Three Kings (Kirov Series) by John Schettler Page A

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
10th Bersaglieri , 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 in Creagh’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 to Combe’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. Had these 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
to Creagh’s 4th Armored