As Rommel’s tenuous supply line grew even more difficult to maintain, it became essential to recover as many damaged or broken down vehicles as possible. While this was also a factor in British thinking, it was a less pressing issue as the Eighth Army was comparatively well served with replacements. Control of the field after the battle was vital for Rommel. It allowed the Afrika Korps to salvage allied and enemy machines alike.
Most vehicle casualties were recoverable. Obviously if a shell is blasted through the middle of a tank it usually made a wreck of the inside, but a more common type of tank casualty would be a missing track link, damaged tracks or damaged suspensions.
Despite the fact that in February 1941 only elements of the 5th (Light) Division had arrived, Rommel wasted no time. Within ten days he launched his first assault. Without waiting for his full force to be assembled he moved swiftly against the inactive forward British units, throwing them back in confusion. The British were dismayed to see shells from their two-pounder guns merely bouncing off the German armour.
The follow-up was immediate, and in early April the British were forced to evacuate Benghazi. O’Connor, hastily recalled from leave, was captured. The momentum of Rommel’s brilliant offensive did not falter. Within a few months, in a spectacular change of fortunes, all of O’Connor’s gains were reversed and the Afrika Korps successfully laid siege to the port stronghold of Tobruk.
During 1941 the real weakness of German tank design was still not discovered. Several false conclusions were drawn from the conquest of the Balkans and Greece. These easy victories supported the continued German belief that their tanks were the best in the world. Although the design work that was to lead to the Tiger had begun, there was little real urgency.
Up to the summer of 1941, Germany’s main adversary had been Britain, and British tank design lagged behind Germany’s. In the North African campaign the poor performance of the British Crusader tanks only gave fresh support to the German view that the Panzer Ills and IVs were at least equal to anything the Allies could throw at them. The Crusader was particularly badly designed and it was plagued by a host of mechanical failures. Eventually, the British army lost faith in their own tanks altogether and in 1943 when the victorious British and American forces embarked from Africa for the invasion of Italy, all of the British tanks were left behind.
Despite the limitations of the British machines, there were signs of dangerous flaws in Germany’s tank capability. In the relative backwater of the desert war, even the unspectacular British Matilda tank was considered a success against the Italian forces and frequently held its own against the Germans. The gun on the Matilda, which was typical of most tanks of his period, was the two-pounder, a 40mm weapon, but it only fired solid shot. In other words, it was only any use firing against enemy tanks. This was fine as far as it went, but once the Germans came to the desert and started mixing tanks and anti-tank guns in the attack, a dual-purpose gun was needed, something which not only fired solid armour piercing shot to take out enemy tanks, but which could also fire high explosive shells. The advantage of this was seen when the American tanks arrived, notably the General Grant.
Once again, superior German battlefield tactics were overcoming the limitations of her armoured forces. But these successes also reinforced a leisurely attitude towards the development of new types. By 1941 the evolution of German tank design was proceeding much too slowly, and it was to have deadly consequences from which Germany would never recover. The shock was to be delivered in Russia.
In the late autumn General Auchinleck organised another offensive in the desert. For a while it enjoyed a measure of success and in December Benghazi was recaptured, but it fell again to the Germans as early in 1942. Rommel once more began to drive eastwards. Egypt itself was menaced.
After his success against the British counter-offensive, ‘Operation Battleaxe’. Rommel wrote to his wife, Lucy: ‘I have been three days on the road going round the battlefield. The joy of my troops is tremendous.’ One of his staff officers remarked:
‘He is already in the process of becoming a hero’. And he was a hero and a legend, worshipped by his men, respected by his enemies.
By this time, however, the German supply lines were uncomfortably over-extended and the number of operational tanks was depleted by such a long and arduous advance. Auchinleck decided to make a stand at El Alamein, where large salt marshes inland prevented Rommel out-flanking the British to the south. Throughout July Rommel’s weakened vanguard made repeated forays against the British positions around El Alamein, but each assault was successfully beaten back. Even so, the British 8th Army remained alarmingly vulnerable.
Rommel, now created a Field Marshall following the dramatic capture of Tobruk, tried to break through the El Alamein defences and planned to use captured fuel to thrust onwards to Cairo. His first priority was to consolidate and replenish his forces. Despite receiving only limited supplies and reinforcements, by the end of August Rommel felt able to resume his offensive.
An excellent study of a Panzer II on active service with the Afrika Korps. The 2cm gun was an improvement on the machine-gun armed Panzer I but by 1941 the Panzer II had long been eclipsed as a battle tank.
The same period saw notable changes in the British command structure. In August 1942 General Sir Bernard Montgomery took over as commander of the British Eighth Army. He was to reap the benefit of the new equipment and reinforcements pouring into the desert campaign. But Monty (as he was known to his troops) was a different breed of commander; he had taken the lessons of the First World War and the opening phase of victory in the Second World War in France to heart. He talked to his men, was seen by them, and gave them a victory at Alam el Halfa.
