Back home, little or nothing was known about the aftermath of the Battle.
In the obvious confusion and chaos of the evacuation, it was bound to be
a while before things settled and before the families of the combatants
could learn of their loved ones. In early June, whilst recuperating, Eric
sent a telegram home. It was received and passed by the censor on 10th
June. It was addressed to 11 Headlands Road and reads simply :
E9798 6/13 8 =
EFM CROSSWAITE
11 HEADLANHSRD HOYLAND
NR
BARNSLEYYORKS =
SAFE AND WELL LOVE
=
ERIC CROSSWAITE
Also whilst at Cassasin, the Y & Ls and the 2nd Bn. Black Watch were joined by the 1st Battalion of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment. These three units, in effect the 14th Infantry Brigade, became part of the 6th Division. Around this time there was a further change in command. Major McConnell left the Battalion and Major Seagrim of the Green Howards took over as 2nd in command.
Syria
When France was overrun at the beginning of the war, the country was split into a northern, occupied area and a southern area which was relatively free. The interim government, essentially a puppet administration was established at Vichy, a spa town on the border of the north and south areas. Officially
exercising control over its own affairs, the Vichy government under the WW1 hero of Verdun, Pétain (famous for declaring "Ils ne passeront pas" - 'they shall not pass') collaborated with the Axis forces in many areas. This was also true of France's overseas protectorates such as Syria where they had been allowing the Germans to use their airfields. To stop this, the 6th Division, together with the Allied Free French forces,
was given the task of carrying out Operation Exporter, to occupy Syria. It set off, minus the 14th Infantry Brigade, on 8th June 1941.
On the 4th July, the 14th Inf. Brigade, including the 2nd Bn.
York and Lancaster Regt. received orders to join the rest of the 6th Division in Syria. They arrived at Damascus on the 10th. The 6th Div. had been held up by the enemy about 12 miles down the road to Beyroute (Beruit). The enemy forces under the direction of the pro-Vichy French General Henri Dentz, were occupying a very strong natural position on a ridge of steep hills called the Jebel Mazar. There, the Battalion was temporarily put under the 16th Infantry Brigade, and on the night of 11th-12th July was
ordered to take over from the 1st Battalion the Queen's Regiment, who were in a slightly precarious position halfway up the ridge with the enemy immediately above.
The Battalion moved off in motor transport. When passing Brigade HQ it was informed that an armistice was being arranged and that all fighting would end at midnight. Nevertheless, it took over and the fighting continued up to the last minute, thankfully with no casualties. The Battalion remained on the ridge for several days. For the next few months it was employed
on occupational duties in Syria.
When finally an armistice had been agreed, General Dentz made
what was widely viewed as a rash, and greatly dishonourable decision. Before acceding to the Allies, he sent the British officer POWs in his charge away to captivity in Europe. This action, which breached the conditions and the spirit of the agreement, led to his internment along with another senior officer, Conti. These men were held for several months until the
British POWs were returned. In the meantime it fell to Eric and some of the 2nd Bn. Yorks and Lancs to form the guard ensuring his captivity. His arrest and detention attracted much attention at the time, and Eric recalls seeing his face in the local newspapers at the time. General Dentz was held in the grounds of a former girls' school.
At the end of their guard duty Eric and his company were given
leave. Eric certainly made the most of it, leaving to see the cosmopolitan sights and sounds of Beyroute (Beirut). It seems hard now to imagine the troubled Lebanese capital we know as it must have been then - a modern city, flushed with the international banks and capital investors, a Kuwait-like
city in its prime, with more than its fair share of tourist attractions).Whilst he was in the city he met a fellow yorkshireman, Geoff Littlewood, a well-known jockey whose future wife lived just down the road from Eric on Headlands Rd. Souvenirs of his time in Beyroute include a couple of handkerchiefs suitably marked, and of course the photographs of himself and others from the 14th and 15th Platoons of the 2nd Bn. Yorks and Lancs in the city, with the modern signs of the expensive bars and restaurants in the background.
As ever, Eric tried to make the most of his free time, and his permitted four days leave soon stretched out to a week and more, during which time he managed to go north to the Turkish border, spending one unhappy night in a Turkish prison, before being released and returning to the Battalion.During this occupational period he also made a good will visit to Iraq, once again reaffirming the British presence with the Arab populace. At
the end of this occupational duty around mid-October, the 6th Division left Syria for a staging camp near Alexandria, en route to relieve the Australian 9th Division at Tobruk.
