Post by Diarist on Oct 29, 2015 19:29:21 GMT 1
We arrived in Alexandria in the early afternoon, said farewell to our seaplane colleagues then made our way to the building with the Union Jack flying. I enquired where I could find Commander Mountbatten at Combined Operations HQ. Shortly afterwards a 30cwt truck arrived to take us to our destination. I got a very warm greeting from Commander Mountbatten. "A major" he commented, "just temporary". I introduced Rommel, explained briefly why he is here and gave him a copy of the notes I had made. He welcomed Rommel to Combined Operations. I had to explain to Rommel that we are not part of the regular army - our orders come from the very top.
We were driven to a nearby airfield where our platoon was waiting for me. They were really waiting because we had to fly to Khartoum this afternoon. When I asked about food I was shown a box full of iron rations and bottles of orange juice. I ate some bully beef and a packet of biscuits. Rommel was eating, too. During the flight, Captain Mike Franklin briefed me. We had all the equipment and plenty of ammunition. In Alexandria there are another 120 parachutes in case we have a second mission. I told him that we have orders to fly back to Alexandria once we've been relieved by troops from 154th Brigade. He read my 'Rommel Papers', finishing before we landed at Khartoum. Our platoon was assigned an empty hangar until something better could be found tomorrow.
Rommel, Mike and I were driven to the Khartoum HQ building and were assigned rooms. We arranged for some beer to be sent to the platoon. At dinner we were introduced to the commander of the 154th Infantry Brigade (Highland) and his staff. I gave him my report based upon my conversations with Rommel. His experience fighting the Italians could be invaluable. There was naturally the language barrier problem. Somebody here must speak German - I told them that I have other things to take care of. We arranged to meet at 10:00 tomorrow.
I went looking for Major Aude Wingate and Thomas Shaw and found them. I introduced them to Rommel and gave Aude a copy of my Rommel notes. Aude told me that they had started distributing gasmasks in Addis Abeba. I now heard for the first time that the Italians have chemical weapons stored in Eritrea. Thomas speaks German so he was translating for Rommel, (he wants us to call him Erwin). The good news is that we have gasmasks in Khartoum, but if they were to use phosgene and/or chlorine against the Abyssinians troops it would be devastating - they have no idea what it is.
I had a steak followed by a couple of beers then retired.