Posted to 4th Indian
Division
10th August 1941
4 Indian
Division comprising of Three Brigades of infantry:- 5 Bde, 7 Bde, 11 Bde plus
HQs staff and Signals with Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery left India for
Egypt in September 1939.
On December 1939
the War Office in England designated that the left mudguard of all 4th Indian
vehicles shall carry a red eagle painted on a black background. One theory the
colour red was chosen because of the Division’s Commander was General Scarlett.
The Division
together with 7th Armoured opened up the first desert campaign against the
Italians at the Egyptian / Libyan border.
After the
successful battles around Sidi Barrani in December 1940 the division was
withdrawn and sent to Eritrea to oust the Italians from their colony. At the
end of another successful conclusion to this campaign 11 Brigade took part in
the doomed ‘Battleaxe’ operation against the Germans at the Egyptian frontier
15/17 June 1941. 5 Brigade was sent to Syria to assist the Free French in preventing
a German incursion.
Meanwhile
HOs and Signals of 4th Indian DIvision settled -in on the coast at Bagush 35
miles east of Mersa Matrub. It was here on 10th May 19411 joined them as a
sergeant cipher operator attached to the Royal Signals.
Three months
previously I had passed a cipher course at GHQ Cairo and this was to be my
first posting. You asked me how I felt on being given the news I was to be
posted to 4 Indian Division well here it is:-
After tea on
Friday 8th August 1941 Capt. Stock, the ciphEr officer at GHQ ME Cairo summoned
me and another sergeant cipher operator to his desk. “You have both been posted
to the 4th Indian Division in the Western Desert.”
My heart
sank right down to my shoes as he continued, “You will be going as reliefs to
the present cipher team who are being recalled to GHQ.”
Why did it
have to be the desert out of all the postings that were available in the Middle
East? At least it was not Khartoum for which I was more than grateful. But the
4th Indian Division - the only Infantry division in the British Army that had
been involved in all the fighting of the whole war in the Middle East, Sidi
Barrani, Keren in Eritrea where the bloodiest fighting of the war had taken
place, Syria, the abortive three-day ‘Battleaxe’ operation in the Western
Dersert.
“4 Indian
Division is close by the sea and you will be able to take a dip in the Med.” he
added smiling, but I regarded this as cold comfort indeed.
That Friday
evening I went to bed with very mixed feelings. I was desperately sorry to
leave my three month’s stay in Cairo but I took some comfort that being beside
the sea, the air would be cooler and I thought being a sergeant would make life
easier.. With that solace I finally fell asleep.