Rats of Tobruk

APRIL 21-22L 2012L IN THE NAME OF THEIR FATHERS Honouring Queensland’s forgotten Rats of Tobruk By Mike Colman BQW21APR12COV_01.indd 1 13/04/2012 01:50:42 history FOR 70 YEARS HISTORIANS TOLD THE STORY OF THE SIEGE OF TOBRUK – AND FOR 70 YEARS THEY GOT IT WRONG, STARTING WITH THE ROLE OF THE 2/15TH BATTALION. Story Mike Colman s 21-year-old Jack Anning looked across the Libyan desert in the early morning light and saw the Panzer tanks coming toward him, with elite German soldiers either riding on the tanks or fanned Aout jogging behind them, he felt no fear. “I was wildly excited,” he says. “I was sick of running. We all were. We were anxious to have a go.” It was Easter Monday, 1941, on the outskirts of Tobruk, Libya’s Mediterranean port town near the Egyptian border. Over the next few hours Anning and the rest of A Company from the all- Queensland 2/15th Battalion would indeed “have a go” at Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps. In their first experience of combat they would take on one of Rommel’s favourite A job well done … commanders and his battle-hardened troops. Cpl. Jack Anning By mid-morning the fighting was all but over. towards the end of S his military service. The German commander lay dead in a ditch, BQW21APR12RAT_16-21.indd 16 13/04/2012 06:06:22 BQW21APR12RAT_16-21.indd 17 13/04/2012 06:06:37 history his body covered by a bloodied Nazi flag as his when he stepped on a “Jumping Jack” landmine form a last line of defence. How, despite heavy history. It was his father’s death from cancer in distraught men, many in tears, surrendered outside Tobruk. It was the day after Steve’s casualties, the British gunners sent the Panzers September 1987 that sparked MacKenzie-Smith’s their weapons to the Queenslanders. fourth birthday, but his emotional ties to his packing while the Queenslanders held firm. curiosity over the bloodstained flag he had It was a crucial element in a victory that father are as close today as they were then. On They heard how Greig Smith then ordered brought back from Tobruk, eventually leading ensured the continuation of the eight-month- his right arm is tattooed the 2/15th Battalion’s Ron Yates to lead his 30-man platoon on a counter- him to uncover the truth of the Easter Battle. long siege, leading to the enduring legend colour patch, a purple T for Tobruk, and attack against the remaining German infantry “My father would tell my brother and me of the “Rats of Tobruk” and the eventual underneath, the words “Son of a Rat”. of the 8th Machine-Gun Battalion, which had what had happened over there if we pressed derailment of Rommel’s march to the Suez They all heard the story of the battle growing supported the Panzer assault; how, although well him,” he says. “I basically knew by the age of Canal. Yet until last year, the only people who up. They heard it from their fathers or their outnumbered, they killed the German commander seven what the story was. It was to do with the knew about it were the ones who were there fathers’ comrades-in-arms. They read their and captured 100 of his men. And they heard concrete things he brought home: the German and the family members they told. The action diaries and listened as the old soldiers talked on how no-one ever gave them any credit for it. flag, the German helmet that we used to of the men of the 2/15th during Tobruk’s Anzac Day or at reunions organised by the 2/15th goosestep around the yard with, the Luger pistol, Easter Battle was lost under the desert sands. Battalion Remembrance Club. They heard how, THE “OVERSIGHT” THAT SAW THE 2/15TH WRITTEN a pair of binoculars and an Italian map of Tobruk It was left to their sons to rewrite history. after days of fierce fighting, the Germans broke out of history started with the published account defences. These were his pride and joy, so early through the line held by the NSW-formed 2/13th of the siege of Tobruk by respected ABC war on we learned he was in a battle at Tobruk which JOHN MACKENZIE-SMITH REMEMBERS WELL and 2/17th battalions. How the 120 men of correspondent Chester Wilmot in 1944. Wilmot, also involved tanks. He told us they took on the March 2, 1943, the day his father Captain Greig A Company dug in 100m in front of the guns of who died in a plane crash in 1954, wrote that the German infantry that arrived there and defeated Smith came home from the war. John Smith Britain’s 1st Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery to 2/15th