Sergeant Francis Tonkin of the 106 Motor Transport Company was in Libya in June 1942, when Field Marshal Rommel and his Afrika Corps broke through the Gazala Line of the Allied forces and the latter had to retreat into Egypt.
One dark new moon night in the scramble from an enemy in hot pursuit, Tonkin floored the Bedford troop carrier truck he drove across the desert plains away from Gazala in a desperate dash to save his injured and shell-shocked passengers. He evaded his pursuers after veering off the open plains into a wadi where he cruised through the narrow barren valley, alert for enemy nests burrowed in its slopes. With every turn he braced himself for the inevitable plunk and whoosh of mortars and staccato of machine gun fire. One last turn, and he would be out of the wadi and back onto the plains.
He floored the truck and burst out of the wadi. Then he saw it. A German PZKW Mark IV tank blocked his path with its coaxial gun swivelling to lock on. Thank God its top hatch had not opened yet and there was no one manning the machine-gun turret. Tonkin braked and the truck swerved in the desert grit. The tank gun swivelled again to target it but found itself amiss to lock on as Tonkin raced pass it. His comrades in the back cheered, but Tonkin did not. He knew that the German tank would not be able to outrun him as it could only do thirty miles per hour on open desert.
All he had to do now was zigzag across the plain until he was out of range. Simple enough, but not so with the two faster Daimler armoured cars storming towards him in the distance on his left flank, its MG34 machine guns peppering the sand outside his driver’s-side door. Tonkin floored the Bedford once more and raced across the plains. His men in the back cheered — the Daimlers had turned back, probably afraid of running into an ambush if too far from their own lines.
Sergeant Francis Tonkin received a medal for bravery when he finally arrived in El Alamein with all his passengers safe and secure. The medal was pinned on his uniform by none other than General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, General Officer Commanding-In-Chief of British Troops in Egypt.
However, Francis Tonkin returned to South Africa an unsung hero. And a mere five years later, he faced a new war of political manoeuvre, one that uprooted him from the Claremont of his birth with the passing of the Group Areas Act of 1950.
Jeremy Vearey het grootgeword in Elsiesrivier. Hy was ’n lid van MK en ’n lyfwag vir oud-president Nelson Mandela. Hy is ’n vorige majoor-generaal in die SAPD en was tot onlangs adjunk-provinsiale-kommisaris in die Wes-Kaap SAPD. Vearey se biografie Jeremy vannie Elsies het in 2018 by Tafelberg verskyn. Sy book Into Dark Water: A Police Memoir (Tafelberg 2021) is benoem op die 2022 Sunday Times Literary Awards langlys.
