TRUMAN MACA
ARGUMENT
V. 5. NEWY
ATMOSPHERICS IN KOREA
THE CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1951.
STOR
(Copyright in all countries)
World Copyright By arrangement with Daily Herald
39
Tobruk May Be Vital Again
истоля
By Alexander
Clifford
TEN years ago to the day and-belge morning ten years handful of German forces guarding Cyrenaica were gro. The fragmentary British and Italian armoured cars being roiled rapidly backwards alged their way northwards by the Arst Germans to appear
In Africa, of a scrubby slab Libyan desert and settled down astride the road which traversed it like a black tar- mac ribbon.
They had completed the encirclement of Tobruk. Its famous slege had begun.
.
Our three leading generals had already been captured. The troops who had stayed in Tobruk
Australians, mostly were there because they were trapped
there, not because anyone had a plan. At the lime it just looked
like an extra disaster.
DUT
Siege Heroic
Today Sir Ralph Steven- son, British Ambassador in Cairo, is waiting to call on pur then, on the summer grow the Egyptian Foreign Minis-D fercer and the baked, une ter with Britain's proposals sheltering desert lost its Just for evacuating her troops heroic. The troops stuck there, green thing, the alege became
from the Suez Canal.
enduring na existence froni which almost everything had been stripped that makes life worth living. They lived with- out women, without roofs, with
And it may be that once again Tobruk will have to come to the rescue of the Empire.
It would have seemed a for- fetched idea if anyone had thought of it on that gusly, blue-
"I Was Churchill's Shadow, Chapter 3
WHISTLING BOY MADE
W
THE P.M.
Britain, * # #
soon as eyes were open
As to bed.
he
FURIOUS
keep them open.
Wherever we were during the war, in London or at Che- quers, in car, train or ship, a secretary would be at hand for Mr Churchill's continual dicta- tion.
number of word she has dictated
reply without hesitation,
out beer or amusements, in an atmosphere composed of flica and dust and bombing raids.
Their brackish water was rigidly rationed and their food was unendingly morsotonous. The |result-by the sort of paradox that seems artistically right—was that they kept unusually chcer- ful and healthy, anki held Tobruk so stubbornly that they ceased to be "self-supporting prisoners** av the Germans called them) became the spearhead of an offensive.
and
It was Tobruk which, in the winter of 1941, enabled the Bri- tish Eighth Army to inflict on Rommel the first defeat which Britain or anyone else inflicted on German arms in the war. It turned the tide for us.
I remember driving into
plating. Its scarred, riven land-
for little while. Mr Churchill how noble a part it had played would pace up and down the in history-how sacred was this
and sour, dusty, soil to Britain, muttering words room, phrases to himself. Sometimes he would appear to be dielating but really he was rehearsing.
INSTON Churchill. By EX-INSP. WALTER HENRY THOMPSON and he experts his secretary to Tobruk at that time and contem- walking along Mr Churchill's working day strip almost naked and get in closed, in spite of all efforts to Then insplation would dry upscape and thinking emotionally King Charles Street, from would begin about 8 a.m.
in the No. 10 would ask for the newspapers He would cover his rooms
his eyes with a black satin bandage. it Annexe to Downing Street.
and would spend about 20 minutes looking through them. was one of my duties to have one of these bandages with me Approaching him" from
Then came breakfast, always wherever we travelled. the other direction was a
substantial meal,
during boy of about 15. hands in pockets, whistling loudly and cheerfully. Now Mr Churchill cannot stand whistling.
f:
In a car he is taken down in
I remembered it again reading a book that has just come out "Fortress Tobruk," by Jan Yind- When the flow started again he rich for It is the sort of book been (and in which he would look through Sometimes, if we were on
would rep out the words loudly, that would have the official news bulletins the road, he would lean back
sometimes emphasising a climax fact was) written at the time. In the car, put one of the shorthand-but elsewhere, even with a violent gesture....Often brought in by a private mes-
In a way it seems desperately black bondages over his eyes, on trains, he diclates directly as he reached a peroration, his dated now, for it is a dally-life senger.
und sleep peacefully with his on to the typewriter. Special arms would be waving, as it be head sunk into his chest, cuses have been made for the When he goes to bed for his kind of machine he likes, and hour's rest in the afternoon Tepewriters are taken on every
journey, sleeps, almost as soon as head touches pillow. He has a special pillow, and can always pick out his own if it has been nixed up with others during packing.
After breakfast, propped up with pillows, and with a rub- ber pad for his elbows, he would light a cigar and begin voice: work.
When the boy came near Mr Churchill turned his head and raid in a sharp. "Stop that whistling."
stern
The boy looked up at the Prime Minister-with-complete- answered:
unconcern,
"Why should I?"
