Sgt Brian Cox, centre with his gun and crew at Sidi Rezegh. Rear, left and right, are Rogers and Black; front from left are Woolf, Daly and Hambling.

Understanding Brian’s War

By Peter Cox

The track turned to the right and rose up the Sidi Rezegh escarpment. There in front of me was “the mosque” (the tomb of an Arab holy man), photos of which feature in so many 2nd New Expeditionary Force (2NZEF) unit war histories.

I walked around the ridge trying to imagine what it must have been like to fight a determined enemy in such a barren, exposed landscape. The grainy black-and-white photos of the war histories came to life as little has changed.

“What did your father do in the war?” - was a simple enough question from my son one ANZAC Day, but it had brought me to this place in the Libyan desert, where New Zealanders fought Germans and Italians in a desperate battle in November 1941.

That question started me off on researching and writing the World War II history of 7442 Sergeant Brian V Cox, my Father, a member of Nine Platoon, No3 Company 27 (Machine Gun) Battalion, 2NZEF. I must say a task made much easier with help and guidance from 9Pl veterans Phil Hammond and John Black.

Brian died 30 years ago. Like so many returned men he rarely spoke of the War. He enlisted in 1939 went away with the First Echelon in January 1940 and did not come home until 1943.

Recently my wife and I retraced his steps overseas and visited places central to his wartime experiences. The 1941 Greek Campaign and the battle at Sidi Rezegh stood out. Equipped with Brian’s diaries and photographs we travelled to Cairo, before heading via Alexandria to El Alamein. We visited the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery there and placed an RSA poppy on the grave of Robin Howell, 9Pl’s first commander, and on other Kiwi graves. At the war museum it was fascinating to see a German map showing troop dispositions during the NZ attack at Sidi Rezegh on 23 November 1941, in which Brian took part. The continuing presence of landmines made impossible visiting that part of the El Alamein battlefield where Brian was in 1942. From Alamein the journey west took us through the desert towns that saw so much fighting: El Daaba, Mersa Matruh, Sidi Barrani and Sollum, to Tobruk.

Peter Cox stands by the Sidi Rezegh “mosque”, looking much as it did when bitter battle swirled around it a lifetime ago.

Heading inland 25km to Sidi Rezegh, signs of the battlefield emerged along the track. Concrete Italian defensive positions and, across the desert, the remains of gun emplacements and sangars. All were largely intact and, apart from the effect of drifting sand, looked as if they had been abandoned just yesterday. Coiled barbed wire fences littered the landscape, some being used by the Bedouin to corral their camels. Others, we suspected, indicated the presence of landmines.

“Down the road” from “the mosque” camels forage for food by battlefield defences that have stood the test of time.

Seeing the ridge brought into sharp focus the terrible hardships 9Pl faced. This was NZ’s costliest campaign in the war and 9Pl suffered heavy casualties. A few minutes were spent quietly reflecting on what it must have been like during the battle in the very cold winter days and nights of November 1941.

At the Acroma War Cemetery near Tobruk we placed poppies on about a dozen graves, not only of 9Pl and 3Coy men but also others on behalf of families who had heard of our travels. According to the 3Coy War Diary 9Pl, “had a tough time” at Sidi Rezegh, when supporting 25 Battalion during the attack on Point 175, to the east of the mosque. Several men were lost many of whom are buried at Acroma. It was a moving experience to see the now-familiar names of Brian’s comrades, along with the other NZ graves there.

We returned to Alexandria and flew to Athens. A final war cemetery visit was made to Phaleron to lay a poppy on Bill Verdon’s grave, a good friend of Phil Hammond and Brian. After a few days we drove north to a village on the Gulf of Salonika where Bill Verdon was killed, the first 27Bn man to die in Greece. From there we drove the exact route 9Pl took back through Greece, via Mount Olympus and Ellassona all the way to their evacuation port of Porto Rafti, just east of Athens.

Peter Cox delivers a message from home to Bill Verdon in the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, Phaleron, Greece. The message can be seen at the bottom of Bill’s headstone.

Whilst travelling we looked again at Brian’s photographs and compared with them with what we saw. Near Ellassona, on exactly the same day of the year that Brian was there in 1941, we were able to locate the area where 9Pl were dug in by identifying some distinctive flowers that also featured in Brian’s photos. There, according to Brian’s diary, they “had some very exciting days….we have been dive bombed and machine-gunned” - something hard to imagine in such a pretty, quiet spot.

Our journey was at times exhilarating, exciting, emotional, moving and poignant – but never dull. It was rewarding to put a context around the research I had been doing. Seeing the actual locations really brought home the significance of the campaigns and gave a small insight into what it must have been like for Brian and the men he served with.

I felt it a privilege to stand on the battlefields but more so to visit the Commonwealth War Graves Cemeteries and honour the memory of so many of Brian’s comrades who, in his words “made the supreme sacrifice in the World War’.

We will remember them.