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On the 24th June 1942, as records show the big retreat to Alamain was well under way. All heavy armour etc. was hell bent eastwards towards Alexandria. Not so our Brigade, which was halted at Mersa Matruh to form a defensive line about five miles west of Mersa Matruh.

25th - 28th June 1942. The Company stood ready for action but it stayed fairly quiet, except for the odd shell or mortar bomb. It appears Rommel had once again slipped by on about the 26th June and was now at Eldura about fifty miles behind the Brigade.

28th June 1942. We were told a breakout was planned for 10 o’clock that night. We were given hand grenades with four second fuses. At the start all hell broke out - shells, bombs, bullets all over the place. There must have been some casualties but lucky for us only our lorry got hit. After a short while all was quiet again so the eight of us kipped down for the night.

During the night we heard and then saw a German convoy consisting of tanks, guns and lorries full of troops going east. This was about 500 yards away from us. I suppose we could all have been run over and finished off, but we were still lucky. There was also the sound of a lot of movement going on to our north, but we could not see anything until morning.

29th June 1942. At first light we were about six hundred yards from the main road to Alamain where a convoy of Germans was going east towards Alamain using, of course, a lot of British lorries together with their tanks, antitank guns etc. It looked like we had had it. On walking east we saw an abandoned lorry which was full of rations - bully beef etc. Coming the other way we saw two figures approaching us who turned out to be two South Africans from the S.A. Motorised Battalion. It was decided to see if the lorry would still run. It did.

The next question was did we go by road or by desert tracks? We decided to go by road as we did not possess a map, compass, water or fuel. Then how did we get onto the road amongst the convoy as the road was higher than the sand?

We drove along the sand following the road on our left and came across a small oasis which led up to the road. On driving through the oasis, we went straight through a group of Germans sitting eating their breakfast. Like us, they were so surprised seeing our lorry rushing through them that they just sat there dumbfounded. We were on the road and in amongst the convoy before they could react. Our luck was still holding.

As we came onto the road, "a nice German driver" eased back from the lorry in front of him and allowed us to get into the line of lorries, and so we drove with the convoy for around ten to twelve miles. Then came a full stop, a road block checking each lorry. That was really the end as we were put in the bag with hundreds of others who got caught before us.

End of freedom for thirty four months.

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