Interview with Dad about his time in the war

Recorded by Erris Thomson nee Gibbs

My Dad was born in the family house on Gibbs Hill, Houipapa, Catlins, South Otago on December 20, 1914. He was the youngest of 11 children and was named Malcolm Kitchener Gibbs. Later in his life Dad was more willing to talk about his time in the war. When he was younger he refused to relate any of his involvement in the war and wouldn’t march with his fellow soldiers on Anzac Day parades. These are notes I took while he talked and answered my many questions.

Timeline of Dad’s War:

At 24 years old Dad volunteered to go to war. The New Zealand Government called for volunteers to fight World War 2 against the Germans. He was at first disallowed because he had flat feet. However, after a strenuous uphill physical test Dad was deemed fit enough to be accepted as a soldier in the New Zealand Army. He said 13 October, 1939 was his lucky day. Dad and his brother Lothian (27 years old, Machine Gun Battalion), were recruited into Burnham Camp near Christchurch.

Dad came out of Burnham as a driver. He loved machinery and engines and had studied mechanics when he was in Dunedin. He got paid 7/6 a day. He kept 2/6 and banked the rest in New Zealand. His next of kin, sister May kept an eye on it.

He and Uncle Lothian were in the 2NZEF 1st Echelon. They left on the Sobiesky in a convoy of ships. The Dunera was very slow. They docked in Fremantle. They had to march to Perth. Two officers had a bet that their unit would get there first.

“I bet my unit will get there fresher than yours!” They marched 14 miles. It was so hot!

The convoy continued across the Indian Ocean and stopped at Colombo, Ceylon. Uncle Lothian and Dad had good wins at cards on the boat and each bought wooden black elephants in Colombo. The convoy sailed on to the Suez Canal, Port Suez, Port Said and then to Alexandria in Egypt.

Egypt

In Egypt they went to Maadi Camp in February 1940. The camp was still being built. They had to dig in and make their own camp. There were 6 men to a tent. Later they had huts.

Dad was in 2 Supply Company which was part of the Army Service Corp and Transport Division as a driver. While on service he saw the sphinx and pyramids. He ate baked beans and herrings in tomato sauce. As a result of this he hated baked beans!!

Dad became a corporal on 4-7-1941 and was issued with a Royal Enfield motorbike – 2&3/4 hp. It had no springs except in the seat! He was ordered to take a message from one end of the convoy to the other. The convoy was travelling at 30mph with dozens of trucks well apart to guard against strafing. He travelled on tar sealed roads which were wavy with the heat. He had to go at 60mph to get past the convoy. He was in the air most of the time from hump to hump – really hard on the back!!!

Greece

The Company went by boat from Egypt to Greece. On 7-4-1941 they joined with the 2nd NZEF at Alexandria. Trucks and artillery went too. They fought the Germans in Albania on way to Greece. The whole division was ordered to fight in Greece. Supply Division Transport had to feed the troops while they were fighting.

They were stationed at Katerini, a city in Central Macedonia, Greece. It was between Mt. Olympus and the Thermaikos Gulf. While they were there, one day someone called out,

“There goes 27 Machine Gun Battalion going by now”. Dad raced to the road and saw the first truck with Lothian in it – a real thrill to see him.

They were strafed from the air by a Messerschmitt 109. Dad fled from his truck to the hills. He found an old ruined mud hut and lay there and watched he bombs coming straight for him. It was a terrifying experience having them go over him!!! They had to destroy the Bedford in Greece. He was ordered to take a pick axe to the tyres but they bounced off! So they removed the rotor arm, drained the oil and turned the engine on full scream till it seized. It was a real heartbreak for Dad.

The Germans forced the Allies off Greece. The troops were taken by boat either to Crete or back to Egypt – it was luck of the draw. Lothian went to Egypt and Dad went to a Crete on 28-4-1941.

Crete

Dad landed on Crete in Suda Bay. The harbour was full of half sunken boats!! Supply Division was together. They had no trucks so were now infantry soldiers. Dad was No. 2 on a bren gun. It was a light machine gun which Dad fed 303 ammo into. (Lothian was on a Vickers gun – water cooled and belt fed).

The Cretans had already dug trenches in the hills for the Allied troops to fight from. His partner Jerry Cox, was firing the gun at the oncoming German soldiers when he was hit between the eyes and killed instantly.  Dad took over the Bren gun and continued firing until he was winged by the Germans. He disabled the gun and took off for his life through the olive orchard. He said he felt like a rabbit fleeing. (Dad was wounded on Murray Hill, May 25th, 1941).

He ran through the orchard and blackberries and made it to Galatas where he gave his rifle to a chap. He found himself in a shack. Inside there were wounded soldiers on stretchers. A Tommy chap found Dad on the verandah. “What thee doing there? Thee can’t stay there. Thee come with me”. He was given a cup of cocoa and a stretcher – he said it was “Heaven on Earth”.

