BACKGROUND
In my search for information relating to Harley-Davidson’s used by the Union Defence Force of South Africa (UDF of SA) I have come across an interesting story of a South African Dispatch Rider (using a Harley-Davidson) that was involved in the North Africa Campaign. He was taken as a Prisoner of War (PoW) by the Germans and shipped to Italy. At the end of the war he was released and returned to South Africa. This is a
shortened version of his story - I have picked up on David Brokensha's story from his entry into the UDF as a Dispatch Rider, until his captivity as a PoW at Tobruk. If you want, you can read the whole story by following the link at the bottom of the page.
1939: AFTER SCHOOL
At the age of sixteen, having a few months’ holiday after I (David Brokensha) had written matric at the end of 1939, I took a temporary job at Griggs, the West Street book and stationery shop in Durban – my first paid work. Extra hands were needed to cope, first with the Christmas rush and then with the beginning of the school year. I took the tram to and from work, and was very proud of my first wages, two pounds a week, plus a discount on purchases. The permanent staff, mostly middle-aged ladies, showed me the ropes, and looked after me. I enjoyed this experience, working with books, and with pleasant customers.
1940–1942: WORLD WAR 2 – DISPATCH RIDERS
Britain declared war on Germany and Italy on 3 September 1939. General Jan Christiaan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa, declared war three days later. I remember cycling to school from our home in Heron Road, eagerly speculating with my friend, Alastair, how the war (which was how we referred to World War 2, then and later) would affect our lives: we had little inkling of how drastically our lives would be disrupted by the war.
While Paul (my elder brother) and I were walking on the Esplanade, considering various alternatives on how to join the army and remain together, we paused at an army recruiting office with an improbable, exciting poster calling for volunteers for the cavalry. The poster depicted a gallant young horseman galloping on a sturdy steed while dodging enemy fire. Cavalry? In 1940? While pondering this we were hailed by a friend whom we knew from sailing, who was a member of the recruiting staff. He told us to ignore the cavalry poster and said that he could offer us a much more exciting option – as dispatch riders. ‘How would you like to ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles?’ We were won over at once, and followed him inside the office to fill in the forms. As I was only seventeen at the time, I put the date of my birth back a year, making it 23 May 1922 (instead of 1923). The recruiting sergeant dryly remarked we had a clever mother as the age difference on our forms showed an interval of only six months, but he cheerfully admitted us to the Second South African Division Signal Company, allocating us our army numbers, 3738 for me, 3739 for Paul.
JULY 1940 TO MAY 1941: POTCHEFSTROOM
Paul and I spent a few weeks in Durban, where I learned to ride a motorcycle (Paul at 18 could), not the promised Harley-Davidson but a more manageable BSA 350. We then went to a large army camp at Potchefstroom (always referred to as Potch), a hundred miles south-west of Johannesburg. My first few weeks there were a shock. Like millions of others throughout history I had to adapt, quickly, to vastly different circumstances and to different sorts of people.
What was more important to me were my new friendships, the most significant being with Ernest (Jake) Jacobsen. Jake’s parents had recently died and my Granny (Ouma) informally adopted him, inviting him home whenever we went on leave to Durban and treating him like her own son, and he became like a brother to Paul and me. We were all ‘Don Rs’ (dispatch riders), and considered ourselves superior to the radio operators, the motor transport and the other sections of our signals unit. This attitude of superiority was unwarranted for it was the radio operators who did the most effective work. We may have added some glamour to our unit but I have no clear idea of what contribution we, as dispatch riders, made to the course of the war.
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| Dispatch riders. Potchefstroom, 1941 Middle row from left: 5th Dickie, 6th Paul, 3rd from end David, end Jake |
Other new friends included several young Afrikaners. A disproportionate number of Afrikaners joined the army, partly because of their relative poverty: the depression of the 1930s had caused many Afrikaners to leave the farms and migrate to the towns. My closest Afrikaner pal was ‘Piet’ Pieterse, who came from a poor background and had recently spent time at a reformatory for juvenile offenders. Despite our differences, we had a close and affectionate relationship. My heart always gladdened when I saw Piet’s gap-toothed grin; he would embrace me, calling me Dawie, and laugh uproariously. Piet was killed at Tobruk two years later, our first fatality.
I had a few other such close friendships, which resembled what the Australians call ‘mateship’, a relationship between two soldiers with intense affection. Such mates would be emotionally extremely close, and mutually dependent.
One of our instructors was an old (probably about forty years old) Afrikaner regular army sergeant major who gave us excellent advice on the maintenance of our motorcycles, and the tracing of faults in an internal combustion engine. He amused us by recommending that we take a bacalav (a balaclava helmet) to the desert, because the nights would be cold; later we were grateful for his advice. He also told us that we should carry a bar of Sunlight soap so that when the enemy fired into our petrol tank we could repair the holes with the soap.
