Chapter 21
In This Chapter
● Defeating the Italians in Libya, December 1940-February 1941
● The Battle for Tobruk, April-December 1941
● Disaster at Gazala, 26 May-21 June 1942
● The Battles of El Alamein, July-November 1942
● Campaigning in Tunisia, 8 November 1942-13 May 1943
Italy joined the war on Germany’s side after the British withdrawal from Dunkirk (see Chapter 20); this made the North African theatre an area of key importance, as the Italian presence in Libya posed a serious threat to Egypt and Suez Canal, the British Imperial route to India and the Far East.
In June 1940, General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief Middle East, commanded some 50,000 British and Imperial troops, spread across a wide area stretching from the Syrian border to Somaliland. Only 36,000 men, critically short of armour and artillery, were in Egypt itself, where the defence of the Suez Canal was once again the major consideration. Across the border in Libya was a 250,000-strong Italian army, while in Italian East Africa were a further 200,000 men, poised to strike into the Sudan, Kenya, and British Somaliland, the largest of whose garrisons numbered only 9000. Figure 21-1 shows some of the actions fought in this theatre of war.
In the Middle East and North Africa, the British army consisted of British Dominion and Indian troops. Special forces also served in this theatre of war (see the sidebar ‘Desert Elites’). Mechanisation was the key to success in North Africa, and the main British tanks of this period were:
● Cruisers: Equipped the armoured divisions. Most were fast and armed with a 2-pounder gun firing armour-piercing rounds only. This meant that infantry and anti-tank guns could only be tackled using the tank’s machine guns. Later models of the Crusader, which reached the desert in mid-1941, were up-gunned with 6-pounders.
● Grants: Equipped the armoured divisions. American lend-lease tanks (see Chapter 20) armed with a 37-millimetre gun in the top turret and a 75-millimetre gun in a sponson. The 75 millimetre was capable of penetrating German tanks at 780 metres (850 yards) and could fire a high-explosive shell. The Grant’s frontal armour was also proof against the German 50-millimetre anti-tank gun at 900 metres (1000 yards). They arrived in North Africa in the spring of 1942.
● Matildas: Equipped the army tank brigades, which supported infantry operations. Slow but heavily armoured, the Matilda was known as The Queen of the Battlefield during the early stages of the desert war, but its reputation for invulnerability was dramatically ended when a battery of German 88-millimetre guns shot a squadron to pieces at Halfaya Pass in June 1941.
● Shermans: American lend-lease tanks used from 1942 until the end of the war. The Sherman was a versatile medium tank, although it tended to burn rapidly when penetrated; equipped with a 75-millimetre gun like the Grant, but positioned in the main turret.
● Valentines: Slow, well-armoured replacement for the Matilda. It was produced in large numbers and served in this theatre of war from late 1941 onwards.
Figure 21-2 shows some of the tanks commonly used by the British in this campaign.
Figure 21-1: The War in the Desert, 1940-1942.
Figure 21-2: British tanks in the desert.
Desert elites
Some people love the desert, others are scared stiff by it. By and large, the British seem to like it, just as they do the sea. One of the most famous desert travellers of the inter-war years was Major Ralph Bagnold, who probably knew more about the Western Desert than any man alive. In 1940 Bagnold received permission to form a unit capable of travelling the deep reaches of the desert and operating far behind enemy lines. He drew his recruits from volunteers throughout the army. His requirements were for trained soldiers with some practical knowledge of vehicle mechanics, but he was particularly seeking fit, intelligent men with stamina, imagination, initiative, iron determination, and the ability to act as part of a team regardless of rank. The vehicles he chose were Chevrolet or Ford 30 cwt trucks fitted with sand channels, radiator condensers, and a variety of automatic weapons. The unit was called the Long Range Desert Group. It reached its maximum strength of 25 officers and 324 men in March 1942. The group's basic unit was the Patrol, normally operating in two halves each of five or six vehicles. Operating from oases far to the south of the main battle area, Patrols used the vast empty desert spaces to penetrate far into the enemy's rear and carry out intelligencegathering missions including surveillance of traffic on the coast road, the insertion or extraction of agents or the SAS, and sometimes direct action including ambushes and harassing attacks.
Another elite, the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), was the brainchild of a Scots Guards officer, Lieutenant David Stirling. He believed that a handful of highly trained and motivated men could achieve things that conventional troops could not. Allowed to raise and train a small unit known as L Detachment Special Air Service Brigade, Stirling looked for the same personal qualities as Bagnold did, but additionally trained his men in the use of captured weapons, explosives, and incendiary devices. His first major operation involved a parachute drop and ended in disaster. He then established a successful partnership with the Long Range Desert Group, which transported his teams to within marching distance of their objectives. Before the Desert War ended, the SAS had destroyed 400 German and Italian aircraft on the ground, plus many tons of aviation fuel, bombs, ammunition, and other stores.
Facing the Italians in Libya
In Libya, the Italians were not exactly brimming with confidence and looking forward to an easy victory. Only mechanised armies can fight desert warfare successfully, and the Italian army consisted mainly of infantry divisions that marched on foot.
They possessed a large number of L3 light tanks that were little better than tracked machine-gun carriers, and a regiment of badly designed M11/39 medium tanks. Some of their artillery weapons were elderly, but in general the Italian gunners handled their guns well and courageously.
The war began badly for the Italians when their anti-aircraft gunners shot down their own Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Italo Balbo, over Tobruk on 28 June 1940. His replacement, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, inherited a demoralised army. On the day after Mussolini declared war, elements of the British 7th Armoured Division crossed into Libya. During the next few weeks they harried the Italians’ frontier garrisons without mercy, struck deep into their territory, shot up vehicle convoys, and even captured a general who happened to be carrying plans of the Bardia defences. During this time the Italians suffered 3000 casualties, while 7th Armoured Division suffered only 150. German liaison officers reported the Italians as being nervous and depressed.
