Letter from Arthur Seaforth Blackburn to his family, 1941 - Part 3 of 3

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then two armored cars went into the place to see that all was  
satisfactorily settled preparatory to a resumption of the march. Just  
as they got in we saw a motor car coming down the street 
waving a white flag, - the signal of surrender! It was 
followed by a cab or two & several more cars. At the 
time I was standing right in front with Col Co Casseau 
and when I saw that I was the Senior British officer 
present, I accompanied him forward to meet the surrendering 
party. After a long talk in French - which I pretended to 
understand, by taking my cue for agreement or otherwise 
from the French Col, - we all got into our motor cars & 
made our triumphal entry into Damascus. Believe me, it 
was some moment. First came a motor car containing the 
mayor of Damascus, then Col Casseau's car, then yours truly 
in my motor car, then dozens of other minor dignitaries 
such as staff officers etc. We drove up & down the 
main streets amidst a certain amount of applause and a  
tremendous lot of military presenting of arms - to all of 
which I, of course, condescended to salute. We pulled up 
first at the Town Hall, a magnificent big building in a 
European style of architecture. Military guards at the door 
admitted Col Casseau & myself & we met the Civic authorities 
& formally accepted the surrender. We then moved on again  
through a rapidly growing crowd to the Chief of Police  
where we formally took over the control of the 
Arthur S Blackburn

Lt Col A S Blackburn 2/3 MG Bn AIF Abroad 
22 
police, & then the military commander from whom we 
accepted its capture surrender of the garrison - more presenting  
of arms & more long speeches, accompanied by frequent 
bows to me - and my acknowledgement of same in the 
best possible fashion. Then came a special little 
speech acknowledging the glories of Australia - so I gathered;  
which I was pleased to accept (not understanding one word 
of French) in a short speech in Australian - which they all 
equally solemnly pretended to understand & accept! 
Altogether it was really terribly funny considering (1) I was  
for the moment representing the whole British army - and 
hadn't the slightest idea what it was all about (2) the 
whole ceremony was punctuated by frequent bows & salutes to 
me (3) I had no right authority whatever to be present. However it was 
also terribly thrilling, to be receiving the surrender of this  
huge City of Damascus on behalf of the British Army 
whe knowing perfectly well that the local dignitaries fully 
believed me to be the accredited representative of Britain. After  
that followed a formal luncheon at the Club - & then about 
4 o'clock in the afternoon the French general arrived, also  
accredited representatives of the British Army - and my 
glorious hour was ended! I formally handed over my 
authority & once more reverted to the position of a Bn Commander. 
In the next phase of the show in Syria, nothing very 
exciting happened so far as I personally was concerned.

23 
The special force which I had with me, was next attached to 
a British Brigade & we took part in the capture of Qatana and  
the fight up the Qatana pass to the Beyrouth - Damascus Road. 
The fighting at times was fairly heavy but nothing unusual  
happened, apart from ordinary incidents of war. I saw one  
remarkable illustration of how close men can be to death & 
yet escape unharmed. On the second morning of the fight up 
the Qatana pass, we moved off before daylight & took up 
a position in a gully ready to move on when a small hill 
feature had been captured. Soon after daylight the enemy  
evidently observed our vehicles - about 20 of them - dispersed  
about the hillside & immediately opened fire with artillery. 
The second or third shot landed fair & square on the 
engine & bonnet of a truck in which two men were 
seated. There was a terrific explosion & a sheet of 
flame which set the truck on fire. Out tumbled the 
two men like shot rabbits & rolled over & over down 
the side of the hill. Both of them were all right, one 
having a slight cut on the hand & the other a scratch in 
the shoulder. Both were pl blasphemously indignant because 
their personal gear had been burnt up in the truck! 
After we go to the Beyrouth - Damascus Road we reached 
a spot where further progress was almost impossible 
and so we settled down to hold a defensive line 
whilst the position was attacked elsewhere. After 

24 
I had co-ordinated the MG fire for the whole front at Damascus,  
I returned to the central sector where I had other companies  
engaged, and visited them to see their positions. One Coy - A from  
S.A - was in a position at a place called Merdjayoun. This  
town has been captured from the French, recaptured by the French  
& again captured by us who now hold it. The enemy position  
is now about 2 miles away & the town is intermittently shelled.  
It had evidently been a rather fine town, with fine  
stone buildings & tiled roofs. It is built on the top & side  
of a prominent hill & had many beautiful gardens etc.  
Unfortunately, in addition to the damage from shell fire, the  
whole place was systematically looted by the enemy  
soldiers - Moroccans & Foreign Legion - before they finally  
got out. The residents - Lebanese & Syrians - are emphatic that  
they (i.e. the French) actually put chains around stone supporting pillars  
& verandah posts, trees etc & then fastened the chain to tanks  
& deliberately set the tank in motion & pulled the buildings  
down. In one shop I saw a big bon of cutlery spread  
out on the floor & every knife & fork smashed with an  
axe or some such implement. A big wireless set had an  
axe still lying in it where it had been chopped up.  
A pile several feet high in the middle of the floor  
represented plates, glasses & other china & glass ware from  
the shop. Evidently an effort had been made to burn 