"Because I don't like it and it is a horrible noise," growled Churchill.
about Just a word
those Tamous cigars. Mr Churchill's consumption of tobacco is not
absorbed in the detalls of the. the room.
the cigar go out.
were in the presence of a crowd. account of the siege os an isolated episode, not as a fragment of A sudden passage of pathes or modern history. But for the very mention of disaster while reason It conjures up more vividly diotating a speech would bring the peculiarly Homerle mood of the tours to his eyes; sometimes the place, the sustained drama he would be almost sobbing, of a crisis barely but brilliantly with tears-running down his surmounted. On a train travelling at cheeks at the end of an affecting speed the curiously sibilant period. pronunciation of some of Win-
to
Many times when he retired ston's words are difficult nearly so greal as many people for a siesta and I have taken catch. Sometimes he would be suppose. He chews the end of the satin bandage to him, in a patient mood, and would his cigars, and as he becomes has been asleep before I left give a weary repetition of the words his secretary missed. At After the siesta Mr Churchill other times a desperate gucas tock his second bath before
was a fan safor gambit than the risk of an interruption. Before the mangled remains dressing for dinner. His two. are discarded the same cigar baths-n-day routine was es- In full flow he would become
may have been If a score of sential to him as a form of re- irritable at any
hold up, and times, and have lasted through laxation. And if the Old Man could hardly wait for the chang
did not get his bath there was ing of the paper and carbons t a couple of hours or so of con centrated thought.
the dickens to payl
the end of each page. He would" snap: "Come on, come on. What are you waiting for?"
It
is the same
The boy strolled on, and day's tasks, he frequently lets then turned to call out:
Well, you
can shut your cars, can't you?"
And with that he resumed whistling at full blast. Mr Churchill was completely taken uback, and for a moment 10: looked furious. Then, as we road into the
I can remember occasions on crossed
the
where Foreign Office Yard, he began drinking. During a long even- trains and in warships
successive extraordinary efforts had to be to smile. Quietly he repeated ing of conferences,
Chur- made to get the hot water at to himself the words "You can visitors would find Mr
glass of whisky the right time. shut your ears, can't you?" and chill with a followed with
of his and soda at
bui his elbow; more often than not it would be the same drink, which re- mained forgotten and hardly touched during the whole ses- cion.
famous chuckles.
one
1
This little episode is typical
of Mr Churchill's temperament.
likes and dislikes, and when
he is riled he will go off the deep end.
›
malice
with
his
Once in Egypt we had the train stopped and drew a sup- ply from the boller of the When he is ready for his locomotive. On another occa-
in bed, his lon, during the blitz, we ar morning's work
a typewriter rived at Bristol in the secretary sits at
tion.
a heavy raid.
"Yes, sir."
small
And if the flimsies crackled as they were put into the machine, he would grumble: "Don't fidget with that paper.":
He smiled, and she omitted the names from her typing and went
תם
the -uriswered
But
Tobruk today-stili-hos-British- uniformgin it, for it is garrisoned the production
of an by our Occupation Forces In epigram or an amusing piece of Libya. It is a tame, dull tle invective would be accompanied place with no faint echo of its by an expression of delight, and romantic past. In some, odd followed with a satisfied chuckle. way the desert has swallowed up the incrustations of warlike When the whole speech has junk which the armies left be- ben diotated Mr Churchill goes hind. The harbour has been carefully through the first draft, nearly cleared of wrecks, and checking every word and phrase. the while stucco houses of the This revision may go through town have been primly tidied up. three typings before the text Bnally satisfied him.
Then it is typed again into what he calls "speech form." Paragraphs, pentences and even phrases are broken up into the exact periods in which they will be delivered when the speech is made.
a
Our Only Base
HERE is an Officers' Club, and Other Ranks NAAFI, and crumpled Arubs sell one another dozen little booths where
sardines And bananas and mothylated spirit. The only reminder is the big military cemetery, which spreads arid as now. graves discovered
hidden
Once in the early days of the war he was dictating in a train. It was a memorandum concern-
The result looks rather like spreads the Gorman warships ing
blank verse, and once the are Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
speech is in this form Mr deep in the desert and the bodies Thore names had not yet be- Churchill rarely deviates from brought in come news,
and his secretary the text either in substance or
But if our troops leave Suez, then Tobruk wit bo our only He is a man of precise hablis, by his bedside, ready for dicta- Jours of the morning just after did not know how to spell them. in the stage directions for de-
She cast an imploring look at livery.
base on the whole Southern Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, sit-
Bolc The care which he took over Mediterranean-our
.ro. Mr Churchill always began
Mr Churchill made Inquiries ting In the next seat.
preparing bla speeches was maining foothold in all North But he never bears
by opening his special brown about the damage, then turn-
typical of the thoroughness with Africa. Once again it may leap coloured official box. One and is quick to respond to morning, when I brought it in, "Can I have a bath?"
ing to the hotel manager said:
which he tackled every job he suddenly to a leading place in
the Empire's defence," anything that tickles his sense I opened it for him.
taking
Mr undertook. down what of humour.
