Stephen Keoghane, you’ve edited L. C. Wheeler’s memoirs – what was it about his account that attracted you to the project?
The majority of accounts of armoured regiments in the Second World War are written by officers, often very senior and their stories are inevitably the perspective of front line troops. The so called ‘logistical tail’, although really rather an out-dated term receives little attention in the literature but to anyone who has worked with armoured vehicles, its importance is understood. I have always loved the well-known quote from Rommel: ‘the battle is fought and decided by the quartermasters, long before the shooting begins’ and what is clear from Wheeler’s unusual memoirs is that he was passionate about keeping his regiment supplied.
The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry have a proud history – could you tell us a bit about the battles they’ve fought in?
Like other yeomanry regiments, the RWY was raised in 1794 as a response to the perceived threat from the French Revolutionary army, and although its first combat experience was in the South African war in the early 1900s, locally raised troops of Wiltshire yeomen were involved in putting down riots and civil disturbances within the county.
The RWY on horseback
These local actions were never forgotten and whilst I was at regimental duty, if a visitor commented on the sometimes unusual dress worn by Wiltshire Yeomanry officers, a common response was ‘we adopted this after the battle of Tisbury’; Tisbury being a small village in rural Wiltshire.
The regiment served in the First World War as mounted troops but was eventually absorbed into the infantry to form the 6th Battalion the Wiltshire Regiment.
During the Second World War, the RWY fought in Syria, Iraq and Persia; today these campaigns against both the Vichy French and Axis forces are often overlooked but Wheeler recalled these times as his worst experience of the war.
El Alamein remains the RWY’s most famous battle honour and thereafter the regiment fought north through the very different Italian countryside, described in the regiment’s war diary as ‘untankable’.
Wheeler describes the RWY evolution to a mechanised regiment – how did the regiment feel about this, and when were they ready to fight in tanks?
It is worth remembering that these yeomen were expecting to fight as mounted troops. In my first book on the RWY, Primus in Armis I described the story of one trooper who rode from village to village on his own horse collecting other yeomen along the way; other troopers were busy sharpening their swords when they were called up for duty.
Like all cavalrymen there was a bond with their mount, and great sadness was felt when in the spring of 1941, the regiment lost its horses. Many of the animals were destined for the Greek Army and the yeomen were aware that some of them would certainly be slaughtered for meat.
The regiment fought from 15-cwt Morris trucks in the initial desert campaigns in Syria, Iraq and Persia and by March 1942 they were back in Palestine practising gunnery, albeit with only four tanks. As the summer progressed the number of available vehicles increased and in August the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill visited the division promising more Shermans which arrived only six weeks before the El Alamein offensive.
Which tanks did they deploy with during the war, and was there a favourite among the men?
The first armoured vehicles were Mark II Crusaders and M3 Honeys but by October the regiment deployed one squadron with a variety Crusaders and one squadron each of M4 Shermans and M3 Grants. All the squadrons suffered heavily during the attack on Miteirya Ridge, the objective of the first phase of the Alamein battle and by 16.00 the regiment withdrew with only four tanks remaining. We are fortunate to have many primary source accounts of this battle, one by Major Hubert Blount, one of the squadron leaders and the grandfather of the musician James Blunt.
In 1997 I interviewed our last veteran who described in harrowing detail his tank running over a mine and his driver’s death from a head injury when they had reached what they thought was a comparatively safe New Zealand trench.
As for a favourite tank, there is no hard evidence from RWY sources to suggest the Sherman but within other yeomanry regiments there is a suggestion that it was preferred to the unreliable and under-gunned Crusader.
The Middle East is an area during the Second World War that is often ignored, what was the RWY’s experience there, and who were their opponents?
I agree; Operation Exporter in Syria for example, was fought against a well-trained enemy (Vichy forces included elements of the French Foreign Legion) with poor quality equipment and no air cover during the initial phases. The men and machines of the RWY suffered badly in the searing heat of the Syrian desert and most of the ‘A’ Echelon was destroyed by enemy strafing.
Having interviewed many veterans’ relatives, the Vichy forces were disliked more than the Germans and Italians.
L.C. Wheeler was the quartermaster, which was a vital role. Are there any memorable stories for this particular work?
One of the chapters of the original typed manuscript was named ‘The Colonel runs short of vino’. In Italy in the summer of 1944, Wheeler, now quartermaster was urgently called forward to TAC HQ. Expecting a critical tasking from the commanding officer, he was asked if he was struggling to access supplies, as unfortunately, the CO had a complaint; the supply of wine had become a problem and he wanted some the next day. Wheeler had made this journey at breakneck speed under artillery fire and was clearly surprised that the request was for ‘vino’. He was duly dispatched with the adjutant and together they tracked down a supply but by the time the adjutant had completed his tasting, the young officer was completely inebriated but still insisted on driving back to his location. Two days later the wine store was targeted by German artillery.
What was Wheeler like, and what did he do after the war?
I have spoken to Leslie Wheeler’s family at length. He was a remarkable man, a lover of the countryside and horses, and was described as kind and outgoing. After the war, he worked for Lord Bath, managing his forests and saw-mill on the Longleat Estate in Wiltshire, where he was interviewed by the BBC for a television programme about people working late in life.
Not wanting to retire Leslie Wheeler kept busy helping his son until the year 2000, and died the day after he stopped work.
Stephen Keoghane is the editor of L.C.Wheeler’s diaries, 1939-1945 As I Remember: The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry at War. You can read his article on the RWY in the Middle East here.