25 
it all as straw was piled in the middle of the floor & was, I  
understand, smouldering when the troops entered. I visited the  
place again on 2/7/41 and it was really a most pitiable  
sight. About two miles away there was another smaller but  
similar town called Qleaa which had been very heavily  
shelled but not looted. The inhabitants of both towns had  
disappeared, probably to the gullys, during the fighting but had  
now returned. In every house & yard, along every street &  
road & in the gardens & orchards, were men, women & children  
mourning over their household gods. In one verandah was  
a wee little girl crying her heart out - over a mere broken  
doll, whilst sitting in a chair alongside her sat an old, old  
woman - granny I should think - with tears running down her  
cheeks as she gazed at the indescribable confusion inside the  
door. On their knees amongst the rubble, picking it over &  
trying to find something worth salvaging were a man, a  
woman & three children. All along the street were passing  
a steady stream of people carrying, in the most fantastic  
way, the most fantastic assortment of goods. Some had  
bundles of bedding, pictures, ornaments, cups, broken chairs etc  
balanced on their heads & shoulders (the universal method of  
carrying in this country); others led donkeys or camels loaded  
with sheets of galvanised iron, boards, bricks, wire, doors,  
window frames, remains of furniture etc. All of them had  
a ghastly pitiful look on their faces - and each of them 

26 
poor devils, gave one a ghastly grin, meant to be cheerful, & an 
equally ghastly "Saida (good morning) Sir" or in some cases "good luck Sir" or in some cases "good luck Sir". 
One knew perfectly well that sheer self interest would compel  
them to say exactly the same & appear exactly as interested, in the enemy  
if they recaptured the town. Poor, poor devils! we fight over  
their country & ruin their homes, their crops, their orchards,  
kill their sheep, cows & donkeys & often their sons & daughters,  
& what, after all, have they to gain from it all. When  
controlled by the French they tilled their miserable little  
plots of garden or attended to their shops or business & if  
they got their independance, will they be very different?  
War, is really a hellish thing on the civil population, as  
well as on the soldiers who are fighting & particularly  
so when two other countries, France & Britain, fight over  
the land of the Syrians. It is after all not much  
consolation to them to know that we are invading the country  
to stop the German invading it! Later on I went over to  
the coast area where we are nearing Beyrouth. Once  
again I passed up the road from Tyre to Sidon of this time  
right through Sidon. Business is there much as usual  
in spite of the occasional ruined house or shop from the  
naval shelling. I then went on to a sector of the front  
called Djezzine. It is high up in the mountains & it is  
amazing how it was ever captured. It was apparently a  
fashionable mountain resort from Beyrouth & Sidon 
Arthur S Blackburn 

AG Arthur S Blackburn  2/3 MG Bn AIF abroad 
27 
and is in the midst of beautiful vineyards, terrased gardens, &  
cedar woods. The road leading into Djezzine runs along a steep hillside & is of the  
"corkscrew" variety to a remarkable degree. Hair pin bends abound  
& over & over you look over the side of the car & could drop  
a stone into a car following along the next bend down.  
The last mile or so is cut out of a sheer cliff face & is  
at present rendered a bit exciting by the fact that it  
is fully exposed to the enemy artillery about 8000 yds  
away on another mountain. They amuse themselves by  
taking pot shot at vehicles travelling along the road.  
However, they were sports when I drove along as they didn't  
have one shot at my car either going or coming, although  
they dropped a couple of dozen shells into the town whilst  
I was there. In Djezzine I saw a good illustration of the  
appalling damage which one big bomb can do. The day  
after we captured it, a large number of troops were in  
a cafe - three storied - on the ground floor when an  
enemy plane came over & dropped a big bomb which  
hit the cafe. It not only wrecked the three floors but  
dug a crater fully twenty feet deep. Nineteen men  
were killed but fortunately none of my Bn. On  
the way back I took a deviation road up which  
the troops attacked so as to get an idea of what  
they did. One of my Platoons drove their vehicles up  
it in the dark & rushed their guns into the town. 