Churchol was saying. A few
No detalle lave seconds later the First Sea Lord "That box must be opened manager without batting an When, some time after be-
quietly slipped her a piece of only by me, Thompson," said coming-Promier-he-moved from Mr Churchill sharply..
oyolld. Arid-ho mobilised—all. his available staff, who carried paper on which he had spelled the No. 10 Annexe, he issued Then, seeing my look of up hot water from the kitchens the names of the two ships.
The secretary turned back her typescript to make the inser- After dinner Mr Churchill
tions.... but Winston misses might relax for an hour or so noiing.
film show, but ''more' often he went straight back, to "What's going on?” the growled. work. And this final session The truth came out, and so drome Mr Churchill turned to The most reasonable plan went on until early morning.. did some, cathing Churchillion Lord Haltiax, who had ac and the one that may well be
consideration--acema On some of these long night comments on her spelling ability, companied him throughout the under
him-"And if there are two ways of jourriey and consultations, and withdrawal of troops by stages, sessions he would drive
the spelling a ward, you'll choose aald: "We will have a Cabinet with their replacement by Br of and his secretary to limit of physical endurance, the wrong one," he added as a meeting at ten o'clock tonight." fish civilians to look after the
camps and installations. More than once one of his pri- general rider,
Shean- vate secretaries, Miss
the Admiralty to the rooms in
un order against whistling in surprise, he added: "It is all in pails, cans and jugat
the corridors.
And many a right. You were trying to help. time I have been given But you will know for
sharp order to dash out of his future."
room and warn some offender,
That was all right, But.
sometimes Winston's habit of
M
expecting members of the pub-.
Churchill .. would
tho
with
Fo
lle to conform to his ideas through his papera and dietate were a little disconcerting to unill. I p.m. If he needed to member of his stuff.
confer with the Service chiefs he would receive them in his One Sunday morning he was bedroom during the morning. sitting up
In bed working, when
the: sound .of louti Then he would rise and go burn, has been seated opposite whistling camo through the to the bathroom for a hot bath, him in the Cabinet room and windows from
the
When Mr Churchill was dient Horse argie, and nasal douche! He fallen asleep while waiting for Guards Parade. Mr Churchill would slave, with an electric The next burst of dictationing one of his famous speeches, sold to his secretary: "'Operi razor,
ho would dress only to wake in terror and the room was tense with drama. the Old Man in full spate. He not only composed, but bo rust the the window and tell that, man and bavo Junct
acted every Invy of them. to stop his rioldo("\/
After lunch. there would be But Viere were eccaalons And he was most Indignant more work for an hour or so when Winston Churchill was Bomotienda ho would start off of her obvious reluctance to until his afternoon stent was without now, pausing only interfere with an unknown Every day in the afternoon or Prime Minister and secretary at the end of the typed page to wumber of the pubilay on a datiy evening Mr Chatrahill set one on each side of the anap out How cuby?" That public hi KWEST
would go back to his bedroom, table, both with falden eyed meant he wins to know, the
come out And if I have given, the im- Presion that he drove his staff yet of our proposals for ovacuat- hard and he did he certainly ing the Suez Canal_in_order_de_ did not spare himself. Neither please Egypt. But we shall be were his colleagues allowed any cuicidal If we agree to anything that does not ensure (a) that we relief from the pace he set.
have the right to send troops I remember once, soon after back there in the event of war, he had become Prime Minister, and (b) that the bases are pro- he had taken a quick trip to perly maintained for us during consult with M. Reynaud.
As our absence, we returned do Hondon aero-
Lord Halifax answered, wearlly: "We have had rather a dong and tiring day, Winston, Cannot the Cabinet be held to marrow morning?",
“Oh, yes. All right," conceded Mr Churchill "We'll have the Cabinot at hail-past ten tonight instead,"pdf"
NEXT SATURDAY:
D
It will certainly take years to carry out the evacuation. But in proportion as it happens, ini- pbstance and rasponsibility will fall steadily, more heavily on our outer ring of defence-Jordan to the East, Cyprus to the North, and Tobruk to the West.
• Fortrom. Tobruk, by. Jan - Vindi. Hich, Ernest Bann, Lid, as ed.
How the Filmar Minister spent his time at Chequers en ¿World copyright reserved)
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