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THREAD/We left Dad yesterday at a place called Simbellawain, in the Nile Delta area. He must've been quite taken with this place, as he took quite a few "general" photos including this one of their "bearer", a cheerful looking chap called Subh, as well as this rather
impressive group of locals, two of whom are armed. Unfortunately, although Dad has marked two of them with crosses, there is no caption to this photo so I don't know who they are or what the significance of the marks on the photo may be. He did also include a blurred photo of
what he called "the battered wagon" as well as a "liberated" Italian vehicle that he called a "SPA" - I don't know if this is correct or not. There is also a nice photo of the local defence force, with Dad posed in the middle of the group by a Church Army refreshment truck.
I'm not sure of the exact timing of this but Dad's unit also seems to have had a brief venture into what was then called Trans-Jordan, as the next photo is captioned "Guardians of Trans-Jordan" which features an assortment of headgear and weapons. This does seem a brief interlude
as the next sequence in his album is marked "Western Desert" and is dated Oct/Nov 1942. Dad wouldn't talk much about this period, so I'm uncertain as to what if anything, his involvement was, although some of these photos are clearly of events that occurred before he got there
First up, we see a pranged P-40 aircraft that I believe was once flown by Aussie fighter ace Nicky Barr. From what I have managed to find out, this was shot down in June 1942, so presumably Dad was just photographing the old crash site. I don't know if he would've been aware as
to who the pilot was. He was certainly aware as to the identity of Pte. Adam Wakenshaw VC of 9/DLI, who lost his life on 27 June 1942 at Mersa Matruh whilst firing a 2pdr anti-tank gun during a rearguard action. He continued firing the gun, even after losing an arm. The first
photo shows his original grave alongside the 2 pdr gun he was manning. He also photographed the mobile gun knocked out by Pte Wakenshaw and later in the album is a newspaper cutting which shows his later grave after he had been re-interred at Mersa Matruh War Cemetery.
Another photo of something that probably happened in the past is this photo of a knocked out 25 pdr gun which Dad has captioned "Mersa Box". The next two photographs are unfortunately not precisely dated so I can't enlarge on them at all but they do appear to have been quite
recent as Dad has simply captioned one of them "Beginning of the end" and shows what to my untrained eye is an abandoned (rather than knocked out) Panzer which is detailed "14 miles south of Mersa". There is also another tank photograph coming up next, which Dad has captioned..
"Gloating over our victory - Siwa Road", although what if anything Dad had to do with this is doubtful! Again, the tank appears serviceable to my eyes at least. Our final photo for today shows an incredibly brave man, in so far as he has allowed my Dad to give him a haircut.
In the background, I'm not sure but that might be the liberated Italian truck which now seems to have acquired a canopy. That's all for today but will try and post a few more tomorrow./END
