0200 hours 20/10/1942
Location - Western Desert; Undisclosed location west of Benghazi, Libya
Roster: Acting Lieutenant Seekings
Acting Sergeant Pike
Troopers Carstairs; Flashman; Crabtree; Godfrey; Cooper; & McGonigal
Light cloud, waxing gibbous moon, light winds. Unknown number and quality of DAK sentries.
Sub unit of L Detachment led byA/Lt. Seekings - promoted in the field following the capture of A/Lt. Stirling the previous day - charged with attacking a fuel and ammunition storage dump.
The Bosch had launched one unsuccessful attack on Bengazi the previous day and although it was repulsed by dogged Indian Army defenders it would be only a matter of time - a short time - before the Hun tried again with greater intensity no doubt. This location had been chosen as the ideal way to strike back at Jerry and perhaps throw a spanner in the planning for another attack. Without the fuel and ammunition to support their attack they’d be forced to regroup and buy the British some time for their own push on Tripoli and give Rommel something else to think about.
The somewhat denuded L Detachment approached from the north-east and north-west in two groups as the targets were spread throughout the compound. A/Lt. Seekings along with Cooper, Crabtree and Godfrey came from the north-east while the A/Sgt. Pike and McGonigal, Carstairs and Flashman came from the north-west. The demo charges were allocated to A/Lt. Seekings and A/Sgt. Pike.
The approach of Seekings and Pike was straight out the text book - both took their time to ensure the alarm wasn’t raised prematurely. This was reinforced by the others taking up positions in cover to support their withdrawal. Both got to the perimeter - Seekings almost came undone going over the barbed wire but whatever noise he made wasn’t picked up by the sentry. Pike was using a large oil tank to cover his breach of the perimeter - the intel was this was not in use and could be discounted. The difficulty now was the sentries milling around by the fuel storage tanks they were aiming for.
Seekings saw his chance - a couple of Goons wandered past him lurking in the shadow of a pill box and a dog handler was still some distance away - Seekings ‘Threaded the Needle’ and got to the large fuel tank. But……as he laid the charge the damned thing went off immediately - this had happened the day before at the airfield. A bad batch of charges, someone’s for it! Luckily Seekings was unharmed - miraculously - but all hell was let loose. Still that was one target down.
This was the cue for Pike to go. There were still two DAK sentries between his cover and the jerry cans awash with fuel. Desperate times and all that thought Pike. He loosed his SMG and dropped the first sentry whose komrade was now panicked so Pike rushed forward and used his knife to devastating effect to despatch the second. He was within touching distance of blowing this lot back to Berlin but…..crack! The onrushing reserves had spotted Pike fumbling in his satchel for the charges and a lucky shot spun him round and down. He was a goner…..
Seekings had it all to do. Cooper, McGonigal, Carstairs and Flashman were now laying down covering fire on the perimeter and took out a couple of overly nosey Jerry sentries. Seekings was now having to move towards a large number of crates of ammo which were further in the compound and so towards the Bosch reinforcements. But what he’d assumed had been crated ammo were just tinned sauerkraut and the ammo was a few meters further away. This was just too far for Seekings who was ripped up by a cowardly DAK officer who shot him in the back - no way for such a man to die.
This was the signal for the rest of L Detachment to abandon their colleagues. It had been a costly couple of days for these troops and they could ill afford to lose anyone else so training kicked in and emotion was left, for the time being, at the perimeter of this god-awful Jerry depot.
