STEAM AT WAR 9




Back at the base camp at Similla our commanding officer had winkled out a recreation hut for the company. It was a prefabricated building about the size of a school classroom erected in short time by unit personnel. We were forbidden its use until a 1.5 metre deep slit trench had been dug right around it. A party of us was directed to dig the trench with the carrot that if it was finished to the satisfaction of the commanding officer the company could have the use of the hut that night. We commenced the formidable task with characteristic groans and moans. By 16.00 hours the trench was down to 30cms, and then a lone enemy twin engine fighter bomber made a low pass across the camp dropping a stick of 25kg bombs and firing its nose guns. We flung ourselves sardine fashion into our shallow trench, the men at the bottom feeling relatively secure but the top layer feeling decidedly vulnerable. We clambered out, shook off the dust and dug like hell to finish the trench before evening mess. With some banter, the major passed it OK and permitted occupation. Thus, we came to enjoy a spacious canteen and games room.

During the last few months before the enemy advance to El Alamein the railway had been completed to Fort Capuzzo on the Egyptian-Libyan boarder and set out with train dispersal yards and balloon loop on a smaller scale than the installations at Masheifa. Also, on a stop-go programme the track was extended from fort Capuzzo to within 19km of Tobruk. In the two months leading up to the allied forces retreat from the Western Desert the railway came under increased attention from the enemy. Messerschmidt 109F fighter planes carrying machine guns and 20mm cannon made strafing attacks against locomotives. The machine gum ammunition contained armour piercing bullets that penetrated locomotive boilers through to tubes and inner fireboxes. The cannon shells were explosive and blew fist sized holes in the boiler insulation sheet metal cladding as well as take out cab windows and boiler steam pressure and water level gauges. We had survived strafing runs when the targets had been troops on the ground at the sides of trains at crossing loops. On the night of 6th March 1942 we coupled onto a troop train at Similla and were warned that intelligence had advised that the enemy was about to commence a crippling action against the trains from that night on. We proceeded as usual exercising what vigilance we could and entered the crossing loop at Mazhud, two stations from our destination. We had only just come to a stop at about 10.30 hours when there was a slam that shook the locomotive accompanied by a horrendous roar of escaping steam. I saw my driver pass through a head-high jet of steam, cross the cab and leap out. I dropped to the floor and rolled beneath the coal-shovelling chute of the tender.

While I sheltered there a second plane raked the engine and passed over then I became choked out by billowing hot steam. I groped around until I felt cool air and tumbled to the ground, looked up to see a third fighter beginning its run in. I dived under the tender and clambered up onto an axle and listened to the hellish spat of bullets as the plane completed its run. I was prepared to stay there until satisfied that the attack was over but a rush of hot water from the punctured boiler flowed back between the rails and steamed me out. A plane was making a steep turn and again lining up, so I made a dash for a wheel rut in the sand and hit the ground and watched to be mightily relieved to see the plane fly over without firing a shot. I got up and noted clouds of steam billowing from all over the engine and my driver accompanied by a British officer attempting to discover if I was still in the steam filled cab. I grabbed his arm to make him realise over the noise that I was indeed alive and kicking. We moved clear of the engine and only then found that we had suffered some burns. His were quite severe down one side of his face and neck. Mine were relatively superficial about my forehead and forearms and into the flesh about my hands and wrists. My eyes were smarting badly and a piece of flesh stood proud on the bridge of my nose. The crossing station crew took us to their quarters, brewed us good strong sweet tea and with their limited resources attempted to dress our injuries. Reports came in that three more locomotives had been knocked out, one at a station ahead of us and two at stations behind us. Amazingly there were no fatalities among the engine crews. One driver suffered a severed tendon of a little finger. Of the firemen one lost an eye, one a deep slicing wound across the back of his thigh and the third slight burns to his head.