A curious incident occurred as our light forces were moving forward south of Benghazi. I was right up behind the leading armoured cars, reconnoitering the area; I had a small escort with me. We had outstripped the fighter cover and from time to time enemy aircraft strafed the road; it was not a healthy place and I suppose that I ought not to have been there.
Suddenly I saw a lorry coming up from behind, and on it a large boat; a naval Petty Officer sat with the driver and some sailors were inside.
I stopped the lorry and said to the Petty Officer: “What are you doing here? Do you realise that you are right up with the most forward elements of the Eighth Army, and you and your boat are leading the advance? This is a very dangerous area just at present, and you are unarmed. You must turn round and go back at once.”
He was dreadfully upset. He had been ordered to open up a “petrol point” at a small cove well to the north of Mersa Brega; small naval craft were to land petrol at this point in order that the leading armoured car regiments could refill their tanks; this was the easiest way of getting petrol and oil to them. He explained this to me, looking at me with pleading eyes rather like a spaniel asking to be taken for a walk to hunt rabbits.
He then said: “Don’t send me back, sir. If the armoured cars don’t get their petrol, they will have to halt and you will lose touch with the Germans. Couldn’t I go on with you? I would then be quite safe.”
That Petty Officer was clearly a student of psychology! In point of fact I did not know about these small petrol points for the armoured cars; it was a staff plan and a very good one. I took the naval party forward with me and saw them safely to their cove, where I was their first customer for petrol. I have often thought of that Petty Officer; he was from the Merchant Navy and in the R.N.V.R.; his sense of duty was of the highest order, and Britain will never lose her wars so long as the Royal Navy can count on men like him.
Bernard L. Montgomery, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Montgomery, 1958.
January 30, 2022
QotD: Montgomery on the advance after El Alamein
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