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StanEllis6
The Final Defeat of the Africa Korps.

Hello, my name is Ellis Stanley, Army Service number 2092841. I have written my memoirs of World War Two as I lived it. I served through the war from first day to last, and served as a vehicle mechanic, reaching the rank of Corporal. I was a soldier in the Army firstly in the UK, then in North Africa, and finally in Italy and Greece. After Victory in Europe, I was posted to Italy again until I was returned to Aldershot and demobbed in 1946. These memoirs have been edited to conform to People’s War standards, and are spread over 12 title pages, and cover my service in locations as listed below. They have been transcribed by Andrew Voyce, an Open University graduate.

StanEllis1 UK- The Phoney War part 1
StanEllis2 UK- The Phoney War part 2
StanEllis3 UK- Northern Ireland and preparations for the desert
StanEllis4 North Africa- The journey by troopship and the Battle of El-Alamein
StanEllis5 North Africa- Active service with the Eighth Army
StanEllis6 North Africa- The final defeat of the Afrika Korps
StanEllis7 Italy and Greece- Arrival in Italy and joining the Battle of Monte Cassino
StanEllis8 Italy and Greece- Monte Cassino
StanEllis9 Italy and Greece- Some matters of everyday soldiering
StanEllis10 Italy and Greece- The end of the war for me: Victory in Europe
StanEllis11 Demob- Time after the cessation of hostilities
StanEllis12 Demob- Postscript

The final defeat of the Afrika Korps

Rommel leaves Africa as his troops surrender.

It seemed that they’d more or less abandoned the North Africa campaign because they lifted Rommel (the German Field Marshall in charge of the Afrika Korps) out, he went out by air, I think. And they didn’t want him captured because he was such a name. I would think that Rommel, just by being there, made a big difference to the German morale. Because he had such a reputation of being a good commander. I think if they’d lost him- if they knew he’d gone ( which they probably didn’t)- whipped him out smartly, I expect. The man who was put in charge was a General von Armin. Anyway, we took this bit right round into the Second American Army, and we went right through them, actually, kept going. The Germans surrendered. The story is, I don’t know how true this is, they were actually caught up in this Cape Bon. They said: We’re not surrendering to any Americans- it’s got to be the Eighth Army. So we arranged that for them, so we went up there. As it happened, the First Battalion were the first ones on site. So they took the surrender off him. The First Battalion, the Royal Sussex. He wouldn’t surrender to them- he didn’t want to go to the Americans or anyone, because he’d lose prestige or something. Anyway, that was what the story was. I don’t know how true it was. It’s similar in Monty’s book, actually (Field Marshall Montgomery in charge of the Eighth Army), he mentions that. Monty might have been near there. The commanding officer used to operate on high points in the desert. They had camps up there. Their communications were quite good. My own experience of the surrender itself was that the Royal Sussex were going up into this cul-de-sac, as it turned out to be, and eventually we had to stop. But I saw them all coming back out again, with these German officers in the back of a staff car. So he said, oh, they’ve surrendered to our commanding officer. I thought that was good. So he had. They had to take the officers back, they had to go to special prisoner of war places, I suppose. The car that they were coming out in is the one that’s over in the Redoubt (a Napoleonic fort and landmark, now a military museum in Eastbourne). That’s Rommel’s staff car. This bloke von Armin had taken over, and I saw Rommel’s staff car loaded up, when it came back, and it was our officers in there, our commanding officer, and this German commander. One or two guards of course. The German Army- they all knew they were surrendering. When we went further in, somebody was saying- well what have they done with all their machines guns and pistols and all that? What they’d done was, they’d dismantled them and thrown all the bits far and wide over the area where they were. It took a long time to assemble all the bits from one particular gun, if you were so minded, nobody really wanted them, I don’t think. One or two of them assembled these P38’s. So the rank and file were formed into a big load of troops and then marched back to the prisoner of war camps. And the officers of course got a ride in a staff car, and they went back- yes. (That was mission accomplished for the Eighth Army in North Africa). They took the surrender, organised resistance ceased on the 12th of May. Surrender to the First Royal Sussex. 1943 that would be.