had been stationed in reserve at the “Red them and took 100 prisoners, but the leader of (the “MacKenzie” was added in 1989) was six Line”, Tobruk’s outer line of defence, held by the the infantry was killed. Because he was their years old. His father, the officer commanding 2/13th and 2/17th battalions, some 3000m in front commander, the Germans draped the flag over A Company, 2/15th Battalion, was a day off his of the British artillery, which were on the “Blue him. Then, after the battle was over, Aussies 31st birthday. John was playing in the front Line”. He claimed that after breaking through being Aussies, Dad’s men whipped the flag off yard of the family home on Waterworks Road, the Red Line, the German tanks advanced 2000m the German and gave it to my father. It was like Ashgrove, 6km west of the Brisbane CBD. before being turned back by the guns, and they had captured the enemy’s standard and Gustav Ponath, a recipient of the Knight’s Cross, A car pulled up and a man dressed in a light- gave credit for the final operation in which the presented it to him as their commander.” Germany’s highest battlefield decoration, and coloured khaki uniform got out. remnants of the supporting German infantry were The word-of-mouth stories were MacKenzie- commander of the 8th Machine-Gun Battalion. “Are you my daddy?” John asked. defeated and captured to the two NSW units. Smith’s only link to the action of that Easter The site and circumstances of Ponath’s death “Yes. Where’s Mummy?” At the time Wilmot was putting the finishing Monday until 1976, when his father gave him have long been cause for conjecture in both “At the butcher.” touches to his book in Sydney, members of the a copy of the June edition of the Remembrance Germany and Australia, and his remains have “You’d better go get her.” 2/15th had more pressing matters than recognition Club magazine Caveant Hostes (the battalion never been found. The official war diary of the The boy raced to tell his mother the news. on their minds – they were fighting the Japanese at motto, from the Latin for “Let Enemies Beware”). MEDITERRANEAN SEA 8th Machine-Gun Battalion states that Ponath She took his hand and ran back down the street, Kumawa, New Guinea. It was only later, after the It included a detailed description of A Company’s SUEZ was killed on the Red Line, 3000m south-west CANAL calling through the door as she passed each shop, war, when one publication after another rehashed involvement on the day by Company Sgt. Maj. Tobruk of the 2/15th position. “That war diary cooked “My husband’s just back from the Middle East, Wilmot’s version of events that they began to feel Kevin Robinson, who led one of the two Mersa Brega El Alamein the books,” MacKenzie-Smith claims. “It my husband’s just back from the Middle East.” They all heard the aggrieved. When they got together they talked sections involved in the counter-attack. It wasn’t going to say their men were captured With serious injuries sustained in Libya story of the battle about setting the record straight but no-one knew backed up Captain Smith’s version of events ignominiously or that Ponath died in a ditch. ruling out a return to the front, Captain Smith how. They left it until the next reunion and and added another layer to the story of the flag. LIBYA EGYPT It had them on the frontline, valiantly trying to brought back souvenirs from Tobruk that growing up … the next, and then time began to run out. Detailing how the Germans had taken cover make their way back to their base when Ponath would fascinate John and his younger brother from their fathers. When the battalion’s Remembrance Club was in a “half-dug tank trap”, he wrote: “I believe was shot by a member of 2/17th battalion.” Raymond for the next 70 years: a German formed in 1946 it had several hundred members, one of the Bren gunners in Lt. Yates’s group Ranks of the Rats … (top) Australian troops on the front at MacKenzie-Smith wrote to the AWM about Tobruk, 1941; map (above) shows the North African location; combat helmet, a Luger pistol, a pair of field nearly all returned servicemen. Today most shot the German Commander, a Lieutenant (opposite) John MacKenzie-Smith and (top) his father Greig. his theory, “but they thought it was just Joe glasses, a map titled Tobruch Defences, and members are widows, children, grandchildren and Colonel, through the neck and killed him, and Blow and ignored it”.

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