Chapter Six
Churchill was furious about the loss of the 3rd Armoured Brigade in early April 1941 and cabled General Wavell demanding to know what had happened. Wavell explained that the units involved were not ready for action and that his Cruiser tanks were appallingly unreliable, stating, ‘3rd Armoured Brigade practically melted away from mechanical and administrative breakdowns during the retreat, without much fighting, while the unpractised headquarters of the 2nd Armoured Division seems to have lost control.’
Quickly recovering from the shock of Wavell’s unwelcome expulsion from Libya, Churchill rallied his forces to secure the defence of Egypt. He ordered that Britain be stripped of every tank and aircraft that could be spared. This was at a time when the country’s factories were taking a hammering from the Luftwaffe. Excitedly Churchill wrote to Wavell on 22 April 1941: ‘I have been working hard for you in the last few days, and you will, I am sure, be glad to know that we are sending you 307 of our best tanks through the Mediterranean, hoping they will reach you around 10 May. Of these 99 are Cruisers, Mark IV and Mark VI [Crusader I], with necessary spare parts for the latter, and 180 “I” tanks [Matilda].’
The five ships of Churchill’s ‘Tiger’ convoy, escorted by the Royal Navy, passed Gibraltar on 6 May. One ship, the Empire Song, was lost with fifty-seven tanks and ten Hurricanes after striking mines in the waters south of Malta, though luckily no one was killed. The rest reached Malta and then pressed on to Alexandria, arriving unscathed on the 12th to deliver 238 much-needed tanks and forty-three Hurricane fighters. While the ‘Tiger Cubs’ were prepared for action, the British attempted to drive Rommel away from the frontier before the 15th Panzer Division was ready for battle.
Wavell launched Operation Brevity on 15 May 1941. The 22nd Guards Brigade, with twenty-six Matildas, was to capture Fort Capuzzo via Halfaya, while to the south the 2nd Armoured Division’s Support Group with twenty-nine old Cruiser tanks was to screen the attack with a push on Sidi Azeiz. The Guards made little headway, losing five Matildas knocked out and thirteen more damaged. Many of the Cruiser tanks broke down on the way to Sidi Azeiz and more broke down on the way back. At Halfaya Pass the 15th Panzer Division captured seven Matilda tanks, three of which were still operational.
By 9 June 1941 all the British tank squadrons had received their new vehicles, but at General Creagh’s request they were given another five days’ training before the launch of Operation Battleaxe. Later Creagh admitted he was not confident about their chances of victory:
An answer was difficult since it depended on which side could reinforce the quicker – though we could concentrate on undoubted initial superiority, the Germans could reinforce with their second armoured division from Tobruk, only 80 miles distant, while as far as I knew we had no means of reinforcement at all.
Lieutenant General Sir Noel Beresford-Peirse was placed in command, with the 7th Armoured and 4th Indian Divisions acting as his strike force, though they lacked a brigade each. The 4th Indian Division was to push along the coast through Halfaya towards Sollum and Capuzzo. The 7th Armoured Division comprised the 4th and 7th Armoured Brigades; the former had two regiments (4RTR and 7RTR) equipped with Matildas, while the latter’s 2RTR had to make do with inadequate A9, A10 and A13 Cruiser tanks, which although old designs were recently delivered new builds, while 6RTR was issued with Crusaders. Ninety-eight Hurricanes and Tomahawks as well as over a hundred bombers supported the ground forces.
Under Battleaxe, Churchill’s ill-prepared ‘Tiger Cubs’ were thrown recklessly into action on 15 June with the intention of overwhelming Rommel. Lieutenant Colonel Walter O’Carroll, the commander of 4RTR, watched the attack on Halfaya Pass go in:
The sun was rising behind and light forward was excellent. No guns sounded. The tanks crept on. At Halfaya the month before Major Miles had found the enemy still in bed or shaving when he arrived, but they were Italians. Now it seemed almost too good to be true that the [German] garrison should be so caught again …
He was right – it was too good to be true. At 0600 Rommel’s 88mm guns opened up. All but one of the thirteen Matildas went up in flames and the attack along the top of the escarpment collapsed. At the bottom of the pass six tanks of A Squadron 4RTR ran into a minefield; four blew up, blocking in the survivors. The attack on the pass ended in a confused shambles. Meanwhile 7RTR reached Capuzzo only to lose five Matildas to German counter-attacks, with another four damaged.