A turning point of the whole war.

That was the first time we’d had a real success in the Second World War. Prior to that we’d always been under great pressure. They said that- the troops of the Sussex, they’d been up and down. They said, what used to happen was they’d go up, drive the Germans up a bit, and then they’d get their act together and drive us back again. And you had to make sure you didn’t lose too much equipment or fuel, because otherwise you couldn’t recover, as it were. And then we’d get our act together and drive them up again. That went on two or three times, I think. And so finally, we did get him cornered at Cape Bon. I don’t recall any celebrations. But they were actually very pleased with the results, as you would be, because then you knew the resistance had ceased. It was arranged that we could visit Tunis. We had loads of enemy vehicles- everybody had a truck. Things like that, it was a bit free and easy for a few days. All our vehicles ran on petrol, and all the German vehicles, I think. There were no diesels- I never came across diesels on our vehicles. They might have had some- I think perhaps the Italians might have been the ones who had the diesels. What the Italians had were big lorries, like civilian lorries they would have used. From civvy street, just from the production line to the army. The only trouble with them is, they probably didn’t have four wheel drive. So on desert sometimes you might get terribly stuck. All our vehicles, by and large, were four wheel drive or tracked. That’s what you need. Those that didn’t have four wheel drive had extra large tyres, sand tyres they were known as. They would drive on the sand, as long as you were careful how you approached it, but failing that, if you got stuck, we had sand channels. Which were a metal strip as wide as the car or vehicle tyres. We used to lay them down in front of it, drive up onto this one, put another one, and another one, so you could keep moving till you got to a better area. Sand channelling, that was known as. A bit slow going, but it did get the vehicle out, as otherwise it would have been just bogged down there. Drivers were experienced people. You don’t want to get stuck or anything like that. It makes a lot of work if you have to get the sand channels out. Some of the light vehicles were OK with two wheel drive, but they had the big tyres, so they were easier to handle.

Some respite from fighting, then preparation for the next phase of the war.

Then we had a few days off. Had a trip into Tunis, dozens of captured lorries. Then I went back to Egypt, Alexandria, then they had a couple of weeks off, the troops. You could go into Alexandria city, buy some local hooch or something like that. The beer wasn’t quite what we were used to. I didn’t see Glen Miller playing in any cafes, nothing like that. The African café owners, they were out for business, managed to keep the beers on. We had this leave at Alexandria, then, they said, well, that the next thing is the mountain warfare training. So we thought: oh, where’s the mountains? That’s Italy, isn’t it? So we moved to Palestine, camped outside Bethlehem, would you believe! We were up there on all those areas. It’s a great regret of mine that being on site, I didn’t actually go to the Church of the Nativity. We were kept quite busy, but I think some of them did, actually (visit the site of the Nativity) but of course once the riflemen and that were out of the line, they were resting, so they did have more time. We had to keep the vehicles fit to go. But it is a regret of mine that I never did that. It would have been a good opportunity which has never come again. I was there in spirit. So we did Bethlehem, couldn’t believe we’d camped outside there. We went up to Syria, there again it was mountains they were being trained on. It was a long way round- we’re talking a lot of mileage, oh yes. It was many days travel. But it didn’t seem to be any problem, all these miles we were doing…Bethlehem, Syria, and then we returned to Benghazi, back to Benghazi, (could be over a thousand miles) and we were airlifted to Italy. The American Air Force lifted us in their Dakotas. Eventually the equipment, it all got there somehow. We were lifted to Taranto, which was a big Italian port. And then we drove out from there, to assemble, as it were, and get our trucks and things sorted out. I can’t remember how they got all that stuff out there- must have come out by landing ship- LST’s: Landing Ship Tanks, they used to call them. They used to carry tanks, but they could carry all sorts of transport. Taranto seemed to be a port intact, they were using it, whatever sabotage had been done, they got it working. I was in Italy.

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