Tobruk Rat
THE STORY OF ALEXANDER BARRON CARSON (1917 – 1992)
Alexander Barron Carson, known as Barron, was born in Newcastle on 10 January 1917. His mother was Jeanette Menzies, third daughter of George and Jeanette Sadler Menzies. His father was Captain Tom Carson and he and Jeanette married at Stockton, the bride’s home town, in 1906. Barron was the youngest of three boys, the others being George Menzies Carson born in 1908 and James William Menzies born in 1911.
His father, Thomas, first went to sea 1896 as an apprentice to the shipping firm of Thomas Law of Glasgow, United Kingdom and he gained his Master’s Certificate in 1904. During the first five years of their marriage Captain Tom spent a lot of time away at sea but it wasn’t long before the prospect of joining the pilot service in Newcastle became very attractive. This meant that he would no longer need to spend long months away at sea far from his little family. Happily for him, on 25 March 1913, he was issued with his First Class Pilot’s Licence for the port of Newcastle. It was numbered ‘41’ and it cost him £3. On the reverse side it described the holder as Thomas Carson from Kirkcudbright, Scotland. For age he has written ‘born 4 December 1879’ making him 34 years old. It said further that he was 172mm high and his hair was ‘Fair, Turning Grey’, complexion fair and eyes Blue’. At a later date this licence has been endorsed “Port of Sydney 20/10/22” with the initials AB which may or may not stand for Albert Brew. Alongside this is another endorsement “Port Jackson 19/2/26” with someone else’s initials. The home address the Captain gave was 12 Pacific Street, Newcastle. There he had been living with his wife ‘Netta and two small boys Jim and George aged 2 and 5 years but when he was appointed as a fully fledged pilot in Newcastle Harbour he was able to move his family into one of the government cottages provided for pilots on what was known as Pilots’ Row and later Nobbys Road. It was here that Barron was born 4 years later.
In 1923,when Barron was 6 years old and just starting school, the Captain won a position as a pilot in Sydney Harbor and the family moved to Sydney and bought a beautiful home overlooking Watsons Bay in the then harbor-side village of Vaucluse. It was from here that Barron and his brothers was sent to school at the prestigious Sydney Grammar School at Darlinghurst in the city. The boys usually travelled on the ferry service which ran from Watsons Bay to Circular Quay. Often they boarded a ferry called “Greycliffe” which unfortunately featured in a drama on the harbor in 1927 when Barron was just 10 years old. Barron’s father Captain Tom Carson was the pilot of the steamship “Tahiti” which collided with the small ferry off Bradleys Head and cut her in two. As a result 40 people were killed. Barron’s big brother Jim, was in high school and his oldest brother, George, was at university but thankfully none of them were on the ferry this day but it caused their parents great anxiety. The subsequent court cases largely exonerated the pilot but his pilot’s licence was suspended for a short time.
After he left school in 1933 (aged 16), Barron got a job as a shipping clerk, no doubt with some help from his father. Six years later World War II broke out and he like other young men of his age began to wonder what it meant for him. Early in 1940 the Australian Government called for volunteers to form a new army division for the AIF. Called the 9th, Barron decided to enlist in it on 8 April 1940 and so he called at a recruiting office at Rutherford in the Hunter Valley of NSW. What a shipping clerk was doing in the Hunter Valley is anybody’s guess. Perhaps enlistment was a spur of the moment decision while he was on holiday. He was 23 years of age. Two weeks later he was in uniform and undergoing training. A month later he was made a Corporal and just 5 months after that, on 19 October 1940, he embarked with the rest of the battalion for the Middle East.
As a corporal, Barron had responsibility for a ‘Section’ of between 9 and 16 men. His section was one of three making up a ‘Platoon’ and reporting to a Lieutenant. Three platoons formed a ‘Company’ reporting to a Captain or a Major and four Companies formed a ‘Battalion’ consisting of up to 1000 men and led by a Lieutenant Colonel. Three such Battalions formed a Brigade of up to 5,000 men and 3 Brigades formed a Division of between 10,000 and 20,000 men. Barron was in the 2/13th Battalion, led by Lieut. Colonel ‘Bull’ Burrows. It was one of three in the 20th Brigade of the 9th Division.
Barron began his training at Ingleburn army camp in the scrub on the south side of Sydney. He took part in the inevitable marching drills that seemed to go on every day in every army, followed by hugely demanding cross country marches carrying full pack and rifle. It was surely a young man’s game. Barron like others was introduced to the trusty ‘303’ rifle, the mainstay of the Australian armed forces for decades and then he was handling live ammunition and learning to shoot as if his life depended on it as it soon was to. He learned how to handle a bayonet and how to engage in hand-to-hand combat. He learned about mortars and hand grenades, machine guns and mines. All the while he was keeping an ear open to the news of the world and what he heard did not bring him much comfort; on almost every hand the Axis forces of Germany and Italy were pushing back the allies of Britain towards defeat. Barron and the young Australians with him developed a hunger for wanting to come to grips with the enemy and to show them what a real army was like.