Despite all this, Mussolini ordered Graziani to invade Egypt or lose his job. With great reluctance, the Marshal crossed the frontier on 13 September, taking four days to march the 60 miles to Sidi Barrani, just halfway to the main British position at Mersa Matruh. Apart from establishing an advance post at Maktila, he flatly refused to go any further. He simply sat tight and established a chain of fortified camps stretching away southwest towards the distant escarpment. Meanwhile, although the Battle of Britain was still raging (see Chapter 20), Churchill took the courageous decision to reinforce Wavell with three armoured regiments, including the 7th Royal Tank Regiment equipped with Matilda IIs, the most powerful tanks in the British armoury. When they reached Egypt in early October, Wavell took steps to ensure that the enemy remained unaware of their presence.
On the night of 11/12 November 1940 the Fleet Air Arm’s torpedo bombers crippled the Italian battle fleet in Taranto harbour. This meant that the Western Desert Force would receive close support from the Royal Navy’s Inshore Squadron, consisting of gunboats and monitors, without Italian interference. Wavell, tired of waiting for Graziani to make the next move, decided to make that move himself.
The Battle of Sidi Barrani, 9-12 December 1940
Wavell had served under Allenby in Palestine, so unsurprisingly his planned attack bore a striking resemblance to the opening phase of the Battle of Megiddo (see Chapter 19). His plan involved passing the 4th Indian Division and the 7th Royal Tank Regiment through a gap in the Italian chain of camps. They would storm those camps to the north of the gap in turn. The 7th Armoured Division would pass then through the same gap, striking deeper, and swing north to the coast, isolating Sidi Barrani, which both divisions would then attack. Codenamed Operation Compass, the attack began on the morning of 9 December 1940.
Following a heavy bombardment, the tanks spearheaded the Indian Division’s attack on the camp at Nibeiwa. They found the entrance blocked with 23 M11/39 medium tanks, all of which they knocked out before they could return fire or move. To their horror, the Italians found that they did not possess a gun capable of penetrating the Matilda’s armour, although their gun crews bravely kept firing until they were shot down around their weapons. Seeing this, some Italians surrendered at once, but others continued to resist fiercely. Two hours of hard fighting by the tanks and the infantry were required before they fully secured the position. During the day, the remaining camps in the northern half of the chain offered varying degrees of resistance, but they were all taken in much the same way. Elsewhere, the 7th Armoured Division had reached the coast, severing Sidi Barrani’s communications to the west and cutting its water pipeline. Next day, the British attacked the town’s defences from the west and the south. Simultaneously, tanks moved round to the eastern perimeter to intercept the enemy’s 1st Libyan Division, which was withdrawing from Maktila. Sidi Barrani fell as soon as its defences were penetrated, but the Libyans did not give up until the following morning.
On 11 December the Italians abandoned the last of their camps in the Sidi Barrani area and headed for the frontier with the 7th Armoured Division in pursuit. On 12 December the 7th Armoured Brigade was ordered to intercept the Italians at Buq Buq. It found the massed artillery of the enemy rearguard lining a low, semi-circular ridge overlooking a salt flat. Light tanks promptly charged across this, but broke through the thin crust and floundered. The enemy gunners immediately began pounding them to scrap iron. The situation eased a little when Royal Horse Artillery opened fire on the Italians. Meanwhile, the Allies worked their way round the flanks of the enemy position. The Italians swung their guns round to meet the threat, but were momentarily stunned when one of their ammunition lorries went up in a tremendous explosion. By the time the dust had settled the tanks had reached the gun line and resistance collapsed. A Hussar officer, evidently from an agricultural background, gave a radio report on the number of prisoners taken: ‘Twenty acres of officers and a hundred acres of men.’
In four days Operation Compass, intended simply as a spoiling attack, had driven the Italians out of Egypt and yielded 38,000 prisoners, including four generals, while the enemy equipment captured or destroyed included 237 guns and 73 light and medium tanks. Wavell decided to reinforce its success. Within days, the Allies had captured most of the enemy posts across the frontier and the Italians had retired into Bardia.
Chasing 'Electric Whiskers'
A 17-mile anti-tank ditch surrounded Bardia, behind which lay barbed-wire aprons, minefields, concrete emplacements, and blockhouses with interlocking arcs of fire. Bardia’s garrison consisted of a total of 45,000 men, backed by 400 guns and 100 armoured vehicles. In command was one of Italy’s most famous soldiers, General Annibale Bergonzoli, better known as Electric Whiskers because of his dramatically forked beard.
The 7th Armoured Division quickly isolated the fortress and imposed a state of siege on 20 December 1940. Four troops of Matildas arrived to take part in thorough rehearsals for the planned assault. This was delivered by the 6th Australian Division at dawn on 3 January 1941, following a bombardment focused on the sector chosen for the break-in. After the infantry had rushed the nearest posts, three parties of sappers (military engineers) set to work - one to throw down the sides of the anti-tank ditch, one to build causeways on which the tanks could cross, and one to cut the wire with Bangalore torpedoes (long tubes filled with high explosive) and clear paths through the minefields. The Matildas and the Australian infantry then penetrated the defences, methodically clearing one position after another. To add to the Italians’ ordeal, the combined fire of three battleships, seven destroyers, and the Inshore Squadron pulverised designated areas within the defences.