He realised there was one vital ridge at Alam el Halfa which Rommel must try to take. Accordingly he prepared a defence in depth. British code breakers had deciphered the enemy signals and German convoys from Italy were regularly destroyed in the Mediterranean. Montgomery also knew when Rommel intended to strike. When it came, the battle of Alam el Halfa was brief. A deep belt of mines impeded the initial German advance and when the main offensive began the following morning the 200 German and 240 Italian tanks came under punishing bombing attacks. Rommel had achieved neither surprise nor speed and by the first week of September the Afrika Korps was back where it started.
In 1942 there was more good news for the British. The American M3 medium tank, known to the British as the ‘Grant’ was introduced into the campaign and first used at Gazala. The Grant mounted two tank guns to provide the solution to the need for a gun to fire high explosive and armour piercing shells. The 75mm howitzer was placed in a sponson on the right hand side of the tank - a welcome upgrading of firepower. At last the British tank forces had a good high explosive capability which could be used against German anti-tank guns and their crews. The other gun on the Grant was the anti-tank weapon, mounted in an alarmingly lofty turret perched on top of the tank, which produced a dangerously high silhouette. This height made it difficult for the Grant to adopt a hull-down position (where a tank hides its body behind cover, leaving the turret exposed, thus reducing its target area to the enemy ). The two guns meant that the Grant needed a crew of six, a large number for a tank. Five hundred Grants were sent to the Middle East.
But Grant was very much an interim solution. The most important American tank to enter the North African Campaign was the M4A1 medium tank, the Sherman. Shermans first appeared in action at El Alamein in November 1942. This tank would eventually become the mainstay of the allies on all battlefields. It was not a particularly heavily armoured tank but its real strength was derived from the sheer quantity manufactured. In a war of attrition the US manufacturing muscle would beat German technical superiority. The Sherman suffered the terrible attribute of bursting into flames even when hit by a non-explosive anti-tank shell. This led to it being given the nickname of the ‘Ronson’ because as the soldiers quipped with macabre humour, it ‘lights first time’. The German nickname was equally cruel: they christened it the ‘Tommycooker’! Despite its limitations, the volume of Shermans on the battlefield ultimately proved to be a deciding factor.
However, the US was not the only producer of new tanks in 1942. The British had introduced the A22, named the Churchill. This tank first appeared in March 1942 armed with the standard British two-pounder gun; the Mark III and IV variants were up-gunned to a six-pounder (57mm) gun. The Churchill, weighing in at nearly 40 tons, was powered by a 350bhp Bedford engine. Although it was a slow, ponderous tank reaching only 18mph on a good day, its frontal armour was a massive 102mm, which gave a great deal of comfort to the five-man crew. Three Churchills took part in the Battle of El Alamein for evaluation purposes. They passed the test and the British 21st Army Tank Brigade, which arrived in North Africa in March 1943, was fully equipped with Churchills.
The tank strength of the Eighth Army had by August 1942 reached 935 machines, with an effective strength of tanks fit for action of 762 machines. The numbers game was running against the Germans; Rommel could by now field only 200 tanks, but their qualitative situation had improved. A hundred of the tanks were now Panzer Ills with the long-barrelled, high velocity 50mm gun, and 50 were the Panzer IVs with the even more powerful long 75mm gun.
The advantage of the desert was that it was mostly flat, with few towns or natural obstructions, but a stationary tank could be easily camouflaged. For tanks on the move, however, air cover was essential. Sand blown into the air by tank tracks could easily be detected by hostile aircraft and slow moving machines were an easy target from the air. The column of smoke from one burning tank identified the position of the unit from miles around.
For the tank crews the conditions in the desert which they had to endure were appalling. Insects were a perpetual torment. The heat inside the noisy, vibrating cabin was unbearable. The all-pervading sand caused engines to seize and turrets to jam. Sand penetrated the caterpillar tracks which then ground themselves apart. The heavy complicated machinery required continual maintenance and without their tank the crew were at the mercy of the unforgiving desert.
In battle the armour plating of the tanks protected the crew from rifle and machine gun fire and, to a varying extent, from shell fire. But even the best armoured tank was vulnerable to heavy and well-directed anti-tank fire. For many of the tank soldiers who perished in the sands, death did not come easily. A tank sustaining a direct hit might simply explode, but if it didn’t the energy of the impact was converted into intense heat resulting in a dramatic increase in temperature in the interior. Burns and asphyxiation claimed many lives. Rivets commonly used in the construction of heavy tanks were an additional hazard. A hit would cause rivets to burst out, pelting the crew with red hot metal. It was said that the screams of the dying trapped inside a blazing tank were never forgotten by those who heard them.
Even when men did manage to scramble out of a blazing tank in the desert they were frequently far from proper medical facilities and during engagements water for both fit and wounded was invariable in short supply.
Ahead lay the battle of El Alamein after which the Afrika Korps would be pursued to the final battles in Tunisia.
German grenadiers inspect the knocked-out hulk of an American light tank in Tunisia in 1943.