Handley Page Halifax B Mark IIs of No. 462 Squadron RAAF parked on the perimeter track at Fayid, Egypt, before a night sortie against enemy columns retreating after the Battle of El Alamein.
Battle Of Egypt: Thrill For British Tank Crew. Picture Shows: A near miss raises a column of sand near a British heavy tank, during the Eighth Army's victorious advance.
(looks like a Grant)
A Crusader II tank of the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, 2nd Armoured Brigade, 1st Armoured Division, moving at speed, 5 November 1942
Crusader tanks of the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, 2nd Armoured Brigade, 1st Armoured Division, moving at speed across the desert, 5 November 1942.
Keith Douglas was now in the stream of British Armour breaking out from the bridgehead. His group of Crusader tanks were flying along at 30mph, flinging up huge clouds of dust and overrunning small groups of enemy all the time.
He found himself at the head of the whole 8th Army for a brief period of time, engaging enemy tanks at long distance – tanks which quickly turned tail. It was while he was stopped refuelling that he missed out on the brief 'Battle of Galal station' in which the remainder of his Squadron overcame a number of Italian tanks.
It was here that he went looting and he was soon kitted out in brand new German clothing – 'everything apart from boots and socks'. He already had a Luger and a Beretta so went looking in the Italian tanks for a Beretta for a friend of his who had been wounded and evacuated:
I approached a brand-new-painted MI3, with no sign of any damage, from which the crew had apparently fled at the sight of their comrades' discomfiture.
There was a promising cask and a sack on the outside of the tank, which we opened. But the cask only contained water, and the sack nothing but little round tins with a smelly Italian kind of bully beef in them.
So I climbed on to the turret – the small side doors which stood open on most of the other tanks were closed. I prepared to lower myself through he top. It was dark in the turret, and I leant over the manhole first, trying to accustom my eyes to the darkness and to see if there were any Birettas on the side shelves inside. A faint sweet smell came up to me which reminded me of the dead horse I once saw cut up for our instruction at the Equitation School.
Gradually the objects in the turret became visible: the crew of the tank – for, I believe, these tanks did not hold more than two – were, so to speak, distributed round the turret. At first it was diflicult to work out how the limbs were arranged. They lay in a clumsy embrace, their white faces whiter, as those of dead men in the desert always were, for the light powdering of dust on them.
One with a six-inch hole in his head, the whole skull smashed in behind the remains of an ear – the other covered with his own and his friend's blood, held up by the blue steel mechanism of a machine-gun, his legs twisting among the dully gleaming gear levers. About them clung that impenetrable silence I have mentioned before, by which I think the dead compel our reverence.
I got a Biretta from another tank on the other side of the railway line.
Others had rather better luck in their searches:
In the evening we closed into night leaguer, facing westwards again. Tom was in high spirits; he and Ken Tinker had found an Italian hospital, and their tanks were loaded inside and out with crates of cherries, Macedonian cigarettes, cigars and wine; some straw-jacketed Italian Chianti wine, some champagne, and a bottle or two of brandy, even some Liebfraumilch.
We shared out the plunder with the immemorial glee of conquerors, and
beneath the old star-eaten blanket of the sky
lay down to dream of victory.