Then Dad can’t remember. ......

Next he remembers he’s in a disused factory. He was lying on the floor with about 30 others. He was exhausted. Dad had a tin of Times tobacco so he handed it round for each man to roll his own smoke.

There was enough for Dad to have one at the end! “I was one of those men,” Harry Bretherton, a fellow Four Square director, told Dad at some stage later in his life.

Men from Cleavy’s Hospital came and collected them. Outside the factory was a huge unexploded bomb with its tail stuck up in the air!! There was no room in the hospital so they stayed outside under the olive trees. One guy had no cheek on his backside!! They were asked, “Who can walk 14 miles?” “I can”, Dad replied. They were the walking wounded. Dad had no idea how they got food.

The sergeant in charge knew where he was going but nobody else did!! They walked at night and holed up in the day. The first night there was no sergeant!! Dad decided to take off on his own, or found that he was on his own. He was on a road which he followed to the top of a big ravine. There were burnt out trucks and dead bodies. He went down into the ravine and found a tin of jam, a packet of biscuits and ate a couple and left the rest for someone else. He carried on down the ravine.

He met a bloke getting water from a well. “Any Kiwis round here?”,

“Yes, there down in a cave”.

It was an evacuation party. He found Wattie Bainbridge (later of Lane Latimers in Dunedin) in charge of the party. They were on the south coast of Crete at Sfakia. The evacuation party was taken off Crete by the Australian battle cruiser, Perth on 30-5-1941. The troops were taken by lighters/landing craft out to ladders hanging from the side of the cruiser. At the time Dad didn’t realise it was the Perth’s last time to leave from Crete. On reflection Dad felt he was led to safety by ‘someone’.

On board the Perth Dad met Doug Fairburn from Dunedin. He was the only chap he knew. They were given fresh bread and hot cocoa - wow! The troops were locked into the corridors/passageways and lay on the floor exhausted. As the big naval guns fired above them they watched the paint flaking off the ceiling! Dad hated being locked in. He would have far preferred to be on deck coping with the gunfire. They heard messages - Air raid yellow/Prepare to attack and Air raid red/Attack.

Lord Haw Haw (A nickname given to the Irish-American William Joyce, who broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain from Germany during the Second World War) was determined to get the Perth. “The Germans are almighty. Give up, your fight is useless”.

They found out later that the Perth had been hit by an oil bomb but the incendiary bomb went over the side!! The Perth took the troops back to Alexandria.

Back to the Desert

This meant Dad was back to the desert, driving trucks in the fight against the German advance. Tobruk was held by the Aussies but surrounded by the German army. Aussies would burst out and then be squeezed back again. New Zealanders had to give Aussies supplies. Dad became a sergeant on 1-8-1941. In November, 1941 word was sent to Supply Division that the New Zealanders had created a corridor in German defence for supplies to get through. 

The long convoy stopped and started for cover on its journey during the night. At one stage Dad, by then a sergeant was stopped. He raced up to the trucks ahead and found the driver asleep at the wheel and rest of the convoy nowhere in sight! Dad and no one else knew how to get the rest of the convoy through the corridor as they had not been told where to go!

Dad asked Captain Roberts and he was told to carry on so Dad had to lead the convoy.....with no lights!!!! There were tank traps all round them!! They met Aussie tanks blocking the way. “Go that way”, he was told by someone pointing into the dark!! Dad carried on with troops/convoy following. They met 1st Lieutenant Latimer and his bat man and asked them where to go. They didn’t know but while Dad was talking he kicked the sand and found a tape on the ground. He told Latimer and from the back seat someone said that a tape was mentioned in the message. First Dad knew about it!!! Latimer and his batman tried following the tape in their car but kept losing it in the dark.

Dad decided to lift the tape up and run with it. He ran in the sand at 4 mph to keep the convoy moving steadily. Dad was absolutely fagged out. Someone offered to take over to give Dad a rest and then it was done in turns. Just as dawn broke the tail end of the convoy was bombed but most of the troops and supplies made it into Tobruk.

Truck driving in Syria

Dad was sent to Syria to guard the oil pipeline from Turkey to Haifa in Syria. He was stationed at Balbek, in Syria near Beirut. He was trained for truck driving in the desert on Diamond T’s. The Tommies trained Dad to drive these big American trucks. They were very heavy duty vehicles with 16 forward gears and 70 ton with a Sherman tank on the back.

“When you’re driving a Diamond T, you’re the king of the road. You give way to no buggar!”

At some stage in the war Stuart Duke and Dad took 2 weeks leave in Palestine. They went to Jerusalem, Galilee, the Dead Sea, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Holy Sepulchre, and more places. Stuart swam in the Dead Sea. Friends tried to teach Dad to swim in the Mediterranean Sea off Marsa Matruh. They took him out to deep water and said, “Swim you bastard”. Dad couldn’t swim but they always rescued him. The water was very deep and ships were able to come right up to the edge of the land.