In places the enemy fought very hard indeed, but on 5 January the last resistance was overcome. Another 38,000 prisoners began the long walk into captivity, leaving behind immense quantities of military equipment, including 700 wheeled vehicles, many in working order. No one could find Electric Whiskers, who had somehow evaded capture and was walking to Tobruk. The Allies sustained 500 casualties including 150 killed.
Taking Tobruk, 6-22 January 1941
The 7th Armoured Division isolated Tobruk on 6 January. Tobruk’s defences were similar to those of Bardia (see the preceding section) and were held by 25,000 men, supported by 200 guns and 90 armoured vehicles. In command was General Pitassi Mannella, known to his peers as the King of Artillerymen. He was less than pleased at being required to defend an area twice the size of Bardia with a force half the size of Bergonzoli’s lost garrison. He was right to be aggrieved, for on 21 January the combination of thorough planning, impenetrable Matildas, and aggressive Australian infantry tore his defences apart. During the night the garrison tried to destroy its stores and set the grounded cruiser San Giorgio ablaze. Little further fighting took place and by 10 a.m. on 22 January the town and harbour were firmly in Australian hands.
The Italian Tenth Army occupied the line of the Wadi Derna, west of Tobruk.
On 25 January the Australians closed up to it, but heavy artillery fire and fierce local counter-attacks prevented their making any headway. But then the situation changed dramatically. The Tenth Army’s commander, General Tellera, fearing that British tanks might encircle his men from the south, withdrew during the night of 28/29 January. Graziani not only sanctioned the move but decided that such of Cyrenaica as remained in Italian hands had to be abandoned. Local Arabs confirmed the suspicions of Major General Richard O’Connor, commanding the Western Desert Force, that the Italians were retreating into Tripolitania along the coast road. O’Connor immediately realised that this presented him with a chance to trap and destroy his opponents by sending 7th Armoured Division across the base of the Benghazi Bulge to Beda Fomm, while the Australians pursued the enemy along the coast road.
The Battle of Beda Fomm, 5-7 February 1941
7th Armoured Division’s advance guard, named Combeforce after its commander, Lieutenant Colonel John Combe, reached Beda Fomm on the coast shortly after noon on 5 February and established a roadblock. Two hours later the head of the Italian column appeared. Its vehicles were halted by mines or gunfire. By radio, Combe suggested that the approaching 4th Armoured Brigade engage the enemy’s steadily lengthening column from a series of ridges lying to the east and parallel with the road. At dusk its regiments were in action.
The presence of 7th Armoured Division came as a shock to the Italians, who believed that it was still north of Benghazi. The Italians planned to mount a holding attack on Combeforce while most of their tanks swung off the road at point that became known as ‘The Pimple’. They would then smash their way through 4th Armoured Brigade’s cordon, turn south, and attack Combeforce from the flank and rear.
The Italian attacks began shortly after dawn on 6 February, but foundered under steady tank fire of 2 Royal Tank Regiment’s cruiser tanks. The trapped Italian column now stretched for 18 kilometres (11 miles). The 3rd Hussars shot up its centre while the 7th Hussars fastened onto its rear. Towards evening, very few of the British tanks had more than a few rounds of ammunition left and the regiments started to give ground, but at this critical moment reinforcements arrived. The demoralised Italians abandoned their attacks. At dawn on 7 February the remaining Italian tanks tried to batter their way through the roadblock in the wake of a heavy bombardment. For a while, every element of Combeforce had to fight for its life. Then, quite suddenly, white flags began to flutter along the Italian column. As General Tellera had been mortally wounded, Bergonzoli surrendered to Colonel Combe, who gave him breakfast. Everyone had heard of Electric Whiskers Bergonzoli and wanted to see what he looked like. Despite his flamboyant nickname, he turned out to be a rather dignified individual in his later middle years.
The Allies captured over 25,000 prisoners at Beda Fomm, plus 1500 wheeled vehicles and over 100 tanks. In total, since the start of Operation Compass, O’Connor’s corps had taken over 130,000 prisoners, captured 380 tanks and 845 guns, advanced 800 kilometres (500 miles), and occupied half of Libya. The cost had been 500 killed, 1373 wounded, 55 missing, and a handful of tanks written off. In the wider sphere, the campaign exposed the Italian army’s inability to fight a modern war. In Spain, General Franco, for long a potential ally of Hitler and Mussolini, announced that he was remaining strictly neutral.
Rommel Arrives in the Desert
As Commander-in-Chief Middle East, Wavell’s responsibilities covered a huge area. Useless involvements in Greece and Crete, both lost to German invasion in 1941, detracted from the strength he had available to deploy in North Africa, which once again became the Middle East’s most important theatre of war.
At the beginning of February 1941, Hitler offered to assist his ally Mussolini. The first the British knew of German involvement was an increase in the level of Luftwaffe activity in the area.
The German commander sent to North Africa was Lieutenant General Erwin Rommel. Ungovernable by nature, he decided to disregard his specific orders to avoid offensive operations until reinforcements had reached Libya. His nominal superior was Marshal Italo Garibaldi, and Rommel also ignored him. The British troops remaining in Cyrenaica were under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame, who lacked experience of high command. His troops included 3rd Armoured Brigade, equipped in a manner that would have graced any self-respecting scrapyard: 5 Royal Tank Regiment possessed 23 clapped-out cruisers that had survived the earlier campaign, while the 3rd Hussars and 6 Royal Tank Regiment were equipped in part with useless light tanks and in part with Italian M13s captured at Beda Fomm.
