Operation Compass: Snapshots of War
By Victor Gregg and Rick Stroud
()
About this ebook
The Western Desert Force, composed of around 30,000 men from British and other Commonwealth forces, advanced from Mersa Matruh on a five-day raid against the Italian positions of the 10th Army. Operation Compass continued long beyond its original limitations in order to exploit British success.
Victor Gregg takes us behind the scenes of this unforgiving terrain, to the sangars rather than the trenches, in an astonishing first-hand account of warfare. Through tender friendships and tea runs, devastating news from home and visible enemies on the horizon, Gregg goes beyond the graphic descriptions of injuries and front-line action to show the psychological impact of daily life both on and off the battlefield.
Victor Gregg
Victor Gregg was born in London in 1919 and joined the army in 1937, serving first in the Rifle Brigade in Palestine and North Africa, notably at the Battle of Alamein, and then with the Parachute Regiment, at the Battle of Arnhem. As a prisoner of war he survived the bombing of Dresden to be repatriated in 1946. The story of his adult years, Rifleman, was published by Bloomsbury in 2011, the prequel, King's Cross Kid, in 2013 and the final part of his trilogy, Soldier, Spy: A Survivor's Tale, in 2016; all were co-written with Rick Stroud. Victor Gregg died in 2021, aged 102.
Read more from Victor Gregg
Dresden: A Survivor's Story, February 1945 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Second Battle of El Alamein: Snapshots of War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRifleman - New edition: A Frontline Life from the Battles of Alamein and Arnhem to the Bombing of Dresden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBattle of Arnhem: Snapshots of War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing's Cross Kid: A London Childhood between the Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoldier, Spy: A Survivor's Tale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Operation Compass
Related ebooks
Take These Men: Tank Warfare with the Desert Rats Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Watch: A Record In Action Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe D-Day Atlas: A Graphical Reconstruction of the Normandy Campaign Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEl Alamein 1942 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrom Tobruk to Tunis: The impact of terrain on British operations and doctrine in North Africa, 1940-1943 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's Panzers: The Complete History 1933–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOperation C3: Hitler’s Plan to Invade Malta 1942 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pug – Churchill's Chief of Staff: The Life of General Hastings Ismay KG GCB CH DSO PS, 1887–1965 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTanks on the Somme: From Morval to Beaumont Hamel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The First Bridge Too Far: The Battle of Primosole Bridge 1943 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFighting with the Fourteenth Army in Burma: Original War Summaries of the Battle Against Japan 1943–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGully Ravine: Gallipoli Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Torpedo Bombers Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Operation Bluecoat: Normandy - British 3rd Infantry Division - 27th Armoured Brigade Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Your Country Needs You: Expansion of the British Army Infantry Divisions, 1914–1918 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTobruk Commando: The Raid to Destroy Rommel's Base Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Freely I Served: The Memoir of the Commander, 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade 1941–1944 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5El Alamein 1942: Turning Point in the Desert Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Desert War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battles of French Flanders: Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, Festubert, Loos and Fromelles Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eighth Army in Italy, 1943-45: The Long Hard Slog Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRules of War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Generals of the Ardennes: American Leadership in the Battle of the Bulge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarrogate Terriers: The 1/5th (Territorial) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment in the Great War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWeymouth, Dorchester & Portland in the Great War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWith Recce at Arnhem: The Recollections of Trooper Des Evans, a 1st Airborne Division Veteran Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNight & Day Bomber Offensive: Allied Airmen in Europe in World World II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusting The Bocage: American Combined Arms Operations In France, 6 June-31 July 1944 [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAction in the East Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Personal Memoirs For You
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stash: My Life in Hiding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mediocre Monk: A Stumbling Search for Answers in a Forest Monastery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Choice: Embrace the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Operation Compass
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Operation Compass - Victor Gregg
Operation Compass
Snapshots of War
Victor Gregg with Rick Stroud
Contents
Author’s Note
Operation Compass
Afterword
A Note on the Authors
Author’s Note
I am a Rifleman, and the series of stories that I am calling ‘Snapshots’ are all true. I have tried to describe what it is like to fight a war, living and not knowing from one day to the next when your last breath will be drawn.
The people I have written about were real men, my comrades. I hope that what I have written will help you feel their pain, bewilderment, frustrations and exultations.
I want you to travel the road alongside these men, some of whom were destined to be buried in a foreign field, while others survived to live a life of mental torture after the storms of battles have receded into the history books. This is a soldier’s tale.
Victor Gregg, veteran of the Rifle Brigade and 10th Parachute Regiment
Operation Compass
The First Victory
Egypt, 1940
The Second World War was a mobile war. Unlike the troops of the First World War, the war we were fighting was one of movement. Armoured forces could travel up to fifty or sixty miles in a day’s fighting. But, though tanks can break through a defensive position they cannot capture it – this has to be the job of the infantry, and once in position we have to stand and fight, hold out position and then, we hope, advance.
We had been ordered to a new position on the road that joins Benghazi to Tripoli. While we were moving, a couple of Italian CR.42s (a light, twin-winged aircraft) chanced upon our by now straggling force and proceeded to distribute baskets of their peculiar brand of hand grenades – we called these Thermos bottles because that’s what they looked like. They didn’t explode when dropped but exploded upon any subsequent handling. Filled with small metal pellets they could cause considerable damage to any human within their twenty foot range.
It was a tired and weary force that eventually reached the point on the road that was our destination, and the order came to dismount from the trucks, unload the gear, all transport to the rear and start digging in.
We learnt that the whole Italian Army had come to a halt at Benghazi but was