28 
The road has now received attention from the engineers for two or  
three days & I am assured is immensely improved. We went along  
in broad daylight and with no fear of suddenly running into an 
enemy force. In spite of this we could never once get over  
ten miles per hour & over & over again had to practically  
stop to negotiate portions of it. At places it is the bare  
width of the wheels - certainly not 18 inches to spare over  
all - with a drop down to steep rocky hill into a  
creek. Three times the bends were so sharp that we  
could not negotiate them on one lock - every vehicle has  
to back & fill to get around these corners - quite often  
the car had to be put into bottom gear to hold it down  
the steep grades & twice it crosses water ways & creeks  
which are little more than swamps. Nevertheless the  
vehicles on the night of the attack arrived there exactly on time on the night  
of the attack having gone along without lights  
in the dark. Ever since then this company of my Bn has  
been stationed in Djezzine with the Infty Brigade there.  
They have been quietly & steadily pushing forward  
and are now quite a long in advance of the  
town. Each push forward means a climb down a  
very steep hillside, a climb up an equally steep one  
on the other side & then a bit of a fight at the  
end of it, if the enemy have not already got  
out. The main trouble on that sector is shell fire  
as the enemy shell the town and the roads fairly frequently. 

29 
The whole position settled down after Damascus to a short period  
of comparative quiet and then, as the next move was to be on  
Beyrouth, I moved my H.Q to a position close to the Ramour River,  
the main defences of Beyrouth. I had one company (D) from  
W.A. attached to the Brigade which was to make an attack on  
the Damour defence and try to cross the River. I got up there  
some time after the attack and when the River crossings had  
been succeeded. It must have been a marvellous piece of  
work. It was carried out by the 16^th Bn from W.A. & the 27^th from  
S.A. The 16^th Bn attacked along the cop comparatively flat ground  
along the coast & the 27^th Bn further east in the mountainous  
country so as to get behind the town of Damour & outflank the  
enemy. The Damour river runs along a very steep gorge.  
There was a big stone bridge near the coast but this  
had been blown up by the enemy. To give an idea  
of the nature of the country over which the attack took  
place - that is in the mountain country- the 27^th Bn, with  
some of my machine gunners attached, moved in the early  
part of the evening to a high ridge on our side of the  
River. My men had been issued with mules upon  
which to load their machine guns & ammunition, as  
it was almost beyond human indurance to carry  
them up & down the hills. They ( i.e. the whole attacking force) then filed, in single  
file, down a goat track into the gorge, crossed the  
River by wading it & then climbed up the other  
side of the gorge by another goat track & attacked 

30 
the enemy on the other side. When I visited the place to see how  
things were going & discuss the machine gun side of it, I drove in  
my car along a track alongside the river, as by then we had captured  
the crossings and the engineers had pushed a pontoon bridge across.  
The only enemy fire there then was artillery fire as they had  
been pushed too far back to reach the pontoon & the road along  
the gorge by other fire. I drove to the foot of the goat track on  
the enemy side of the river up which the Infantry had advanced  
in the dark carrying their rifles, ammunition, bombs, etc & then  
fought & beaten the enemy. I carried nothing but a revolver  
field glasses and a map case and went up the track, which  
had been improved in places, in broad daylight, just as the  
sun was rising. It took me even under those conditions  
nearly an hour to reach the top & I was pretty well  
knocked out when I got there - and yet, as I said, the  
Infantry climbed it in the dark & then attacked & captured  
well prepared enemy defences! The following night  
about nine o'çlock a batch of nearly 200 French  
prisoners came down past my H.Q & stopped there  
for a time. One of their officers told me he had  
flown out from France nine days earlier to fight  
over here, but I think he was very glad to have  
been captured. He had already been captured once  
by the Germans when they invaded France, so was quite  
used to the procedure. He had been released, so he said 

31 
on condition he came straight to Syria to fight & I rather gathered, had  
been flown over here under a sort of 'escort' to make sure he  
came here. The following day we pushed right through Damour  
township & got some miles on the way to Beyrouth. I drove  
up to a fairly high hill north of Damour just after we  
passed thought the town & from there I could plainly see  
the retiring enemy (through my glasses) being heavily shelled  
by our artillery. However most of them got away & have  
established another line between here & Beyrouth. Next  
day there was very heavy shelling on both sides and  
again in the early part of the night. Then at eleven  
o'çlock at night came a message. "All firing will cease  
at midnight. Troops will stand fast on their present  
positions. No fraternisation to take place". An armistice  
had been arranged. For the next two days everyone  
just loafed around with nothing to do whilst  
the terms of the armistice were arranged & then we  
moved on & occupied the whole of Syria & the  
Lebanon. The show has now ended and we have  
achieved our object. My Bn. is still scattered  
along the front but my Rn H.Q is high up in  
the mountains overlooking Beyrouth. I have had  
the good luck to be chosen for a job in charge  
of a big commission - or sub-commission - whose task  
it is to work out certain details of the Armistices.  
It is tremendously interesting & brings me very

32 
frequently in touch with very large number of Vichy French,  
Free French & British officers. Feeling is very high between  
the Vichy French & Free French and it is difficult to keep 
peace between them sometimes.  
There is nothing much more to add to this. My doings  
& experiences apart from the above have been set out  
in the ordinary weekly letters so I will close this now  
and try to divide it up into as few envelopes for  
air mail as possible.  
By the way, none of this is for publication.  
Arthur S Blackburn 
  
Arthur S Blackburn