Tub Taylor and Dad, both sergeants, carted supplies to Marsa Matruh near the Libyan border. They would set up forward supply depots of fuel and food and left them camouflaged.

They drove Bedford (British) 3 tonners – semi-forward control. They delivered a load of fresh meat to an English colonel in charge of the Indians. The colonel was so pleased with the meat that he shouted Dad and his men some rum from jars under the table in the middle of his tent. It was real brown, dark rum. Dad hated it. He and his men were politely supping it when the colonel showed them how to drink it.

“You don’t know how to drink that stuff!” He skulled the whole lot down followed by a tremendous shudder. “This stuff is not good, but then it’s not bad!!”

Officer training in Palestine

In 1942, while Dad was in the desert he was sent to Palestine to train for a commission. Everyone there had to take a turn at being sergeant major. A tall, rough, red-headed Aussie was out the front. “Attention!!” and his top teeth shot out in front of him. He just bent down, scooped them up, popped them back in, gravel and all and carried on giving orders!!

Dad was decorated for his bravery in Crete while he was in Palestine. This is General Freyberg shaking his hand.

On a second occasion when Winston Churchill visited the desert Dad was called up to meet him.

“Have you got a clean kit Gibbs?” He travelled by himself in the back of a German jeep. He was more in air than on his seat! It was a very fast trip as he had to get to the ceremony quickly. Churchill came to El Alamein in north-western Egypt to acknowledge bravery. The soldiers stood in a row on the sand on a ridge.

Churchill shook Dad’s hand and asked, “Where did you get your decoration?”

“In Crete”.  “Crete, humph!”. Then he walked on down the line.

He was put in charge of the 18th Tank Transporter Unit. He has his cap on in the front row.

Dad had to carry building material and machinery to build an aerodrome at Ben Gazi so that the U.S. Air Force could bomb Italy. He was in charge of 9 Federal diesel 18 tonners.

From Tobruk the Tank Transporter Unit moved ack ack/anti-aircraft guns to Ben Gazi.

Then he would have to retrieve disabled army tanks to the Tobruk railhead to get the tanks to the workshops.

Back to Maadi Camp

Not long after, Dad was ordered back to Maadi Camp. He was only a short time in tank Transport before going in to Helwan Hospital in Cairo with a large growth on his hip. This growth had been there for months. It was a lipomo growth which is a benign tumour. It was surgically removed. While he was in hospital Dad just slept and ate for weeks. When he was coming out of the anaesthetic he thought he was being nailed to the back of the tank carrying trucks. It was just like the pieces of wood which were nailed on to stop the disabled tanks from falling off. 

Dad was diagnosed with anxiety neurosis and sent home to New Zealand from Port Suez on the hospital ship Maunganui in October, 1943.

Hospital Ship, Maunganui

Dad became good friends with Aussie Pilot Officer Greer in Helwan Hospital. They came home to New Zealand on the Maunganui, the hospital ship. It was a lovely smooth trip and the food and company was great. They slept in swing beds/bunks. There was no trouble eating as Dad never felt sick. Officers, sisters and matron always ate at the Captain’s table. They had to have impeccable manners. One day Dad ordered ‘Blue Cod de Beurre’ from the menu. Dad got the fin end. He was delicately holding the fish and his knife slipped and the butter sauce sloshed up onto Greer’s face!! Well, they both had trouble holding back their laughter! Dad had saveloys one night - a luxury!

The Maunganui sailed to Wellington first, and then on to Lyttleton. They had leave for a day in Wellington so Dad visited someone. At night they set sail for Lyttleton. It was a very rough trip. The green water was above the porthole!! Fortunately Dad was not seasick. They travelled to Dunedin by train. Mum and May raced each other to greet Dad on the platform.

As a result of his time in the war, Dad had post-traumatic stress disorder. He never complained or talked about his time in the army until he was much, much older. He felt he didn’t deserve his award as he was part of a team of men who all deserved awards for their bravery.

Awards for Gallantry OFFICERS AND MEN OF THE N.Z.E.F. as published in the Otago Evening Post, 20-9-1941.

Driver Gibbs, like Corporal Weir, Warrant Officer Tasker, and Lance Sergeant Elliott, gave a shining example of the courage shown in Crete by non-infantrymen who were given infantry jobs'. Driver Gibbs is a A.S.C. driver, but he and Jerry Cox, a comrade became a light machine-gun team. For six days they handled the gun with skill and determination, inflicting a heavy toll on the enemy. Then on May 25 his team mate died. Driver Gibbs kept the gun in action under intense accurate rifle, machine-gun, and mortar fire till ordered to withdraw, but even then covered his retiring platoon doggedly and effectively and only made his way towards the rear when the enemy forced him back with hand-grenades. The citation says he was outstanding for coolness, courage, and efficiency. The beneficial influence on his comrades could not be overlooked. He was wounded in the left arm.