On 24 March a German reconnaissance unit probed the British advance post at El Agheila. The troops holding it withdrew to the main defence line at Mersa Brega. The German 5th Light Division followed up and was halted there until Major General Gambier-Parry, in charge of the 2nd Armoured Division, gave the order to withdraw. This exposed British troops to the same sort of drive across the base of the ‘Benghazi Bulge’ with which O’Connor had destroyed the Italian Tenth Army (see the section ‘The Battle of Beda Fomm, 5-7 February 1941’, earlier in this chapter). Rommel saw this opportunity and took it with both hands:
● The 9th Australian Division avoided the trap and withdrew into Tobruk.
● The 2nd Armoured Division, subjected to order and counter-order, became fragmented. Its 3rd Armoured Brigade fought as well as it could, but shed broken-down tanks for kilometre after kilometre and virtually ceased to exist.
Next day the Germans captured Gambier-Parry and his divisional staff. They also overran the independent 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, which lacked artillery and anti-tank guns. About one third of its members evaded capture and reached Tobruk. Worse still, O’Connor had been sent forward to advise Neame and German motorcycle troops captured then both. With the exception of those troops preparing to defend Tobruk, the remnant of the British XIII Corps crossed the frontier into Egypt.
Holed up at Tobruk, April-December 1941
Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet, assured Wavell that Tobruk could be supplied by sea, so Wavell wasted no time in rushing reinforcements into the port. The garrison’s strength now amounted to 25,000 men, 5 field artillery regiments, 25 cruiser tanks, 4 Matildas, 15 light tanks, and 30 Marmon-Herrington armoured cars manned by the King’s Dragoon Guards.
The garrison’s greatest asset, however, was its commander, Major General Leslie Morshead, who had served during the First World War and in civilian life was a shipping executive. His men called him Ming the Merciless because he bore a passing resemblance to the cruel, ruthless Emperor Ming, the archenemy of the science-fiction film hero Flash Gordon. Morshead made it clear to his officers that he would brook no retreat, no surrender, and no Dunkirk-style evacuation (see Chapter 20). As he didn’t have enough troops to man the entire 48-kilometre (30-mile) perimeter of Tobruk, he decided to conduct a mobile defence, channelling any penetration onto tank killing grounds by a combination of minefields and natural obstacles. As his infantry lacked adequate anti-tank protection, he instructed them to let the enemy’s armour roll past them and then surface to tackle its infantry. At other times they were to patrol aggressively, a policy that the Italians in particular found unsettling.
After the British defeated the enemy in tank battles involving 1 Royal Tank Regiment (see the sidebar ‘Outgunned? By what?’), the arrival of 15th Panzer Division’s infantry element from Tripoli enabled Rommel to attack the garrison again on 30 April. During the night an infantry attack secured a breach 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) wide in the outer defences of the southwestern perimeter; with a restored tank strength of 70, the German 5th Panzer Regiment passed through. One battalion, 40 strong, headed for Tobruk town, but was brought up sharp by a minefield and lost 17 of its tanks. The regiment’s second battalion had swung right and begun rolling up the line of Australian defence posts. During a 5-kilometre (3-mile) run they neutralised five, but were brought to a standstill by artillery fire and tanks. The Germans retired to replenish their fuel and ammunition, but during the afternoon they returned to the attack, being driven back by the British. Both German battalions renewed the attack and a furious tank battle lasted until dark.
Outgunned? By what?
One of the myths of the Desert War in North Africa was that German tanks consistently outgunned their British opponents. This was simply not true. Technically the British tanks had marginally better weapons, and the cause of the myth was rooted in the enemy's sword-and-shield tactics. The German tank commanders were adept at feigning a retreat that drew the British armour within range of an anti-tank gun screen. The screen might consist of dug-in towed guns or Panzerjager, which were obsolete or captured tank chassis with an anti-tank gun mounted in an armoured housing. Both outranged the British tank guns and often fought from concealed positions. Even if they spotted the screen, British tank crews were at a disadvantage as at this period their tanks only fired anti-tank rounds.
Operation Battleaxe, 15-17 June 1941
Although Rommel had ended his advance, he took care to fortify positions on the frontier, including Halfaya Pass, Sollum, and Fort Capuzzo. Wavell wanted these as a springboard for his intended relief of Tobruk. He tried to take them in May (Operation Brevity) and again in June (Operation Battleaxe), without success, although the British did have local if temporary successes. But they lost a total of 91 tanks during Battleaxe, including a high proportion from mechanical failure. They claimed to have disabled 100 enemy tanks, which was probably close to the truth, but as the Germans were left in possession of the battlefield they were able to recover all but 12 burned-out hulks.
These failures infuriated Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who wanted to appoint a new Commander-in-Chief Middle East. However, Wavell had too many successes to his credit to sack him out of hand. Instead, Churchill promoted him sideways, ordering him to change places with General Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief India.
Operation Crusader, 18 NoVember-7 December 1941
After Battleaxe (see the previous section) the desert remained relatively quiet for the next five months. Both sides used the lull to build up their strength. During September and October most of the Tobruk garrison was relieved by sea, the 9th Australian Division being replaced by Major General Ronald Scobie’s 70th Division and the Polish Carpathian Brigade. Further reinforcements included 4 Royal Tank Regiment, bringing the number of Matildas present to 69. Together, the garrison’s armoured regiments formed the 32nd Army Tank Brigade under Brigadier A.C. Willison.
The British troops in the Western Desert were elevated to the status of being the Eighth Army. In command was General Sir Alan Cunningham, who had XIII and XXX Corps at his disposal. Auchinleck planned not only the relief of Tobruk but also the destruction of the Axis army. This was to be achieved by an advance of the entire Eighth Army across the frontier in conjunction with a breakout by the Tobruk garrison. The codename for the operation was Crusader. Auchinleck had resisted Churchill’s pressure for early action, intending to mount his offensive in January 1942. However, the cost of keeping Tobruk supplied was high in terms of warships and merchant vessels sunk or damaged, while the Royal Air Force badly needed the airfields in Cyrenaica to provide air cover for Malta’s vital supply convoys. Taking these considerations into account, Auchinleck decided to begin the offensive on 18 November.
