Stirring account of 2 pdr portees in desert, 1941

Josephs_Piano · February 24, 2016

This link is to an account of the action of L Troop, 33rd Battery, 7th New Zealand Anti-Tank Regiment in Libya, 23 November 1941. The Troop initially had 4 2 pdr AT guns portee, and fought them en portee (ie from the back of the trucks)on this day - they had trained for this although it was not standard practice.

The account of the action starts about 2/3rds down the page - after the pictures - the first part "sets the scene"

Of particular interest to me weer:

1/ the different number of hits required to KO a tank - field guns would do ko with 1 hit - the 2 pdrs are said to require "2 or 3 or 4"

As the range closed, the tracer showed hit after hit on the enemy tanks. On the right the field gunners worked like men possessed, firing armour-piercing shot over open sights. They could not match the high rate of fire of the two-pounders, with their semi-automatic breech and light, easily handled ammunition, but one hit with the 25-pound shell was almost always sufficient to disable a tank, while two, three, and even four good shots were often needed from the lighter weapons.

2/ the lack of return HE fire from the tanks - the casualties and KO'd portees were inflicted by 50mm AP shot - one of which was bought home by the man wounded by it!

One of their first shots, a 50-millimetre armour-piercing shell, crashed through the lower left side of L1, disabled the gun, smashed the left foot and ankle of the gun-layer, Gunner Andy Graham¹¹ and came to rest on the deck of the portée. (The crew kept this shot, and when Graham went back to New Zealand it was his most cherished souvenir.)

As its portée backed again towards the enemy another German 50-millimetre shell found a mark. It pierced the left side of the shield, miraculously missing both Sergeant Unverricht and the layer, Bombardier C. J. Smith¹², went on through the cab of the portée, mortally wounding the driver, Gunner F. D. Nicholson¹³, PAGE 26and finished by striking the top of the engine and putting the vehicle out of action.

3/ use of 2 pdr vs "soft" targets including mortar teams........presumably with solid shot.......but with some effect despite the lack of HE!! -

At extreme range and beyond, they engaged every party of enemy infantry they could see as they left their lorries, and several times the two-pounder shells prevented mortars from coming into action and scattered their crews. Many bursts of flame showed hits.

4/ careful command and fire control went out the window quickly - commanders didn't carry out the formal process of picking targets, advising their gunners of range, lead, etc and told them to just pick targets from what was visible through their telescopes!

‘Pick your own target through the telescope, Frank,’ said Sergeant Peter Robertson, of L2, to his gun-layer, Bombardier F. C. Barker¹⁴. Almost at the same time, a similar understanding was reached between Sergeant ‘Chum’ Croft of L4 and his layer, Gunner A. B. Gordon¹⁵.