After the spectacular Allied victories in Cyrenaica (Libya) against the Italians in December 1939 and January 1940, the departure of large numbers to Greece and the counter-attack of large German reinforcements under General Rommel meant that the tide turned in favour of the Axis forces.During the Allied retreat the Australian Division was rushed in Tobruk,
an old Italian harbour garrison, with the intention of harassing the rear of the rapidly advancing Afrika Korps. Tobruk, though extensively defended, it was surrounded and in April the first of a number of sieges of Tobruk' began. It was to this most perilous part of the Western Desert that the 6th Division was to be sent. The Australians had fought valiantly but their ranks were becoming frayed by their long stay. Thus the plan for their
relief, to be carried out in the utmost secrecy was created.
To confuse the enemy forces investing the 'fortress' as Tobruk was sometimes known, the 6th Division changed its identity to the 70th Division. It was also given a new commander, Major-General Ronald Scobie, who also took control of the rest of the garrison. The relief itself was a very hazardous operation and had to be carried out by the Royal Navy.
The exchange of troops consisted of 3 waves:
i) Treacle (19-29 August)
IN: Polish 1st Carpathian Brigade (Bde) and a Polish Cavalry Regiment
OUT: 18th Brigade, 18th Indian Cavalry and 152nd LAA
ii) Supercharge (19-27 September)
IN: British 16th Inf. Bde, Advanced HQs of 70th Div.,
32nd Army Tank Brigade (32ATB)* and 4RTR
[32ATB was in fact the unchanged 3rd Armoured Bde]
OUT: 24th Bde. and Australian 24th Field Park Company
iii) Cultivate (12-25 October)
IN: HQ 70th Div. British 14th and 23rd Infantry Brigades
a Czech Infantry Bn and 62nd General Hospital.
OUT: 9th Div HQ and Divisional Troops
26th and 20th Bdes and Australian 4th Hospital.
The convoys sailed from Alexandria. Most of this lift was carried out on moonless nights by pairs of destroyers, together with a fast mine-laying cruiser and another destroyer carrying stores. Eric's Battalion went in during 'Cultivate'. They embarked on 24th October and arrived at Tobruk at 22:45. The only 'exciting incident' was a submarine hunt when one of the destroyers picked up a signal on its Asdic, but it turned out to be a large fish! As soon as they landed the Battalion marched up to the reserve lines, 'the Blue line', taking over from an Australian unit. The next two or three weeks were fairly quiet, but there was a considerable amount of shelling and nightly air raids on the harbour.
The defences of Tobruk were considerable. They began around 9
miles from the town and harbour itself with a semi-circular defence perimeter known as "the Red line". This line, built by the Italians, consisted of 128 concrete defence posts in two rows stretching 16 miles across, with both flanks ending in deep wadis; Wadi Sehel in the west, and in the east, Wadis Zeitum and Belgassem. The front posts, each with 3 linked gun pits,
covered a radius of 90 yards and were interspaced with minefields. In front of them were two lines of barbed wire 5ft high, and an anti-tank ditch. All the posts were numbered, and had communication links to an underground HQ. The numbering began from the west and had the prefix 'S', 'R' or 'Z' reflecting the location; 'S' covered the Wadi Sehel side as far as Ras
El Medauur; 'R' from there to the Bardia Road, and 'Z' from the road to the east coast.
Further back from the Red line, was another, the Blue line consolidated by General Morshed earlier in the year. The Blue line, where the 2nd Battalion spent most of its time followed the curve of the Red, but was 2 miles closer to the town. By the time the 70th Div. had arrived almost the entire zone between the two lines had been set with mines. Further back still there was a nominal Green line, though this was a fall-back position. Against
them, at various points around the defences were enemy posts, and further afield, airfields. In his excellent history of the siege, Frank Harrison points out that,
' In any attack against such an elongated defence line the advantage must lie with the attacker; he is able to assemble his spearhead at a single point (...) - the schwerpunkt beloved of German commanders. (...) The defending commander must organise those troops not actually manning the defensive perimeter and who are to some extent mobile, into an aggressive reserve whose role is the limiting of any penetration of the line, and the restoring of the original positions by counter-attack.' ('Tobruk - The Great Siege Reassessed', p.32)
When in reserve, the Y & Ls made many working parties for unloading ships at night and were fortunate not to suffer any casualties in the bombing. 'In general', as the Regimental
history says, 'it found the chief drawbacks to life in Tobruk were the dullness of the rations, the saltiness of the drinking water and the appalling dust-storms.' (p.88). Eric could speak of this last constant threat from personal experience.
Once, whilst attempting to take a brief nap the hot sands, a sandstorm came over. Oblivious, he was rudely awaken to find himself buried under a mound of sand; his friends it seems deeming it unwise to disturb his beauty sleep.