane

by

Corporal Stuart Morris (Medic)

3 Squadron R.A.A.F,       239 Wing R.A.F.,      Middle East

May 1942 – October 1944

It was at Gambut Airfield (East of Tobruk) that 212 new ground staff from Australia replaced 212 time expired staff of 3 SQD R.A.A.F. New Medics were Lou Kemp, Stuart Morris and Andrew Cromer. These 212 new men were therefore involved in the 1942 retreat to Egypt, as well as the Alamein Campaign and battle support and subsequent advances to Tunisia (Malta for some) Sicily and Italy. Stuart arrived home on 28^th October 1944.

REFLECTIONS

Advancing westward November 1942 after Alamein (North Africa - right hand traffic) we were in convoy, having left Gazala and moving to Martuba Airfield inland from Derna. Snowy Cromer was my passenger in a left hand drive Canadian Ford Truck (used to transport medical supplies, camping gear etc)

I had an urgent need to leave the convoy for personal reasons, losing about 5 minutes behind the rest of our squadron’s vehicles.

I managed to slip into a long and crowded convoy of army service trucks and from my left hand driving position I could see that we had a clear mile or two with no oncoming traffic. So I pulled out to the left, accelerated and passed several trucks.

Quite soon we were tooted loudly from behind; Snowy said "It’s a jeep with a couple of Wing officers."

I asked Snow to signal the nearby truck driver who let us back into the convoy. As the jeep flashed past, Snowy said "The passenger is Mr. Terry and there’s an army bloke sitting on the far side behind the driver. He looks like a Communications type." Suddenly there was a terrific explosion. Even hidden as we were between two high trucks we could see debris flying 50 - 60 feet into the air on both sides.

I commented "That could be the end of the Wing fellas." It was obviously a very powerful mine. This turned out to be an anti tank mine.

As Mr. Terry was Australian (formerly Adjutant of 3 Squadron before we arrived), I felt impelled to go to him and almost by reflex action I slipped my truck out to the right before the convoy packed up.

I jumped out, grabbed my medical kit and ran. My first sighting was the remains of the jeep which had been blown (spinning sideways) over the top of a 12ft high truck, landing on its wheels about 12ft clear of the bitumen. My flashing glance (maybe 1/10 second) revealed no wind screen, no seats – the rear area seemed to be flat metal which bore the scattered remains of the driver – something I will never forget.

I saw the sprawled figure of Mr.Terry and ran on to him about 30 yards from the explosion. He was wearing his great coat – it was a cold morning. He was lying on his back and appeared to be breathing. I couldn’t tell if real or reflex breathing.

I was in the act of moving forward to check his tongue and loosen his tie when a Scottish voice alongside me asked "How is he, laddie?" As I turned my head I saw his rank – (Captain - Army) and I said "He may be breathing but I’m not sure. Are you a doctor, sir? He replied "Yes I’ll have a look at him." Then he added "I’m sorry to ask you to do this but will you please run across and check the Army boy. You’ll need to be very careful because we are in the middle of a mine field." I experienced no fear - I said please God help me and as an athlete I ran flat out with long strides.

He also had a great coat on. I felt it had helped to hold him together. Actually it seemed that every bone was shattered / pulverized. He had been blown at least 40 yards. There was no visible sign of wounds or life. This all tied in with his having been sitting on the far side of the jeep when the mine exploded under its front left hand wheel.

I ran back and reported "He’s dead sir." At that moment our Wing doctor appeared and called to me "Hurry on there Corporal, hurry we have to get Mr. Terry to hospital." I replied "With respect sir, I don’t think we have time – which hospital? Our field hospital is too far. It may even be packed up and on the road. But you have a transfusion set in your ambulance over there (about 20 yards). He accept my lead (which was a statement not a question) "Yes" he said "we must transfuse him against shock" even under this pressure I remember thinking cheekily: at least he’s read the text book!

At one stage I felt I had been let down by the Wing Doctor – he just wasn’t with it but as we proceeded with this transfusion process I felt a flood of compassion for him as I reflected that probably about an hour earlier he had had breakfast with his two now deceased Squadron Leader friends (this was later confirmed).

Mr. Terry’s weak pulse had ceased.

Back in the truck with Snow and moving on towards Martuba it dawned on me that if we hadn’t been pushed back into the convoy, our truck would have hit the mine and Snowy and I would be dead.

After 2 miles I saw the small village of Derna on the coast. This was another emotional interruption to my day. I recalled how my eldest brother Max , 6^th Battalion, 6^th Div, A.I.F. a couple of years earlier had suffered severely crushed legs when run over by an Army Service Truck while he and his platoon, under instruction, were having a few hours sleep prior to the dawn raid on Derna.