The Battle of Sidi Rezegh, 21-23 November 1941
The Eighth Army crossed the frontier on 18 November before the enemy guessed what was happening. XXX Corps, containing most of the British armour, engaged the enemy first. At Bir el Gubi on 19 November, tank attack was followed by counter-attack and the British lost significant numbers of tanks. During the evening Gott switched 22nd Armoured across the battlefield, believing that together with 4th Armoured Brigades they would finish off 15th Panzer Division next morning. However, when dawn broke the only German tanks visible were those that the British had knocked out during the previous day’s fighting. The reason was that 7th Armoured Brigade and the 7th Armoured Division’s Support Group, containing much of the division’s artillery, anti-tank guns, and motorised infantry, had enjoyed a clear run the previous day and were closing in on Sidi Rezegh airfield. Rommel ordered both panzer divisions to converge on the area as quickly as possible and as the fighting became more intense, Gott directed the 4th and 22nd Armoured Brigades there as well.
What followed during the next two days has been described as a multi-layered battle, in which formations on both sides found themselves simultaneously attacking in one direction and conducting a desperate defence in another. To put the matter at its simplest, in the north the Tobruk garrison began to break out against opposition from the Afrika Division, which was also trying to defend Sidi Rezegh against the 7th Armoured Brigade and the Support Group, who were in turn under attack by the 15th and 21st Panzer Division, whose anti-tank gunners were doing their best to hold off the pursuit by 4th and 22nd Armoured Brigades.
By the evening of 23 November things were beginning to look grim for XXX Corps:
● A South African brigade was overrun.
● The 4th Armoured Brigade still possessed a respectable tank strength, but was widely dispersed and was effectively out of action until its headquarters could be reconstituted.
● The 7th Armoured Brigade had suffered so severely that its personnel returned to Egypt after handing over its 15 remaining tanks.
● The 22nd Armoured Brigade had been reduced to 34 tanks, and the Support Group had received a severe mauling.
Rommel, too, had sustained losses, but with the arrival of the Italian Ariete Armoured Division from the south he still had sufficient tanks in hand to mount a drive eastwards, which would simultaneously re-establish contact with his frontier garrisons and pose such a threat to the Eighth Army’s communications that Operation Crusader would have to be abandoned. His decision was based on the undeniable defeat of XXX Corps, but ignored the considerable presence of XIII Corps, which was still intact. It was a dangerous gamble based on overconfidence, and it was to lose him the battle.
Relieving Tobruk
If XXX Corps had been the hare, then XIII Corps was the tortoise. Its progress had been steady and methodical. On 22 November the frontier posts of Omar Nuovo, Libyan Omar, and Fort Capuzzo fell to its infantry attacks spearheaded by Matilda and Valentine tanks, and it cut off the Bardia garrison’s water supply. The advance continued along the coast road. By the evening of 25 November it had forced the Axis infantry back against the Tobruk perimeter. Inside Tobruk, the breakout operation was suspended during the Sidi Rezegh battle. Now it was resumed. Shortly after noon on 26 November, the British took the escarpment at Ed Duda. That night, in a brilliantly conceived action, 44 Royal Tank Regiment’s Matildas, spattering the ground ahead with machine gun fire, drove straight through the enemy positions at walking pace, accompanied by the New Zealanders’ 19th Battalion. The defenders simply faded away into the darkness. By 1 a.m. on 27 November the Allies had relieved Tobruk.
The relief of Tobruk brought Rommel scurrying back from the frontier. The only result of his drive was that it had seriously unsettled Cunningham, who was promptly replaced as Army Commander by Major General Neil Ritchie. By then, however, the 7th Armoured Division had put its house in order and had sufficient tanks. During the next few days Rommel managed to hold off Gott and prize the New Zealanders away from the Tobruk perimeter. Against this, his army’s losses were becoming insupportable. When the Eighth Army re-established contact with the Tobruk garrison on 5 December, the Germans had obviously lost the battle. On 7 December Rommel began an expertly conducted withdrawal from Cyrenaica, reaching the El Agheila defile on 1 January 1942. Operation Crusader had achieved its objectives, although it had proved to be a much tougher struggle than anyone had expected.
Axis casualties amounted to 38,000 killed, wounded, and missing as against 18,000 British and Commonwealth losses.
The Battle of Gazala and the fall of Tobruk, 26 May-21 June 1942
In January 1942 history repeated itself in a most unpleasant way. Just as Wavell had been required to despatch assistance to Greece after Beda Fomm, now Japan’s entry into the war forced Auchinleck to strip his command and send reinforcements to the Far East. During the next four months both sides prepared for a major offensive. By the last week of May the Eighth Army contained 125,000 men and 849 tanks, while the Axis army numbered 113,000 men and 560 tanks. The Eighth Army therefore possessed a numerical as well as a qualitative superiority. It should have won the subsequent battle without undue difficulty. Instead, it sustained the worst defeat in its history.
Shortly before the Battle of Gazala, the British received the Grant medium tank (see the start of this chapter for more details), and the 6-pounder anti-tank gun, the performance of which was much superior performance to that of the old 2-pounder. Across the lines the Germans had received some up-gunned PzKw III Model Js, plus 117 Marder tank destroyers (based on the obsolete PzKw 38T tank chassis and armed with a captured 76.2-millimetre Russian anti-tank gun rechambered to take German 75-millimetre ammunition).
The Axis strategy at Gazala contained two phases:
● The first phase, Venezia, involved the defeat of the Eighth Army and the capture of Tobruk.