Now it was 2RTR’s turn to attack, with 6RTR’s Crusaders held back for a surprise blow, but both were bested to the west at Hafid Ridge. Two A9s were lost to German 88mms; equipped only with solid shot, there was nothing they could do against the dug-in anti-tank guns. To the south a flanking attack failed and five tanks were lost after they could not be recalled for lack of radios. The Crusaders were then thrown in and ran straight into a German gun line, losing eleven tanks immediately with another six damaged. Others simply broke down. In the face of over thirty panzers and failing light, the rest withdrew.
By the end of the day only thirty-seven of the hundred Matildas committed to the battle remained operational (although the mechanics had another eleven battleworthy by the following day). It was discovered that the 7th Armoured Brigade had lost half its tanks, while 2RTR had twenty-eight tanks and 6RTR some fifty remaining. Disastrously for Beresford-Peirse, he had lost half his tanks without even bringing Rommel’s main panzer force to battle.
Rommel, though, was feeling the pressure. Having lost Capuzzo, he had men isolated at Halfaya, had suffered casualties along Hafid Ridge and lost Point 206. He must have been very reassured by the reports filtering in that the surrounding landscape was littered with knocked-out and broken-down British tanks. Also word came that a panzer battalion from the 5th Light Division had just arrived at Hafid Ridge and the rest of the division was en route. Similarly the 15th Panzer Division had yet to fully commit itself to the fight, its artillery and anti-tank units having borne the brunt of most of the British attack. Those panzers involved around Capuzzo had been used solely to lure the ‘Tiger Cubs’ on to the waiting anti-tank guns.
Lieutenant Heinz Werner Schmidt accompanied Rommel to view the battle:
It was bonny fighting that we saw. Wavell’s tanks broke into a number of infantry positions, despite the intensive fire of our 88mm guns, which they had scarcely expected to meet. The crews manning the 88s sat high up and unprotected at their sights. When one man fell, another of the crew took his place. … despite the heavy losses caused by the artillery, the British infantry with rare gallantry pressed forward across the Halfaya wadis.
By the afternoon of the 16th 6RTR had withdrawn to the frontier with just ten operational Crusaders. The Panzers launched another attack at 1900 and rolled over 6RTR and 2RTR; only the onset of darkness saved them from complete annihilation. The following day Rommel massed his panzers and struck west of Sidi Suleiman, reaching the town at 0600; the Matildas withdrew from their exposed position at Capuzzo, and a six-hour battle followed. Battleaxe had been stopped in its tracks and the Germans were left in possession of the battlefield. Rommel commented, ‘Great numbers of destroyed British tanks littered the country through which the two divisions had passed.’ He went on to observe:
Thus the three-day battle of Sollum was over. It had finished with a complete victory for the defence, although we might have dealt the enemy far greater damage than we actually had done. The British had lost, in all, over 200 tanks and their casualties in men had been tremendous. We, on the other hand, had lost about twenty-five tanks totally destroyed.
In fact, according to British figures sixty-four Matildas were lost, along with twenty-seven Cruiser tanks, though more Crusaders fell into German hands as a result of mechanical troubles than through battle damage. Although the Crusader was under-gunned, Rommel was quite impressed by it, noting: ‘Had this tank been equipped with a heavier gun, it could have made things extremely unpleasant for us.’
The previous successes of Wavell and O’Connor had been swept away. Churchill by his own admission was disconsolate at the failure of Battleaxe: ‘Although this action may seem small compared with the scale of the Mediterranean in all its various campaigns, its failure was to me a most bitter blow. Success in the Desert would have meant the destruction of Rommel’s audacious force.’
On the 21st Wavell fell on his sword and signalled Churchill, ‘Am very sorry for the failure of Battleaxe and the loss of so many Tiger Cubs, … I was over-optimistic and should have advised you that 7th Armoured Division required more training before going into battle. … but … I was impressed by the apparent need for immediate action.’