When we had weekend leave, from 1200 hours Saturday until 2359 hours Sunday, we liked to go to Johannesburg, which was two hours away by train. I recall with pleasure being invited to homes where there were soft beds with clean linen, privacy, nicely prepared and properly served meals and all the other little luxuries that we had taken for granted before we joined the army.
A happier memory is of army manoeuvres. In Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) we had great opportunities to ride our Harley-Davidsons along bush and desert tracks, camping out at night and having mock battles. Later we went to the eastern Transvaal, near Barberton, and on one occasion mechanical trouble delayed me. Trying to catch up with the convoy, I took a short cut along a remote dirt road, but I rode too fast and was thrown off my machine. I realised that I had broken something (it proved to be my collarbone) and I had a bad time, in pain, on this lonely road, until I was rescued by an Afrikaner farmer who put me and my Harley-Davidson on his truck, and took me to rejoin the others. As soon as the bone had healed, I got on my Harley-Davidson again, determined to prove that I was not afraid.
MAY/JUNE 1941: ORIBI CAMP, PIETERMARITZBURG
After nearly one year at Potch, we spent six weeks at Oribi, in Pietermaritzburg, a staging camp for troops waiting to go ‘up north’. At Potch we had been accommodated in barracks, but at Oribi we slept in bell tents, eight men to a tent. Pietermaritzburg is bitterly cold in winter, so this was not a comfortable period. We were granted leave generously though, and were often able to hitchhike the fifty miles to our home in Durban.
After many false alarms and after being told – accurately – via German radio, that we would be sailing on the Ile de France (a luxury liner converted to a troopship), we embarked for Suez, and spent the following year in North Africa.
JUNE 1941 TO JUNE 1942: THE WESTERN DESERT
Army life in North Africa was not particularly stressful. It became increasingly clear that we dispatch riders were hardly an essential part of the plan for victory, but we had many opportunities to enjoy ourselves. We were camped first at Mersa Matruh, two hundred miles west of Alexandria, then we moved a further two hundred and fifty miles west, to camp on the outskirts of Tobruk. The only civilians we glimpsed – and that very occasionally – were small bands of nomadic Bedouin Arabs.
Despite the terrible disadvantages, the desert had charm, almost a fascination, which affected most of those who lived and fought there. The vast distances, the deep silences, the tricks of light, even the spartan conditions had a profound effect on the soldiers who were in this desolate wilderness. Because there were so few civilians, and thus few distractions, the armies became such closely knit organisations that the word family best describes them. The Desert and its ways produced, in addition to peculiar ideas of dress, the invisible but distinctive styles of companionship, loyalty and decency which were never found in any other theatre of operation.
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| DWB on his Harley-Davidson (note socks drying), Western Desert, 1941 tot 42 |
During the war, General Smuts’ wife, universally known as Ouma (Granny), took a special interest in the welfare of the South African troops: ‘my boys’, she called us. She insisted that all South African troops on active service outside South Africa should receive a daily tot of brandy and two hundred cigarettes every week. In those days nearly all of us smoked, and nearly all of us enjoyed the brandy: we saved the tots until we had free time and could have a party. Paul, by then our platoon sergeant, and I shared quarters, usually dugouts, which we made comfortable. We even had the luxury of a real bath tub, which we had found abandoned in the desert. With wells nearby, water was not a problem. Dad later told us that when he met our general at the Durban Club he asked, ‘I don’t suppose you would have encountered my two boys?’ and the general replied, ‘Indeed I have; I used to envy them enjoying their bath, when all I had was a canvas basin.’
At this time I had a new mate, Jimmy Daniel. He was my age, with an exuberant personality, and was a great companion. He had been a mechanic at Kempster Sedgwick garage before the war and was in MT (motor transport). We became close friends and I often spent the night, with Paul’s permission, in the enormous cave where the MT unit had established themselves.
Jimmy joined our group when we went on leave to Alexandria – we liked doing everything together. Although we did not end up in the same prisoner of war camp, after the war he asked me to be godfather to his first-born son, whom he called Warwick, after my middle name. Sadly I lost touch with Jimmy many years ago.
On one occasion I was sent out with dispatches to a contingent about fifty miles south in the Qattara Depression. I set off on my Harley-Davidson but soon became lost – easy to do in that trackless desert – and in any case I do not have a good sense of direction. I was eventually found by a group of New Zealanders, who took me in for the night as it was too late to return to base. I asked them to send a message to my camp but this did not get through and, later that night Paul, worried by my absence, woke up the general and had him organise a wide search for me. When I returned to camp the next day, I was embarrassed to have been the centre of so much attention, but also overcome with love for Paul, when I realised how very concerned he had been. We rarely articulated our emotions.
