John Berchmans Devine - The Rats of Tobruk

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Text originally published in 1943 under the same title.

Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE RATS OF TOBRUK

BY

JOHN DEVINE

Contents

DEDICATED

TO

THE MEMORY OF AUSTRALIAN SOLDIERS

KILLED DURING THE SIEGE OF TOBRUK

IT is little more than a year ago since I stood on the quay at Alexandria to welcome back our men from Tobruk. Gaunt and grim they were, and that cheery banter and quick quip and retort that generally characterize them were absent. Lean, hard faces, lean bodies, quietly moving files, very different to the gay, light-hearted Diggers that I have farewelled and welcomed on many occasions. Out of Tobruk after months of never-wavering resistance and sharp attack and counterattack, after months of living in desert dust-storms with inadequate food and water, out they came with an undying and invincible spirit, still as live a flame as ever.

Major Devines little volume of personal experiences brings the whole picture of the dust and desert, of stone and rock, of battered equipment, of patient endurance, back before ones eyes. It translates into human individual terms all the planning and endeavour and struggle that characterized the splendid defence of Tobruk by our own 9 th Australian Division and by other British troops from the United Kingdom and troops from India who were there with them in that epic siege.

Everyone who took part in the siege of Tobruk will enjoy the thrills of memory that this picture, so simply and humanly painted, will evoke. But this volume will have a far wider range. It will bring to the imagination of every one who is fortunate enough to read it a vivid picture of stern conditions cheerfully endured.

I am happy to write this foreword at my headquarters in New Guinea in the last phases of the struggle for Papua. Today the Australian troops are before Gona, American troops are near Buna, and soon the remnants of the Japanese garrison will be overwhelmed. But the green of this tropic verdure and the sharp hills rising to the sunset line fade away before me and flatten out into the yellow sands of the desert, as I recall with pride the heroic feats of General Morshead and the men of the 9 th Australian Division, over those long, dusty, weary months.

Just over a year ago they came out from Tobruk, and today once again, largely owing to the steadfastness and valour of this great division, the armies of the Empire have broken the Axis force and Tobruk is again ours.

Strange that in another month or so we will celebrate the second anniversary of its first capture by General MacKay and the 6 th Australian Division. Our first formed division of the Second A.I.F. that swept through the lines at Bardia and followed on to overwhelm Tobruk. Rather to its own astonishment, it found that it had captured more than double its own number as prisoners of war in its sweep.

Tobruk is linked for ever with the Second A.I.F. The intimate story told by Major Devine will bring back memories of its once white walls and blue seas to many of us long after the tumult and turmoil of the war have passed.

T. A. BLAMEY,

General,

Commander-in-Chief,

Australian Military Forces.

Advanced Land Headquarters,

New Guinea,

January 1943.

THIS is the personal record of nine months spent as a medical officer on active service in Libya. Its purpose is to endeavour to show what a great warrior the ordinary Australian soldier really is, and with what light-hearted bravery and endurance he faces up to discomfort and death. It is written as a personal record to gain continuity, and always in the spirit of an onlooker who sees much of the play. It is neither a scientific document nor history, and I cannot vouch for the accuracy of many of the stories set down herein, but even if they are not wholly true, they are still characteristic. No names are included, and it is purely coincidental that most of the happenings herein described are fact and not fiction.

Some of the illustrations are taken from drawings and oil sketches made by the author on the spot, and the remainder are photographs taken with a miniature camera and developed in Tobruk.

JOHN DEVINE.

Melbourne,

January 1943.

THE FIG-TREE OF TOBRUK. LONE PINE OF LIBYA

TOBRUK HARBOUR FROM THE HOSPITAL GATES

TOBRUK ITALIAN HOUSE HIT BY THE GUNS OF ONE OF OUR MONITORS

THE FIRST BATTLE OF TOBRUK

TOBRUK. THE MAIN STREET

TOBRUK. THE BURNT-OUT ITALIAN WORKSHOPS

TOBRUK. ITALIAN ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS DESTROYED BY THE RETREATING ENEMY

TOBRUK. ITALIAN BREDA TWIN MEDIUM ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN ABANDONED BY THE ENEMY

DERNA. LITTLE FATMA

STANDARD TYPE OF FARM HOUSE BUILT BY ENTE COLONIZZAZIONE LIBIA

BENGHAZI. ORNAMENTAL WELL-HEAD

BENGHAZI. MAIN STREET

BENGHAZI. MUNICIPAL SQUARE

ALLAH-CATCHERS

TOBRUK. A CROSS MADE BY SLIM, THE SANITARY CORPORAL

DERNA. STREET SCENE

DERNA. PATIENTS OUTSIDE THE ARAB SECTION OF THE HOSPITAL

BENGHAZI. AN ARAB BINT, WHO CALLED ON US DAILY WITH EGGS FOR SALE

SERGEANT NURSING ORDERLY MAHMOUD

SUTURE THROUGH SKIN TO LET OUT EVIL

DERNA. MOHOMED AND FAMILY

TOBRUK ON FIRE

TOBRUK HOSPITAL. THE ADMITTING ROOM

BOMBS ON TOBRUK

TOBRUK HOSPITAL BUILDINGS

TOBRUK HOSPITAL

BONO, ITALIAN MEDICAL ORDERLY IN TOBRUK HOSPITAL

TOBRUK. WOUNDED GERMAN PRISONER OF WAR

TOBRUK. BURNING SHIP

TOBRUK. FRONT OF AN ITALIAN 1000 LB. BOMB FUSE

THE WARD DESCRIBED ON PAGE 78, JUST AFTER IT HAD BEEN HIT BY A BOMB

ROOF OF WARD DESCRIBED ON PAGE 78, AFTER IT HAD BEEN HIT BY A BOMB

THE RATS OF TOBRUK

A warm, clear, starry Egyptian night. Time, three weeks after the Italians had lost Tobruk. A cluster of palm-trees surrounding pale, ghostly mud huts of an Arab village. The white dome of a mosque radiant with moonlight on one side and dark and eerie on the other. The fetid smell that tells of an inseparable mixture of animals and unclean human beings. A small platformless station. Rows and rows of still ghostly figures who neither moved nor spoke. English soldiers in full battle array waiting quietly in the dark, thinking of folks and wondering about the future.

And a group of twenty Australian soldiers sprawled all over the road, shouting and singing, thinking neither of the past nor the future.

I joined the Australian soldiers.