By March 1941 Rommel had 160 panzers in Libya, including the Panzer Mk III armed with the KwK L/42 50mm gun. This was superior to any Allied armour until 1942. Along with the Panzer IV, the Panzer III Ausf J and Ausf M comprised DAK’s main armoured striking power. (NARA)
A moment of relaxation next to the Mediterranean Sea for this German tank crew. The Panzer Mk II served Rommel’s armoured units in a reconnaissance role. (Author’s Collection)
The Germans liked British carriers and after being captured in North Africa large numbers of them were pressed back into service as the Gepanzerter Maschinengewehr Trager Bren 731(e). For example, Rommel captured fifty Bren Carriers at El Agheila on 24 March 1941. The Germans found them superior to the French Chenillettes; the Luftwaffe also used Bren Carriers, as they did the Chenillettes, for towing tasks. (Author’s Collection)
Churchill was determined to do everything he could to stop Rommel and he stripped Britain of every available tank and shipped them to Egypt in what was dubbed the ‘Tiger’ convoy. (Author’s Collection)
British Matilda IIs being loaded for shipment. This tank had already proved itself against the Italians and the ‘Tiger’ convoy included almost 200. Note how the wartime censor has blanked out the horizon. (Author’s Collection)
Miraculously the ‘Tiger’ convoy lost only one ship during its perilous journey from England to Egypt. The Empire Song struck a mine south of Malta, and went down with fifty-seven precious tanks and ten Hurricane fighters. (Author’s Collection)
The ‘Tiger’ convoy reached the British-held island of Malta on 9 May 1941 and arrived in Alexandria three days later carrying 238 tanks and forty-three fighters. In the meantime Rommel’s Deutsches Afrika Korps had rolled the British out of Cyrenaica, destroying the 3rd Armoured Brigade in the process. (Author’s Collection)
British troops at roll call. The arrival of new equipment greatly raised morale but Churchill’s insistence on throwing it into battle as quickly as possible was soon to cause problems. The type of sun helmet these men are wearing was soon dispensed with, and was particularly unpopular with tank crews. (Author’s Collection)
A British column moves up for the attack. Motor transport was notoriously vulnerable to air attack: the open landscape and the dust thrown up by the wheels meant vehicles were easy to spot. (L.J. Alexander/Corporal Eric Evans RASC)
A British convoy comes under attack from German aircraft or artillery. (Author’s Collection)
New Zealander motor transport somewhere in the Western Desert – such lorries had to perform in a wide range of climatic conditions. (Author’s Collection)
A British 25-pounder gun engaging enemy targets. Although designed as an artillery piece, it was also used in an anti-tank role against Rommel’s panzers. (Author’s Collection)
German heavy artillery firing in support of the panzers. German gunners constantly supported the tank battles rather than waiting for the fight to come to them. (NARA)
The mechanical unreliability of the new Cruiser tank, the Mk VI Crusader (A14), meant it performed badly during Battleaxe; in fact more broke down than were lost to enemy action. The design was rushed and there were insufficient development trials, but to be fair to the designers there was a war on. This one has clearly been knocked out by Rommel’s anti-tank guns. (Author’s Collection)
German troops pose on their prize, a captured Matilda tank, numbers of which were lost during Operations Brevity and Battleaxe in May and June 1941 respectively. By the end of the first day of Battleaxe, only thirty-seven of the hundred Matildas committed to the fight were operational. (Dr Peter Caddick-Adams)
Another victim – in just three days Rommel stopped the British attack in its tracks, claiming 200 enemy tanks destroyed. The actual figure for tanks destroyed was less than half this, but included sixty-four Matildas, such as this one. (Dr Peter Caddick-Adams)
A posed shot of British infantry taking a Panzer III’s crew prisoner. Of interest is the clutter on the outside of the tank, especially the numerous spare water bottles dangling from the turret storage bin and the rack of ‘Jerry’ cans at the front. (Author’s Collection)
While far from rare, this photograph of Rommel reconnoitring with the 15th Panzer Division has been included because of what is to his left. This is a Leichte Panzerspähwagen (fu) Sd Kfz 223, essentially a light armoured car fitted with a long-range radio. The raised square aerial frame is just visible. (NARA)
While far from rare, this photograph of Rommel reconnoitring with the 15th Panzer Division has been included because of what is to his left. This is a Leichte Panzerspähwagen (fu) Sd Kfz 223, essentially a light armoured car fitted with a long-range radio. The raised square aerial frame is just visible. (NARA)