Towards the end of our stay in the desert there was a serious shortage of spare parts for our Harley-Davidsons. An expensive machine might be abandoned because a simple piston ring was not available – a dramatic lesson for me in the importance of maintenance. We relied more and more on Dodge and Chevrolet trucks, but even with these there was often a problem finding spare parts. We formed a gang composed of dispatch riders and MT people, the aim being to scrounge vehicles from other units, in order to keep mobile. While I am ashamed of some of my wartime activities, I have no regrets about our gang, it was all for the common good. The captain in charge of MT turned a blind eye to our activities, gratefully signing the forms we presented.
The genius behind our gang was an unimpressive, slight, shy man, Doug Lonsdale, a clerk in MT, who converted our stolen vehicles into apparently legitimately acquired trucks and motorcycles. This entailed giving them new registration numbers and ensuring that the records tallied with the stock of always-changing vehicles. One night we struck gold in Alexandria, finding not only an unattended one ton truck but also two motorcycles, all standing outside the Officers’ Club. We fortunately had a three ton truck, into which we loaded the motorcycles while one of us sped away with the one ton truck. In the back of the three ton truck, Doug told us which numbers to put on our new vehicles. It was all very exciting.
Once I found a BMW motorcycle, the best machine that I had ever ridden, abandoned in the shifting battles that were taking place around us. Near Tobruk was a fine stretch of brand new tarred road along which I tried it out – it was wunderbar. Then I noticed, riding at great speed towards me, another young man dressed as I was – clad only in shorts. As we got nearer each other, something indicated that he was not one of our boys, that he was German. The same realisation must have come to him, for we both turned abruptly around, giving each other a friendly wave, and raced back to our respective bases.
We were never far from the coast and were often able to swim in the sea. Paul and I taught many up-country boys how to swim, the Mediterranean being an ideal learning environment. We were not over-busy; I remember halcyon days on the beaches, swimming, wrestling, talking, dreaming, playing jukskei. We fashioned rough pegs to serve as jukskei’s. Even in winter when the Mediterranean could be chilly, we swam whenever we had the opportunity.
We had leave about every six weeks when we could go (usually by train, sometimes by road if any of our transport was going) to Alexandria or, less often, to Cairo. Looking back at our two or three day leaves I am struck by what a callow youth I must have been. Many other young soldiers (Bernard especially) used their wartime leave to good advantage, to explore sites of cultural and historical interest, and to meet local people. Now I realise how much more there was that I could have done. But we always went in our little group of five, with Paul inevitably the leader. We did see the pyramids, and wander around a few markets, and we saw, with little understanding, a few ancient buildings. But I do not regret the luxury of ice-cream or cake or iced coffee at Groppi’s, the famous Alexandria café: what a joy after the usually gritty and dull meals in the desert. I should say though, in fairness to our army cooks, that they could produce tasty meals under difficult circumstances: I remember particularly their delicious bully beef frikkadels (rissoles).
But the real enemy was not far away. We had heard much about General Rommel, and we did not underestimate his leadership, yet we never seriously considered that he might defeat us. Even though we were at divisional headquarters, we had only a hazy idea of the respective strength and potential of the two armies. Tension and uncertainty mounted throughout June. By this time Paul and I had become bored with our lives as dispatch riders and I had reached the magical age of eighteen and a half years, so we applied for a transfer to the South African Air Force.
If the attack on Tobruk had taken place just a few days later we would have been on our way south to begin our training. This thought haunted me (and Paul, though he was more philosophical about it) throughout the years of being a prisoner of war. I used to think that it would have been more glorious, more manly, to have been a fighter pilot than a prisoner of war who had done little of any consequence before being captured. But when we returned to Durban after the war, I learnt how many of our school friends – Gordon Henderson, Albert Clarke, Laurie Chiddell, one of the Shippey boys, and many others – had joined the South African Air Force as fighter pilots and had not returned. At first reluctantly, then gratefully, I came to prefer being a live non-hero to being a dead hero.
JUNE 1941: ROMMEL ATTACKS TOBRUK
The twenty-first of June 1942 was a confusing day at Tobruk, starting early with German aircraft coming in low and firing at us, and with us fleeing in all directions. This was the first time we had been under fire. I lost track of Paul, who had been out with Jake, in a truck, delivering dispatches. They picked up some wounded soldiers and took them back to hospital, then noticed that Piet Pieterse and McAlpine, another of our DRs, were swimming in the bay. Paul and Jake called to them to come out quickly, as the situation was dangerous. The four of them carried on to the Indian Brigade, unaware that the Germans had broken through there. They were hit by a shell from a tank which killed Piet, severed McAlpine’s arm, and, seriously wounded Jake in the head and arm – but left Paul unscathed.