Our day wasn’t ended even when Snowy and I reached our medical unit at Martuba. Standing near our treatment vehicle were three armed jeep commando vehicles – these men had been behind enemy lines since early September. It was now 19^th November and they had acquired many desert sores etc.

Their mission was to blow up enemy aircraft that night but observed 239 RAF Wing's occupation which opened up the opportunity to seek medical treatment.

I wasn’t very pleased when our doctor came to speak with us. His welcome was "What have you been doing getting lost while we (himself, Theo and Lou) have been treating these commandos!" I eyeballed him and said "I’d like a quiet word – and moved out of ear shot of the visitors.  I asked "Are these blokes Long Range Desert Patrol?" He replied "Yes". My comment "I hope you’ve had them checked out to see if they’re ours or theirs."

He went pale "I didn’t give it a thought" then added "You’d better get the Don R to rush over to Wing and have them checked out." Alec Archer dispatch  rider (motor bike) did a quick job and in due course the visitors were cleared - (we'd all been instructed to watch out for ‘bogus’ visitors).

It had been a pretty tough and emotional day!

Our next move forward was to Antelat towards Benghazi, again I was the advance party medic. For some reason – maybe a quicker Army advance than expected - it was decided that our Wing planes would bypass Antelat and go ahead to Belandah near Agedabia.

We were given a "rest day at Antelat" and then to rejoin the Squadron at Belandah. While most of us were enjoying a day in the sun, some of the armorours decided to clean machine guns, working in a gun pit left by earlier air men or anti aircraft gunners.

Suddenly there was that horrible sound – the stuttering,  ripping of a machine gun (accidentally fired). One of our younger armorours was standing or walking near by and was hit in the chest by a number of bullets. (Editor's note: Corporal Riley was the armorour killed in this incident.) 

I responded immediately to the sound and the call for help but sadly there was nothing which could save his life. On this occasion, my help with the burial took some pressure off his colleagues (but was not easy).

In the el Agheila area army action was drawing to a crisis. The arrival in the region of a USA DC3 transport aircraft squadron whether at the request of Field Marshall Montgomery or otherwise, opened up an opportunity for 239 RAF Wing and allied army planners to plan a forward fighter-bomber base well west of the armies. This effort was planned to keep the enemy on the run after the Agheila breakthrough.

The plan was for 25 selected ground staff from each of  239 RAF Wing squadrons to be flown forward to the Marble Arch Airfield , complete with fuel and all munitions and supplies and equipment. This plan envisaged early and concentrated pressure on the enemy to thus hasten the move on to Tunisia and the end of the North Africa war.

I believe as a conscientious medic that I was in a position to recognize the drastic inadequacy of planning of the medical side of this new  'one off' strategy. Here was the situation:

3 Squadron RAAF was the first of 239 Wing fighter bombers to land after having completed a mission against retreating enemy. Refueling rearming and 'bombing up’ went to plan but two vital factors intervened to create an awful crisis:

1. Enemy land mine laying – 1500 plus mines – (explosive and anti – personnel)
2. Allied mine sweepers spent a whole day clearing mines – but 100% clearance was doubtful for lack of time.

It appeared that 239 Wing medical hierarchy had overlooked the possibility of a disaster – either by bombs or mines.

3 Squadron personnel, about 15 – 18, with a borrowed truck, were tidying up and removing empty 44 gallon fuel drums (after preparing their planes for action).

One of the staff jumped down from the truck and triggered an anti personnel mine which struck down 8 of our mates. From about 45 yards away I raced to the scene with my medical kit.

The scene was chaotic as I tried to assess numbers and severity of injuries. Inside a minute our Squadron Leader Bobby Gibbes was at my side calling " Stuart, what’s the score and what do we do?" I said: "The score is 3 dead, sir ... 5 surgery cases and 2 of them are critical". I added "If you can grab that DC3 over there I think I should fly with them to Benghazi where there’s a good surgeon Wing Commander Wallace" (This was chance information I heard about 3 weeks earlier when I was at a field hospital. I was not certain that the surgeon was still there, but I had to take the risk. I did know that Wing Commander Wallace was a man of great skill and professionalism and had pulled off some amazing jobs in North Africa.

In a couple of minutes Gibbo had the DC3 standing by. We loaded the boys with Brian Gates on our only stretcher then Gibbo called to me "Stuart, you will need help" I replied "You are already short of staff". He then commanded me "Take Alec Archer" so Alec jumped into the plane with me and we took off. It was not until 1984 when I was talking to Alec in Castlemaine that I knew why he had been free to come with me to Benghazi. He had seen the boys gathered around the truck and loading the petrol drums. So he rode across on his motor bike to offer a hand and while walking away from his bike the mine exploded. Alec remained unscathed but the bike ‘copped a packet’. So Alec didn’t have a job. (Note: in actual fact Alec escaped physical damage but like many others of us still carries the mental scars of that tragedy.)

