Colonel (ret.) František Wawrečka (Vavrečka)

"When some Indian division passed through the desert by Tobruk and the Eyeties found out, they started retreating. Recklessly. And we, although we weren't really mobile, we went and searched the bunkers at spot height 69, looking for food most of all. We had just tea and biscuits, you couldn't imagine. Supplies were terribly short, the Germans sunk one of every three of our supply ships."

"František Vavrečka, rank of colonel in retirement, born 3rd of April 1920. In a district of Ostrava, Hulváky it was called, but the parish was in Zábřeh. That's where I went to school. We moved when I was ten. We were five children, our father worked in the Vítkovice steelworks and he was given a factory flat in Vítkovice in the Josefín estate. We moved there when I was ten, so I finished school there. I went to three schools and completed the fourth through evening classes. By then I was learning pattern making in the Vítkovice steelworks. Those were hard times, because basically there was lots of unemployment and us apprentices didn't get much practical experience. Mostly just carpentry. There wasn't much production. When things got better, when I was in my third year, production stepped up and we became fully-fledged craftsmen with our own work. In 1938 things started getting clouded, the Sudeten Germans were starting to show their horns. It was especially hard around our way, as the Vítkovice steelworks belonged to the Rothschilds and the head of the foundry was pro-German, despite his Czech name Hudeček and his active Sokol membership. He had his wellies and his uniform, so when the Germans occupied us, he kept his wellies and just put on a different shirt and he was with the Germans."

"We arrived at Tobruk during the night. They put us into cars and it was clearly decided, which company was to secure which section. Our leader was Klein, before he was wounded. Our squad, that was corporal Sedláček, kind of fat, lance corporal Fabián, nine of us all in all, we were sent to spot height S 19. That was the biggest of the fortifications, next to the road. The switch was done so - first of all the Australians moved out, and when they were clear, we were supposed to go in. They clambered out and we thought it just wasn't possible. We counted some twenty of them, and there were just nine of us going in their stead. We manned the firing points first thing. There were two of them, one covering the road at the bend and where it zigzagged and the other which was placed further up on a hillock. We scanned the place in the morning, and I don't know how many of us there were there in the end, but I do know that even though they did increase our numbers, we were fifteen men tops."

"That was the first time I might've maybe cheated death. They always supplied us in the evening, when they brought us water and a bit of corned beef, but mostly water, tea and biscuits. One time they drove by, it was still light, and they were behind the overhang. They were safe there. We knew they had arrived, so we needed to send someone there. There was always one person to take the water cannister. I said I'd go, so off I went. It was on the hillside. They were like that on the hillside opposite spot height 69. Suddenly they [mortar shells - ed.] started shrieking and blowing up around me. And threw myself down, the shooting was right next to me. Well, no one hit me in the bum. I was lying forwards-like, and I heard this one Polish major climb out at the artillery observation point, he directed artillery fire, and he was shouting and calling out where [the mortars were - ed.]. I heard a whistle and a boom. So I got up and went. There was no more firing. Those were Eyeties - one of them must've gotten bored and lobbed a shell. Then I was behind the overhang, so I was okay. I took the cannister, waited for the sun to go down, and went back. I got lucky there."

"They went on patrols and came back reporting that there were Germans in the first house - there was a row of houses there. That it'd be good to get rid of them, that the way is clear bar a few obstacles. That if we pass those, it'll be fine. So we attacked on the 28th of October. Reconnaissance platoon, attack. So I was part of that. We planned on assaulting the position with grenades. But the mortar platoon placed their mortars ahead of us, and when a mortar is set up and aimed on sand, it sinks with each shot. We passed them and rushed forward, and then it started raining down on us. And there were wires stretched along the ground, so we turned back. We didn't know whether the grenades might not be coming from the house. We had one casualty. From the ordinary platoon, he wasn't reconnaissance. He was a Slovak who'd married in England. He got a piece of shrapnel into his pistol cartridges which blew up and tore through his belly."

"We lost a lot of our boys there. One time I was watching through a telescope: there was someone walking along, he was hidden by a sand wave, out of sight, and he was crossing a mine field. And then saw it. Why is he standing there? And he stood still. Suddenly I saw, maybe like Plánička with his antics diving to stop a goal, so I saw how he jumped to the side when it shot out. And he got up and went. There were pressure mines there, pots with the charge on a spring. When they were set off, the charge sprang up, activated itself and detonated when a metre and a half in the air. The same thing happened to another chap. He was going to the car for something, like me for the water beforehand, and he strayed from the footpath a bit and stepped on a pot. Carefully, he made a step, and it sprang out and cut him in between the legs, right through the meat. But it didn't blow. It didn't activate, it didn't get to that metre and a half. He didn't get up, so they found out that the mine hadn't exploded but that he was cut up badly, so they drove him away. We called him a poet, he used to say: 'I'll be a poet.' I can't remember his name. He didn't come with us from Russia, he was one of the boys who joined us later on. I don't remember their names. We told him: 'Yeah, you said you'd be a poet and that if you were wounded, you'd be wounded in the arm, but you were wounded in the ar... So you know how it is.' "