GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY However:
‘The German advance struck deep into the soft ‘under-belly’ of 7th Armoured Division, which was as unprepared for the attack as incapable of resistance. In 5th S.A. Infantry Brigade a single troop of 18-pounder anti-tank guns mounted guard over the vast mass of vehicles which stretched southwards across the desert. The rumour of the approach of the panzers caused ‘tremendous confusion’ in the B Echelon before ever they arrived, and transport scattered in all directions. Many vehicles fled into the desert, others crowded for protection round Brigade Headquarters away to the north.’
And:
‘The course of the battle brought the panzers into the area occupied by Brigade Headquarters. News of the German assault had been reported to Brigade, and Brigadier Armstrong had sent Lieutenant Nellmapius of the South African Engineers to ask 26th New Zealand Battalion for anti-tank support but, as the Brigade Intelligence Officer, Captain Tasker, wrote a few weeks later:
‘The first intimation that Brigade Headquarters had of the nearness of the German tanks was when one officer, peering round the wheel of the control vehicle where he was crouched with the telephone, saw the tanks about 300 yards away. Slowly, like monstrous black beetles, they advanced, spouting fire and smoke. The knowledge came as a thunderbolt from the blue. Inconceivable. But there they were, collecting prisoners as they lumbered on ... The tanks moved straight through Brigade Headquarters before splitting in two ... The Brigade Headquarters staff was captured at about 1615 hours.’
Brigadier Armstrong left his armoured car as the tanks approached, and in his scarlet hat and gorget patches was picked up by a German tank, which then plunged on into the battle. The Brigade Major and the Brigade Intelligence Officer and the Signals Officer concealed themselves beneath the command vehicle, but were driven out when it caught alight above them from a stray tracer bullet and blazed merrily. They too were taken ... meanwhile the German tanks pushed through and made contact with the infantry of 21st Panzer Division, on what some of them recorded as Point 175 and some as the Sidi Rezeg escarpment, but which was, pretty certainly, the ‘third escarpment’ of Point 178. The early winter's night descended rapidly, and all that was left of 5th S.A. Brigade on the field of battles consisted of little groups of bewildered and disconsolate prisoners who huddled together neglected, while German staff officers wrestled to discover what had happened, and dispatch riders bounced backwards and forwards among the wreckage, guided by frequent flares and the light of trucks of burning ammunition.’
5th Brigade had gone into battle 5,700 strong, but when the survivors were assembled at Mersa Matruh they numbered 2,306 - 224 had been killed and 379 wounded, the reminder being taken P.O.W.
Escape from the Castello Vincigliata
Armstrong somehow survived his sojourn as a passenger in an enemy tank and was eventually incarcerated in a P.O.W. camp in Italy. No ordinary camp either, in fact the medieval castle of Vincigliata, designated P.G. 12 and formerly the property of an Englishman, John Temple-Leader (1810-1903). The latter restored the castle to its former glory, much to the chagrin of the senior British and Commonwealth officers who were to be held there in the War, for he blocked off all of the ancient tunnels that once served as a means of escape.
Armstrong’s fellow ‘guests’ were
V.I.Ps in every sense, their ranks numbering the likes of Lieutenant-Generals Richard O’Connor and Philip Neame and that irrepressible old warrior, Major-General Adrian Carton de Wiart, V.C. In his highly entertaining autobiography, Happy Odyssey, the latter wrote, ‘We learned that Vincigliata had belonged to an Englishman, a man called Temple-Leader. We considered he had restored the castello in the most thoughtless fashion, giving all his attention to what went on above ground, and regardless of many underground passages that he had sealed up. He made things very difficult for us.’
As it transpired, Sir Adrian finally found a way out of the castle in March 1943, disguised as an Italian peasant, no mean feat for the one-eyed, one-armed veteran, and he enjoyed several weeks on the run before being recaptured.
Armstrong, who fellow internee Flight Lieutenant John Leeming later described as ‘a jolly soul, who seemed quite undisturbed by prison life in Vincigliata’, also made a bid for freedom, at the time of the Italian Armistice in September 1943. His bid proved to be successful, he and his companions walking over the Apennines and down into Romagna, guided by a Benedictine monk, Don Leone. One of his fellow escapers - 2nd Lieutenant the Earl of Ranfurly, - noted however that ‘it was a terrible climb for Brigadier Armstrong who had a game leg. There was not enough food in the village, so we dispersed in small parties over a district of ten miles.’ Notwithstanding his game leg, the Brigadier duly reached Allied lines.
Back in South Africa by August 1944, he was appointed O.C. Witwatersrand Command.
His final wartime appointment was as C.O. Cape Fortress from July 1945, and, in the rank of Major-General, he subsequently acted as Head of the South African Military Mission to Germany 1946-48. He was finally placed on the Reserve of Officers in January 1950, having in the interim been Acting Chief of General Staff in the summer of 1949.
Armstrong died in 1972; sold with extensive copied research.
www.dnw.co.uk
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