Alan Whicker - Whicker’s War and Journey of a Lifetime

On our first battle outside Tunis, some Churchills suffered the mechanical problems they inherited from the original 100 Churchills remaining in the Army after Dunkirk, and broke down. The day did not go well.

You don’t remember events too clearly, after a battle. It’s all too fast and fierce and frightening – but I do recall seeing Radford going forward clinging on to the back of a tank, as though riding a stallion into the fray.

Being on the outside looking in, is never a wise position in war. Nevertheless after a busy day on Tunisian hillsides, we both found ourselves on the lower slopes of Longstop Hill when the final attack was called off. I was mightily relieved to see him again, exhausted but in good shape.

Next day the Commanding Officer drew me aside. He was a smiling Quorn countryman who would have been happier riding to hounds. Our enthusiasm, he said, had been ‘a good show’. That was a relief, since I gathered we had been seen as a bit long-haired and effete. At least the Regiment’s worst suspicions had not been confirmed … To be complimented by a CO of such style and panache was accolade enough; then he added that when life calmed down he was going to put us both in for gongs. That seemed a satisfactory way for a Film Unit to start its war and a reminder that we were not there to take pictures of parades.

When the battle for Tunis resumed next dawn German gunners concentrated upon our lead tank. The CO was the first man to be killed.

The elusive quality of battlefield behaviour is well-known: bravery unnoticed, medals unawarded … because no one was there to see. Yet Radford’s behaviour in the face of the enemy had been seen by a senior officer who, when we had asked permission to join his tanks, thought we might be a nuisance. At least on our first day in battle we had not let down that most gallant gentleman.

Yet in truth, we were not in the hero business. Our CO regularly reminded us that no ephemeral picture was worth a death or an injury. This did not stop the braver cameramen risking their lives. (The General who led the British forces in a later war in the Gulf, Sir Peter de la Billiere, has reminded us, ‘The word “hero” has become devalued. Nowadays it’s applied to footballers and film stars, which does a disservice to people who have risked their lives for others.’)

So we covered the slow advance through Tunisia. It was our first experience of fighting alongside the Americans. Totally unblooded, they were quite unequal even to General Rommel’s beaten army at Kairouan and the Kasserine Pass, suffering 6,000 battle casualties and a demoralizing major defeat in their first engagement of the war. The Germans were amazed at the quantity and quality of the US equipment they captured intact.

In April ’43, after observing the battle for Tunisia, the Allied Commander, General Sir Harold Alexander, found the US troops ‘soft, green and quite untrained’. He reported to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke: ‘There are millions of them elsewhere who must be living in a fool’s paradise. If this handful of divisions here are their best, the value of the rest may be imagined.’

Anglo-American relations became even more strained following a brusque signal from the Allied Tactical Air Commander, Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, to Lieutenant General George S. Patton Jr, concerning close air support. It told the pugnacious American that his II Corps was not battle-worthy. That did it.

The Allied Air Commander-in-Chief Sir Arthur Tedder averted a major crisis by sending Coningham to apologize personally to Patton, however accurate his assessment. I have never been able to discover details of that interesting meeting. At AFHQ the incident was seen as so serious that the Allied Commander-in-Chief General Eisenhower prepared to resign.

Relations could only get better, as indicated by the later effective emergence of the explosive Patton, pearl-handled revolvers, polished helmet and all – hence ‘Gorgeous George’. This aggressive cavalryman became the Allies’ most effective commander of armoured formations.

After their victory at Kairouan the German advance threatened AFPU’s new billet at Sedjenane. This was in the local brothel – by then out of action. Its only remaining attraction was a fine double bed, and when our cameramen joined the US Army in their tactical withdrawal they were anxious to retain this newfound luxury with its comforting peacetime aura. Unfortunately AFPU’s available transport by then was one motorcycle.

The local Arab population was impressed, and a solemn procession carried the bed along the only street to a safer billet – which next day was destroyed by an enemy shell. This however was a hardy bed which had obviously seen a lot of action; it survived and was moved yet again into the safest place around: a deep mine.

When the German advance continued the bed had to be sacrificed as a spoil of war. Later Sedjenane was recaptured – and there stood the long-suffering AFPU double bed, none the worse for recent German occupation apart from a slight green mould. Yet somehow its erotic appeal had diminished …

Tunis was the first major city to be liberated by the Allies during the war, the first streets full of deliriously happy people when men proffered hoarded champagne and pretty girls their all – a scene to be repeated many times in the freed cities of Europe. The crowd around us in the Avenue Jules Ferry was so jammed and ecstatic we could not move. I was standing on the bonnet of my car filming laughing faces and toasting ‘Vive la France’ when I saw Sidney Bernstein, even then a cinema mogul. He had arrived from the Ministry of Information bringing In Which We Serve and other gallant war films to show the liberated people, and now faced a different sort of film fan: ‘How do I get the French out of my car?’ he grumbled.

One of my cameramen apologised in his dope sheet for the quality of his pictures: ‘I have been kissed so many times by both women and men that it really is difficult to concentrate …’ War can be hell.

On May 12, ’43, the enemy armies in Africa capitulated; 250,415 Germans and Italians laid down their arms at Cap Bon. General von Arnim surrendered to a Lieutenant Colonel of the Gurkhas, explaining that his officers were ‘most anxious’ to surrender only to the British. We took pictures of thousands of Afrika Korpsmen driving themselves happily into captivity past one of their oompah-pah brass bands playing ‘Roll out the barrel’ inside a crowded prison cage.

For a Victory celebration at a time when the British Army was noticeably short of victories, Prime Minister Churchill flew into El Aouina airport outside Tunis and drove straight to the first Roman amphitheatre at Carthage to congratulate his First Army, then preparing for its next target – presumably Italy.

To cover this historic celebration we posted photographers all over the amphitheatre. Captain Harry Rignold, our most experienced cameraman, was up on the top tier with our lone Newman Sinclair camera and the unit’s pride: a 17-inch telephoto lens. We also needed close-up stills of Churchill, so I was sitting on the large rocks right in front of the stage – in the orchestra stalls – feeling rather exposed before that military mass. Indeed the task proved more difficult than expected.

In the brilliant African sun Churchill climbed on stage and with hands dug into pockets in his best bulldog style, faced 3,000 of his troops. Next to him stood the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and the ultimate red-tabs: General Sir Alan Brooke, CIGS, with the victorious First Army Commander, Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson. Their only prop was a small wooden table covered by a Union Jack. It was not Riefenstahl’s stage-managed Nuremberg and would win no awards, but it was at least naturally splendid.