One Man's War: Operation Compass (Part 2)
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How did Sam Bradshaw’s journey from Liverpool to Egypt begin?
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It felt like a grand adventure. One of the things was you made an immediate circle of friends and I had one or two fellows from Cosby who worked at the post office, and when I joined the TA, twelve of them joined, so out of those there was about three of them with me. We stayed one night in Valletta, and in the morning we arrived at Alexandria, and it was then we realized we were in Egypt. We could see
See the fezes and so on. We collected our kit and marched off the ship. My first impression was of the military
police because as we came down the gangplank there were MPs on each side of the gangplank. Their eyes were strange with webs under them, even though they were only young men, and they seemed to be staring at nothing, and their eyebrows were all scorched. We got on a train and set off.
We didn't know it then, but we were going to Cairo. The Royal Armored Corps Depot, and we were part of the RAC, which in Cairo was at a place called Abassia, so Saturday midday we arrived at Abassia. The train went straight into the garrison, and we saw people standing in tank uniform at the side of the train. And there were people who we knew had gone in before us. So they said, You've made a big mistake. We were still in battle dress and we were very, very hot. In those days the battle dress was all hook and eye, and was all hooked up to the neck. You couldn't wear a collar and tie. They herded us into the dining room, and my first impression was that it was comp at complete odds with England. When we came to the dining room you had to take your berry off, fold it up, wash your hands.
We didn't cue up with the mess tins as we had before. You had to sit at tables, with tablecloths and flowers, and you were waiting on the On by Sudanese waiters, who wore these white jackets and a fez, and the colours of the regiment, which looked like a girdle, and they brought the food to you. Halfway through the meal, a very elegant officer came to the table and asked us if we had any complaints. I thought, what a different life this is. And that was, of course, Sam Bradshaw, um describing his passage to Africa, Jim. What what a what an adventure. Yeah. Leaving England. Oh amazing, isn't it? Finding himself in Egypt, quite extraordinary, and a and a world away from the barracks five hundred yards from his front door in Liverpool.
And this of course is the bit that we were talking about in the uh in the opening quote that you read out, Al.
Yeah. Yeah. These waiters. It's extraordinary. Well, welcome to episode two of our um We Have Ways of Make You Talk uh series about One Man's War, about Sam Bradshaw. And in our first episode, we looked at Sam's uh Literally four days of his war. I mean that was it. Yeah, a shocking experience is um as part of Operation Crusader when the battlegroup six RTR, along with Second Rifle Brigade and uh some horse artillery, were sent to uh engage or well, to to try and do something about the German presence between them and Tobruk. The Germans got the jump on them, basically, and we saw the consequences of the weapons gap. map that exists in the desert at this point of the war, where the Germans have anti-tank weapons either on tanks or just mounted stuff, that they can deal with the British armor at a distance where the British armor has no reply.
And Yep. The consequences were that in Sam's squadron, three tanks um uh at one point out of nineteen survived. And then as he went hull down, he was then knocked out himself as well. And we saw Sam's shocking Odyssey back to the rear in order to be treated for his injuries, badly wounded in his leg. A man bleeds out in him in the ambulance uh as they're lost in the desert with a major with a missing arm. I mean, it's just I I think we we we we said this in the
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Sam Bradshaw’s journey from Liverpool to Egypt begin?
0:02–6:34
2
What was life like for Sam and his comrades during early desert training?
6:34–11:22
3
How did the British armoured units cope with the harsh desert environment?
11:22–16:01
4
What tactical challenges did the Italians pose on the Libya‑Egypt border?
16:01–19:23
5
How did Operation Compass achieve its surprise‑attack success?
19:23–24:06
6
Why did Sam feel the early victories of Compass were too easy?
24:06–27:59
7
What role did the 4th Indian Division and 7th Tank Regiment play in the Sidi Barani assault?
27:59–33:05
8
How did Sam’s wartime experiences shape his view of the broader North‑African campaign?
33:05–37:03