As early as October 1940 Barron’s Battalion was judged to be ready for deployment overseas. Even though it had received a mere 6 months of basic training, the men themselves were ready to go and as early as November 1940 the 2/13th found itself in camp at Kantara in Egypt where they were subject to further training under desert conditions. They were both excited and frustrated because the next month the British Army launched a devastating attack against the Italians who had earlier occupied enormous swathes of North Africa. At Sidi Barani the Italians were swept aside and the victorious British captured up to 40,000 prisoners and expelled the Italians from Libya. But the German Army was closing in on Greece on the northern side of the Mediterranean Sea and the Allies promised to help. The highly trained and experienced Australian 6th Division was withdrawn from Cyrenaica and sent to defend Greece much to the chagrin of the 2/13th who was itching for action. Instead they were sent to take the place of the 6th and that made them feel a bit second rate.
But events were soon to dispel these notions. Barron was by now a sergeant and he and his fellow soldiers dug in about 30 miles north east of El Agheila which is right at the bottom of the Gulf of Sirte. The 2/13th was in reserve behind its fellow battalions the 2/17th and the 2/15th. This was as far as the 6th Division had pushed the Italians before the decision was taken to send them to Greece. But 20th Brigade suddenly became aware that the Germans had landed at Tripoli to reinforce the Italians and the future began to take on a whole new meaning. Their first contact with the Africa Korps came on 23rd of March 1941 when tanks and armoured cars were seen in the distance. Meanwhile the 20th Brigade was frantically trying to get hold of heavy guns and other anti-tank weaponry and it was here that the scavenging ability of the Australians came to the fore. They collected a huge array of discarded Italian weapons and ammunition and put it in position awaiting the Germans.
The Australian General Leslie Morshead, a boy from Vaucluse in Sydney, didn’t like what he saw and agreed with his troops; El Agheila was a terrible place to defend and with his superior’s approval he immediately pulled his troops back to Benghazi about 50 miles to the north. The 2/13th grumbled about this, they had come to fight not runaway. But the General was right and the Germans led by Erwin Rommel, occupied El Agheila the very next day. They then advanced in force and most headed out across the desert straight for Tobruk which meant that the Australians at Benghazi were in danger of being cut off. There then developed a race for Tobruk. One by one the towns on the coast fell to the Africa Korps as the Allies pulled back. The 20th called it the Benghazi-Tobruk handicap. They crowded into whatever trucks were available and went for their lives. On 4th April they found themselves at the Er Regima Pass to the west of Benghazi where they dug in to protect the allied troops who were flooding in from the west. And then the first big clash came.
Large numbers of German tanks and armoured cars soon appeared followed by soldiers in trucks. They obviously were not expecting the Australians when all of a sudden the 2/13th let loose with mortars and machine guns. Then it was a case of back into the trucks and heading further west. But there were no trucks! Attacked by superior numbers, all Barron and his mates could do was scramble back in the dark and hang on. Then about midnight, when everyone else had gone, their trucks appeared and they quickly climbed aboard and took off west along the coast road towards Tobruk. In the confusion of dust and dark even two British generals got lost, Neame and O’Connor, and were captured by the Germans but the 2/13th got away safely. They only just managed to stay in front of the pursuing Germans. On the 8th a huge dust storm, called a Khamsin and reminiscent of the fog at Dunkirk, held the Germans up and helped the 2/13th get away and on the night of the 9th April the 2/13th made it into the perimeter of the defences of Tobruk. No doubt Barron smiled to himself when he realized it was exactly 12 months since he had enlisted. Never had he guessed he would end up in situation like he now found himself.
The Route of the Bengahzi-Tobruk handicap 1941
Tobruk was a well built ‘fortress’ left behind by the Italians. It was roughly semicircular in shape centred on a small port into which there continued to pour an increasing amount of munitions and food because the Royal Navy ‘ruled the waves’ as it were, having kept the Italian Navy shut up in port. Around the perimeter, about 8kms out and about nearly 50kms long, there were more than 100 small reinforced ‘forts’ so placed as to be able to support one another in case of attack. Major General Morshead manned these as best he could and then placed other troops on an inner circle as reserves. He placed the 2/13th in the middle on the south side close to the El Adem road and got ready for what was coming. Within days the Germans had Tobruk surrounded and the only way out was by sea through the tiny port. Morshead told his 27,000 troops “there will be no surrender”. They didn’t have long to wait.
Within at day German troops began to probe the Australian defences but were driven off. The next day, Easter Saturday, they sent in a few tanks, but this wasn’t it. But the 2/13th could see huge clouds of dust to the south which meant that a major attack was imminent. Meanwhile Germans were creeping about cutting the barbed wire and de-lousing mines to make a path through for their attack. It came that night and the 20th Brigade threw everything it had at the enemy advancing towards them. Then as soon as there was a lull in the German fire the Australians jumped up and charged them yelling like wild men, firing from the hip and throwing grenades. This was totally unexpected and the Germans scattered. But there were too many of them and 20th called for back up. With the coming of dawn the Germans sent in their tanks ahead of fresh troops. But instead of running away the 2/13th laid low in their foxholes and let the tanks go by and waited until the following troops had passed. Then the Australians leaped to their feet and engaged them at close range from behind. The Germans couldn’t understand it, they called on the Australians to surrender now that the tanks had gone through, just as they were used to doing in Europe but this was the last thing on the minds of the men of the 20th Brigade. Meanwhile the tanks kept advancing towards the port without meeting much opposition. Little did they know that waiting for them up ahead were British 25 pounders and other artillery hidden under camouflage netting.
Excerpt from the book "Janes Legacy" by John Brew.