● The second phase, Herakles, required a standstill in the desert while airborne and amphibious landings neutralised British-held Malta, the most heavily bombed place on earth and a perpetual thorn in the Axis flesh.
Rommel opened his offensive during the night of 26/27 May by sweeping round the southern flank of the British line. The Eighth Army was organised for attack rather than defence, so many units were in the wrong place to meet the Germans. As transport criss-crossed the desert in every direction to escape the Axis armour, one observer described the scene as resembling ‘a confused musical ride’ at the Royal Tournament. Despite being caught off balance, the 1st and 7th Armoured Divisions rallied and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy armour. By evening Rommel was pushed back against the Eighth Army’s minefield. Desperately short of water, he considered asking Ritchie for terms. In the nick of time the Italian Trieste Division managed to clear a corridor through the mines.
Despite this, Ritchie still possessed a golden opportunity to destroy the Axis army. He lost it because the Eighth Army’s two corps commanders were not only personal friends but also senior officers to him. He was, therefore, reluctant to employ the full weight of his authority. The result was that orders became subjects for protracted discussion. Time ticked by and Rommel’s position, known as The Cauldron, remained unmolested.
By 1 June Rommel had recovered his strength. Ritchie did not make a move until 5 June, when the Germans easily repulsed a series of uncoordinated attacks on The Cauldron. The following day Rommel returned to the offensive, inflicting further loss on the British infantry. His lines of communication now clear, he repeated the thrust with which he had begun the battle. XXX Corps’ three armoured brigades launched piecemeal counter-attacks on 12 June and the Germans defeated each in turn.
By now, a feeling had begun to spread throughout the Eighth Army that its generals were incapable of getting anything right. By the following evening the Army had only 70 tanks left and it abandoned the Gazala line during the night. Recognising that he had lost the battle, Ritchie initiated the army’s withdrawal into Egypt, having reinforced the garrison of Tobruk.
The British had not anticipated a second siege of the fortress, but at 5.20 a.m. on 20 June, enemy dive bombers and artillery began blasting a gap on a narrow sector of the perimeter. By 8.30 a.m. both panzer divisions were through and pushing steadily north. The British 32nd Army Tank Brigade counter-attacked and fought itself to destruction. By 1.30 p.m. the Germans had reached the escarpment overlooking the harbour and at 6 p.m. they entered the town. Garrison commander Major General Klopper ordered a general surrender, which some of his garrison refused to accept, and some carried on fighting until 22 June. Several hundred men from various regiments broke out into the desert and eventually succeeded in rejoining the Eighth Army, but 32,000 marched into captivity.
Total Axis casualties for the period 26 May to 21 June amounted to 60,000. British losses during the same period came to 88,000. Coming as they did on top of equally bad news from the Far East (see Chapter 24), the Battle of Gazala and the loss of Tobruk were serious blows to British morale and marked the army’s lowest point during the war. Rommel, on the other hand, was at the peak of his career and the capture of Tobruk won him his field marshal’s baton. Ignoring the agreed strategy that the invasion of Malta was to follow the capture of Tobruk, he set off in pursuit of the Eighth Army. Once more, he ignored orders, but with Hitler as his personal patron who was going to argue?
First Battle of Alamein, 1-27 July 1942
On 25 June 1942 Auchinleck assumed personal command of the Eighth Army. That evening the Afrika Korps penetrated between X and XXX Corps at Mersa Matruh and a disorderly retreat followed. This ended at El Alamein, a little town lying on the railway some 95 kilometres (60 miles) west of Alexandria.
Here the negotiable desert narrowed to a 55-kilometre (35-mile) strip between the sea in the north and the impassable Quattara Depression to the south. Within this strip lay three ridges, Meteiriya in the north, Ruweisat some miles to the south, and Alam Halfa to the southeast. None was more than a swelling in the stony desert, but the overview they provided made their possession extremely important.
The First Battle of Alamein was actually a series of hard-fought actions that took place between 1 and 27 July. These were centred on Ruweisat Ridge and Tel el Eisa (Jesus Hill) in the north. While each side received reinforcements, neither was strong enough to defeat the other. By the end of the month both armies were exhausted and the front had lapsed into apparent stalemate. By then the battle had cost the Eighth Army 13,000 casualties and 193 tanks, while Axis losses amounted to 22,000 casualties (including 7000 prisoners) and up to 100 tanks.
Nevertheless, the British were in a better strategic situation as they were so close to their bases. They were also being reinforced at a rate that the Axis army, with its overextended lines of communication, could not hope to match. Now Rommel realised that he had fallen into a trap of his own making. He had already burned the fuel captured at Tobruk and only had a day’s supply in hand at any one time. That meant that he could neither break through to Alexandria, as he had hoped, nor resume a war of movement that would leave his army stranded after a few hours’ fighting. As luck would have it, for the moment both armies were more interested in digging in and increasing the depth of their minefields.
On 3 August Churchill arrived in Egypt, accompanied by General Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. They both felt that a change was needed at the top. They replaced Auchinleck with General Sir Harold Alexander as Commander-in-Chief Middle East. Churchill then agreed to Brooke’s personal choice for Commander of the Eighth Army, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, who flew out from England and took over the Army on 13 August. Montgomery was determined to establish his own personality rather than Rommel’s in the minds of his men. He discarded his general’s ‘brass hat’ and toured units wearing the Royal Tank Regiment’s famous black beret, adding his general’s insignia to the regiment’s badge. He was incisive, brisk, and brusque. He told the men that further withdrawals were out of the question. They would fight where they stood and they would win. The effect was remarkable. The men were jaded and cynical, yet they instinctively recognised that the new army commander meant what he said and was capable of delivering what he promised. Changes began to happen immediately. Out went tired or inefficient senior officers, even if they were old desert hands. A new wind of optimism blew through the ranks of the Eighth Army. It was tested at the end of August.