When Paul, thinking that Jake was also dead, returned to find me, I asked where Piet was. Paul ignored me, just saying ‘Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. ’ I repeated my enquiry about Piet, and this time Paul, angrily, and close to tears, said, ‘Piet’s fucking head was blown off. Come on!’
Jake was discovered later the same day by an Italian medical orderly, who had been sent to the field to see if any men were still alive. The orderly got him to hospital, and later he was taken to Italy in a Red Cross boat and transferred to Parma Hospital. Jake was later sent to Camp 54, Fara Sabina, where, to our surprise and mutual delight, we met up again.
Paul and I were strong swimmers, and we had had plenty of recent practice in the Mediterranean, so we decided to head for the coast, with the intention of hiding up until nightfall, then swimming the six miles beyond the perimeter of Tobruk, from where we thought we could easily walk until we found Allied troops. Little did we realise that by then Rommel’s forces were far beyond Tobruk, and were pressing on to Alexandria. Four others were with us. Who? I do not remember, but this was the inevitable ‘little band of followers’ that Paul attracted, especially in a crisis. When we were making our way to the coast, a young second lieutenant, who had only recently joined our Company, timidly asked if he could join us. ‘No’, said Paul, quite brutally, ‘you would only be in the way. ’ The lieutenant then offered to share his bottle of gin, and this became his passport to joining our little group.
When we arrived at the rocky coast, we found a small cove, which we thought would allow us to escape detection from the Fieseler Storch – an early and very effective ‘short take-off and landing’ aircraft – which we could see in the distance, obviously searching for Allied soldiers. In the confusion of leaving camp, I was clad only in a pair of shorts, now my only worldly possession. (Today, when I consider the vast array of possessions which we deem necessary to make life supportable, I think almost wistfully of that early liberation from things. ) We shared the gin, passing the bottle round from mouth to eager mouth. After my one-seventh share of the bottle I was drowsy and, as no aircraft were in hearing or in sight, I slipped off my shorts and dozed in a convenient rock pool.
My afternoon reverie was rudely disturbed by a sudden burst of gunfire, very close, and the appearance, round the corner of our cove, of two German soldiers, shouting for us to raise our hands and surrender. I felt as though I were on stage, naked, and made a dash for my shorts. This made the nervous Germans think I was reaching for a gun, and brought another round of fire, even closer, so this time I very quickly raised my hands, as the others had already done. I felt embarrassed, not only at being a hands-upper, but also because I was ‘starko’ – as though this were not the right script; people did not get captured without clothes. Reassured to see that I had no lethal weapon, the Germans allowed me at last to put my shorts on. They told us that a Storch had spotted us, and reported our position and numbers to a ground patrol, which had been sent to round us up. They said they would be handing us to their Italian allies, apologising, ‘We and you, we are the real soldiers, but the Italians …’
1942–1945: PRISONERS OF WAR
The total strength at Tobruk, including British and Commonwealth troops, was 35 000, of whom 25 600 were captured. Major-General Klopper, commanding our Second South African Division, was bitterly criticised, both at the time and after the war, for surrendering to General Rommel. During our POW years, there was occasional tension between British and South Africans, because of General Klopper’s surrender: later historians exonerated him from accusations of cowardice, pointing out that he was out-numbered and out-manoeuvred, and that he had no choice.
The sheer numbers of prisoners presented great logistical problems to our Italian captors, who were not well organised at the best of times. But we were not thinking of logistical problems, just dully wondering what would happen and how we would adjust to our new status. Army life, with its relative loss of freedom, should have prepared us to some extent for our new state, but I think most of us just could not imagine such a total deprivation of liberty. One POW book, The Melancholy State ( Wolhuter, n.d.), uses the phrase adopted by Winston Churchill, a press correspondent and POW during the Anglo-Boer War in 1899: ‘It is a melancholy state. You are in the power of your enemy, you owe your life to his humanity, your daily bread to his compassion. You must obey his orders, await his pleasures, possess your soul to his patience … You feel a constant humiliation in being penned in by railings and wire, watched by armed guards and webbed about with a tangle of regulations and restrictions.’
CONCLUSION
David was released from captivity at the end of the war and returned to South Africa. If you want to read the entire story, click on the link below.
SOURCE
http://brokiesway.co.za/army.htm