Alec did a great job keeping conversation going with those who were able and trying to lift their morale. Further along the journey, a Yank came back to me and asked "Where do you want us to land?"  I was annoyed by that and said "Surely you are in touch with the ground by radio". In reply he said "No, we don’t know the drill". I said "You’ll have us shot down". Then added "When we get into sight of Benghazi give me a call and I will show you where to land". Eventually we landed at Berca alongside the highway. I jumped out and ran to the first transport and gave the driver a short explanation of our situation and requested that we need one, preferably two ambulances and that we had a body to be taken (as Brian had died half way through the flight without regaining consciousness). Would he please contact the Adjutant or the C.O. to expedite our request and to contact Wing Commander Wallace and advise him of the impending arrival of surgery cases so that he could have the theatre ready.

The C.O. (Wing Commander Bomber Command) drove up. He was livid. "You had no right to land here without warning. You could have been shot down." I replied " My apologies, Sir, (on behalf of the Americans) - they are new to the desert. We had a terrific mine disaster at Marble Arch. Already four have died and I have sent a message to Wing Commander Wallace re others needing urgent surgery". When he didn't say, "Who's Wing Commander Wallace?" I excused myself and went back to the patients with confidence.

The ambulance came and we loaded the patients quickly.

One of the best sights I ever saw during the war was when we arrived at the hospital, which was normally a civilian hospital, to find that Wing Commander  Wallace was standing at the steps.

We first unloaded George Bartsch who was very badly wounded. He was taken straight to the X-ray room.

As the surgeon and I walked along the main passage to the theatre, he explained that they were very short of staff, even though they had two nursing sisters, and would I please be able to come into the theatre and give assistance. It was a great honour and privilege for me to be asked to help in the theatre.

He showed considerable concern about my personal well being. I was deeply touched by his concern and when he said, "You have had a bad day!" and I replied, "The worst day of my life Sir." I then lost control and burst into tears.

The relief of achieving my target* was overwhelming. (*target: reaching Wing Commander Wallace.)

I believe the surgeon realized my stress and said, "More staff would shortly arrive." Then I think he sedated me for it was several hours later that I awoke lying on our own stretcher.

We were spared the burial of Brian because the hospital staff had already attended to it. They were very good and most helpful in the whole situation, from the minute we arrived at their door to making sure that we had transport to get back to Berca and then to Marble Arch via the American base.

Morale was at an all time low, made worse a couple of days later by the news that George Bartsch had died in hospital. It took some time for the rest of the boys to cope with the effect of the disaster. Christmas was not what a ‘normal’ Christmas should have been. In fact the next few days were really depressing, but a light was at the end of the tunnel. It occurred when Bob Gibbes made the wonderful one wheel landing* at Marble Arch after he had gone down in the desert to save and bring back Rex Bayly, who had been shot down. However that is another story recorded in detail elsewhere. It did bring a lot of relief to all the boys and those who were there will never forget the return and the landing.

* The ‘leg’ of one wheel was broken during his take-off from the ‘raw’ desert.

The turkeys we had at Melini, Italy on the Adriatic coast a year later were also memorable ...  DECEMBER 1943

Dr. Trevor Jenkins and I had the day off and we did some touring and found a turkey farm with 200 to 300 turkeys and negotiated the purchase of some good birds which were subsequently tethered to our tent peg till we could arrange for the cooks to do something about the cooking. We bought two, one for the cooks, trusting that they would cook both and this transpired in due course.

News travels quickly and in a few days just before Christmas nearly every tent in the squadron had a turkey tethered. Great negotiations went on with the cooks but one enterprising tent took it into their own hands to do something about the cooking. That night after listening to Lilli Marlene from Belgrade and the BBC news, our power supply went down to zero and it was found to be that the enterprising tent crew had brought in a big electric range they had found in a bombed-out house and were busily trying to cook their turkey.

The electricians were not very amused and the 'would be' cooks were told that they could not have power for such a purpose so I guess the cooks also "cooked their turkey".

The good thing was 1943 was a much happier Christmas than 1942… not only did we have our turkeys but we were supplied with better fare than the miserable time we had at Marble Arch (see photo at left). Time had partly healed the mental scars of the mine tragedy.

It was 21^st January 1943 when I drove into the Castel Benito aerodrome about 10 miles east of Tripoli. The set up geographically is similar to Laverton, Melbourne. In fact our entry could have been going into Laverton with fine gates and eucalyptus trees along the approaches (see photo at right).