Rommel had saved just enough fuel for one last attempt to break through to Alexandria. On the night of 30/31 August, German and Italian tanks broke through the British minefields in the south under heavy fire. With dawn came air attacks. Losses were higher than had been allowed for, but the German spearhead swung north, heading straight for Alam Halfa ridge. Brigadier Roberts’s 22nd Armoured Brigade was waiting for them. By 6 p.m. the mass of Axis armour was approaching the ridge. Both sides opened fire at 6.10 p.m. The British Grant tanks blew holes in the enemy ranks, but still the Germans came on. At one point it seemed that they may break through the brigade’s centre. Roberts called the Royal Scots Greys forward and, just as their forebears had done at Waterloo (refer to Chapter 11), they came thundering over the crest, blazing away with every gun they possessed. The crisis was over and dusk put an end to the fighting.
Next morning, 15th Panzer Division tried to slide past the eastern end of the ridge. The British spotted them and a brisk fire fight ensued. Before long, the 8th Armoured Brigade closed in from the east. The fighting was inconclusive, but it convinced Rommel that he could go no further. He withdrew the way he had come, harassed on the ground and bombed from the air. By 2 September this battle all over. He losses included 3000 casualties, 49 tanks, 60 guns, and 400 lorries. The British lost 1640 killed and wounded, plus 67 tanks.
Second Battle of Alamein, 23 October-4 November 1942
Under Montgomery, the Eighth Army began a programme of exhaustive training for the coming battle. The training involved not just the normal daylight attacks, but also tactics devised for night attacks. They involved the infantry leading with the tanks following close behind. When the objective had been taken, the tanks remained with the infantry to break up the inevitable counter-attack and did not leave until the infantry’s own 6-pounder anti-tank guns had been brought forward and dug in. New weapons reaching the Eighth Army included the Sherman medium tank. Like the Grant, this was armed with a 75-millimete gun, but it was mounted in a turret with all-round traverse.
Montgomery’s plan for Operation Lightfoot, as the opening phase of the Second Battle of Alamein was known, required XIII Corps in the south to mount holding attacks while XXX Corps in the north struck the main blow, capturing the minefields, and clearing two corridors through which the two armoured divisions of X Corps were to pass. Overall, Montgomery’s intention was to fight what he called a ‘crumbling’ battle, attacking first in one place and then another, forcing Rommel to burn priceless fuel with counter-attacks until the British reduced his army to immobility. Rommel’s fuel supply had barely kept pace with daily consumption; knowing what lay ahead, he had prepared the best defence he could, extending his minefields until they were between 3 kilometres (2 miles) and 8 kilometres (5 miles) deep, while along the front German units were interposed with Italian to provide a stiffening. Tired and ill with worry, Rommel left for home and sick leave on 23 September, handing over to General Georg Stumme.
Operation Bertram, October 1942
To convince the Axis commanders that he would begin the battle on the southern sector of the front, Montgomery set in motion the largest deception plan of the desert war. Codenamed Operation Bertram, it was under the control of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Richardson and bore a remarkable similarity to Allenby’s plan at Megiddo (see Chapter 19). Its principal architect was a Royal Engineer officer named Jasper Maskelyne, who had been a stage magician in civilian life:
● In the north, the British disguised tanks as lorries and real lorries obliterated their tracks, and tents and more dummy lorries concealed stockpiled ammunition and stores.
● In the south they disguised lorries as tanks, their tyre marks masked by weighted trailers with track links fitted to the wheels. Dummy guns and ‘supply dumps’ multiplied, joined by dummy water-pumping stations, pipelines, and storage towers, serviced daily by real vehicles and ‘labour gangs’. Simultaneously, bogus radio traffic between make-believe armoured formations on the southern sector indicated a build-up in preparation for an offensive.
The battle began at 9.40 p.m. on 23 October with a bombardment fired by 592 guns, 456 of them crammed into XXX Corps’ sector. Resistance was fierce and progress was slower than expected. The following day Stumme sustained a fatal heart attack and General von Thoma, commander of the Afrika Korps, took over command of the Axis army. When Rommel returned to the front on the evening of 25 October, he was shaken by the sheer volume of the British artillery fire and depressed by the way in which the Eighth Army’s carefully rehearsed infantry/tank tactics were remorselessly eating their way through his positions. He recognised immediately that he was engaged in ‘a battle without hope’.
Defence of Outpost Snipe, 27 October 1942
On 27 October, while counter-attacking Briggs’s 1st Armoured Division at Kidney Ridge, Rommel lost a disproportionate number of tanks to a single motor battalion. The previous night, 2/The Rifle Brigade had mistakenly occupied a hollow measuring 800 metres (900 yards) by 350 metres (400 yards), believing it to be a locality codenamed Snipe. The Riflemen had actually established their outpost in close proximity to the tanks of 15th Panzer and the Littorio Armoured Divisions. The enemy attacked at first light and attacked repeatedly during the day. When the riflemen and their attached gunners weren’t under direct attack they were being shelled constantly until the hollow was a shambles of smashed guns, carriers, jeeps, dead, and dying. Even so, they destroyed tanks and kept on destroying them until the hollow was surrounded by wrecked and burning enemy armour. At 11 p.m. the outpost’s survivors, now critically short of ammunition, withdrew from the hollow.
The defence of Outpost Snipe became a legend throughout the Eighth Army, so much so that a month later a Committee of Investigation visited the scene to verify the story and examine the wrecks. It concluded that 21 German and Italian tanks, plus 5 assault guns or tank destroyers, had been destroyed outright. In addition, evidence suggested that a further 15, and possibly 20, tanks had been knocked out and recovered, although few of these can have been repaired by the time the battle ended. The Battalion’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Turner, who was seriously wounded during the action, received the Victoria Cross and decorations were awarded to a high proportion of his officers and men.
The fight for Thompson's Post, 28/29 October 1942
During the night of 28/29 October the 9th Australian Division attacked northwards towards the coast, isolating a heavily defended Axis locality named Thompson’s Post. In bitter fighting, they wiped out one panzer grenadier battalion and trapped another, as well as an Italian Bersaglieri battalion. When they renewed the attack the following night, the Australians won a toehold north of the railway. From this they advanced due east across the rear face of Thompson’s Post, but sustained crippling casualties and at first light were forced to retire. Undeterred, the Australians attacked to the north again, cutting the coast road.
Dawn was breaking when 40 Royal Tank Regiment, with 32 Valentine tanks, reached the area. On learning that the Australians were desperately short of men, the regiment’s commanding officer brought his tanks across the railway and deployed them facing west to await the inevitable counter-attack.
The cutting of the coast road caused Rommel serious alarm. At about 11 a.m. the Germans began a series of counter-attacks lasting throughout the afternoon. British tanks, artillery, and bombing broke them all up. When dusk put an end to the fighting, a battered handful of tanks were all that reached the rally point. 40 Royal Tank Regiment’s personnel casualties came to 9 officers and 35 men, a high proportion of the Valentines’ three-man crews. The Australians, themselves the toughest of fighters with scant regard for those who failed to measure up, had watched the battle with something like awe:
The courage of these men made their action one of the most magnificent of the war wrote their official historian of the tank crews. The following day, however, the Australians had to give a little ground, enabling the garrison of Thompson’s Post to escape during the night.
Operation Supercharge, 2 November 1942
Now Rommel’s attention was so firmly fixed on the coastal sector (see the preceding section), Montgomery decided to mount a fresh attack further south. This was codenamed Supercharge and went in just north of Kidney Ridge.
The attack consisted of three phases:
● Breaking into the enemy’s position. The 2nd New Zealand Division executed this first phase during the early hours of 2 November. By first light they had secured their objectives.
● Overcoming the anti-tank gun screen. This second phase involved Brigadier John Currie’s 9th Armoured Brigade. Montgomery told Currie that if necessary he must accept 100 per cent casualties in breaking through the enemy’s anti-tank gun screen. The brigade passed through the recently captured ground as dawn was breaking and smashed its way through the screen, losing 87 of its 94 tanks.
● Destroying enemy armour in battle. The penetration of the second phase attracted enemy armour like a magnet, as Montgomery had intended. Two brigades from the 1st Armoured Division activated the third phase at once. They passed through the wreckage of Currie’s brigade to engage in a furious day-long battle that took its name from the nearby Tel el Aqqaqir.
The British sustained the heavier losses, but when the battle was over the Italian armoured divisions had ceased to exist and the Germans had been reduced to 24 tanks. In defiance of Hitler’s orders, Rommel commenced his withdrawal shortly after. The battle had lasted for 13 days. The Axis army sustained 55,000 casualties, including 30,000 prisoners, of whom nearly 11,000 were German. The Eighth Army sustained 13,500 casualties, including approximately 4500 killed, mainly in the infantry divisions.
Pursuing Rommel to Tunisia
Without pausing, Rommel drove steadily westwards with what little remained of his army. He abandoned all his gains in Egypt and the whole of Cyrenaica as well. On the way he discovered that the Anglo-American First Army had landed in Morocco and Algeria on 8 November. He also found out that Hitler and Mussolini had decided to hold Tunisia as an Axis stronghold in North Africa. At Mersa Brega Rommel called a halt, as he had done in the past. The Eighth Army’s supply services used every means at their disposal to keep the pursuit moving. Even so, only a limited number of formations could be supplied over the lengthening distance from the army’s bases. Montgomery closed up to the Mersa Brega bottleneck and on 13 December the 2nd New Zealand Division embarked on a wide turning movement through the desert, forcing Rommel to withdraw another 320 kilometres (200 miles) to Buerat. On 14 January 1943 he was similarly levered out of this position and as Tripoli was not defensible, he retired across the Tunisian frontier. On 23 January units of the Eighth Army entered Tripoli unopposed. The war in North Africa had four more months to run, but the desert war was over.
The principal actions fought in North Africa took place in Tunisia at:
● The Tebourba Gap, 30 November-3 December 1942: British and American troops held the Gap against a fierce German counterattack (including the formidable German Tiger tank).
● Kasserine Pass, 14-22 February 1943: British and American troops halted the thrust of Rommel’s German advance, although the Americans sustained serious casualties.
● Medenine and the Mareth Line, 6-26 March 1943: Rommel was repulsed by a textbook defence by Montgomery’s Eighth Army, incorporating heavy artillery concentrations and concealed anti-tank guns opening fire at point-blank range.
After these actions, Montgomery’s Eighth Army and Anderson’s First Army prepared to bring the war in North Africa to its conclusion. The US II Corps moved to the northern end of the line, while 1st and 7th Armoured and 4th Indian Divisions were transferred from the Eighth to the First Army. After extremely hard fighting the hills dominating the Medjerda Valley (notably Longstop Hill) were taken by combined infantry and tank assaults. Tunis was taken by 7th Armoured Division on 7 May while, to the north, the Americans captured Bizerte. Recognising that the end had come, Axis soldiers began to surrender in drove, over 238,000 of them. By 13 May 1943 the war in North Africa was over.