Their were many abandoned Italian and German planes in the area. Our pilots had some fun there and later. One twin engined Caproni Gibley light transport plane actually became our means of ready contact with base at Cairo area and was used for bringing up canteen supplies, mail and pilots both ways, if on leave.

Ian Roediger had the good luck or good management to be the regular pilot. I was personally fortunate to be with him on one ‘local’ flight – in fact he allowed me my one and only (ever) 10 minutes at the controls! We took some beaut photos over the ancient roman city of Sabratha west of Tripoli.

Tripoli is a beautiful city with a mile wide bay surrounded by a lovely promenade bordered by palm trees. There were many beautiful buildings and a walled off native ‘town’ full of great shopping opportunities mostly exquisite handmade metal, wood, china and glass were very popular. Many parcels were sent home. Near the sea wall and adjacent to the native village were two huge ornamental pillars one of them at the top featuring Romulus and Remus legendary founders of Rome. They were abandoned and suckled by a she-wolf and afterwards bought up by a shepherd. ( The legendary history can be read in the Universal World Reference Encyclopedia DOCTUS CUM LIBRO).

I experienced several ambulance trips to and from Zuara to the hospital and remember well being caught one night in a pretty heavy air raid. Some of the big ack-ack guns were close to the hospital so it was a rowdy visit with much shattered ack-ack steel clattering and tinkling on the bitumen road – one of the times I tried to shelter in my tin hat lying in the gutter alongside the ambulance.

After Castel Benito we moved on to El Assa landing ground. After morning sick parade we had a new patient a 10 year old Bedouin girl. The family stayed in the background while the father brought her in.

She had a most awful shrapnel wound which took up most of her left elbow. It was covered by a piece of goatskin tied around her arm with two pieces of string which I removed. The wound was putrid.

The first thing was to clean the area and this was quite a job. Our new doctor Trevor Jenkins ( Dr. Stone was time-expired and had returned to Australia).

This patient’s need coincided with our first issue of the new world – wide sulpha drugs. The issue of these new drugs was to active war units before civilian at the decision of the Australian government.

The doctor took the opportunity to experiment by mixing up sulphanilamide powder and glycerine poultice which he applied generously followed by a firm bandage and a sling. Over the next week or 10 days we had her back several times for re-dressing. Jenks was almost certain that the bones would have calcified beyond re-alignment; but agreed with my feeling that if there were even a 10% chance of freeing the calcification it may be worth taking her to Tripoli to x-ray. This was done but the radiologist told me that as the wound was probably 4 or 5 months old the calcification would have gone too far. He did however express his surprise and disappointment that the enemy had not attended to the little girl months earlier – we all felt the same.

Before we left this location we wrote a letter – a sort of "to whom it may concern" (medical) and left it with the father to take to the next incoming medical unit. Our friend understood quite well and the healing was completed in due course (as we found out later).

The letter outlined the background and treatment etc and requested that they take over. We were extremely pleased with the chosen treatment as the wound area was covered with pink granulated tissue, almost to total healing.

This would have been the end of story but 3 or 4 months later after the end of the North Africa campaign our RAF Wing was returned to Zuara very close to our former location.

We had in fact slowed down in convoy as we were approaching the turnoff to our new location. Suddenly I heard a shouting from the side of my truck. Our little man who had been recruited to work on the road was running beside us and calling "Hakhiem Hakhiem" (meaning doctor). He had a grin from ear to ear. I signaled and called in pigeon English and Arabic pointing and beckoning and conveying that we would be close and that we wanted him to come and see us soon.

A couple of days later on return from an ambulance trip from Tripoli my mates told me that my little friend had come to give me a present – but took it away again because (they said ‘he wouldn’t trust it to them’).

Sure enough he was back the next day with a water melon almost as big as himself which he had grown near an oasis out in the desert. We all had a wonderful time with ear to ear slices. 

It was his great demonstration of saying ‘thank you’.

Indeed very soon after the watermelon event, a procession of camels and donkeys and Arabs came through our camping area. Up front on their camels were 3 Arabs dressed in their white robes and head dress with black bands around the head dress. Surprisingly they kept going right through our squadron area but stopped at the pilots’ mess (in Australian Air Force units sergeant-pilots and officers shared the mess for meals and social aspects of life).

The front camel was stopped outside the mess and made to squat down for the passenger to dismount.

This passenger throwing off his borrowed robes was our acting squadron leader Brian Eaton who had been shot down and thought to be wounded or prisoner. In fact he was rescued by the local Arabs and great was the celebration.

Note: Pilots carried various inducements like money to encourage the local to befriend our crews if they were shot down.

Stuart Morris (right) with Nick Barr (left) ...  1943

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