North Africa and beyond..

[32Bravo]

Rommel’s southern flank on the Gazala Line was left exposed, and with Strafer Gott about to turn it, he decided to withdraw three hundred miles to Mersa el Brega, abondoning Beghazi and relinquishing much of the territory which had been regained from the British since O’Connor’s dancing through it.

However, Rommel wasn’t about to allow a repeat performance of the Beda Fomm debacle, and used his Panzers and anti-tank weapons to block any such maneouvres to cut the Cyrenaican bulge, while his main forces withdrew along the coast road.

At Agedabia, during the withdrawal, Cruwell counter-attacked the British 22nd Armoured Brigade, severly bloodying their nose - with the destruction of sixty-five Honeys for the loss of sixteen Panzers -as a warning for them to keep their distance.

Three days later, the Afrika Korps were entrenched in their new defensive positions and greeted the first day of January 1942 with a terrific, pyrotecnic display.

[32Bravo]

As Rommel awaited reinforcements, gathering his strength for a new offensive, there occurred a demoralizing repeat of recent history on the British side. Hardly a year after Wavell had been denuded of his most battle seasoned troops, the same thing was happening again as Japan’s entry into the war drew seasoned desert troops and aircrews to the Far East.

The 7th Armoured Brigade went to Burma with 150 Honeys and Crusaders. The 70th Division , whose breakout from Tobruk had contributed so much to the Sidi Rezegh battle, was sent to India - and would later see action as the main element of Orde Wingate’s second Chindit expedition. Two of the Ausralian infantry diviisions were sent home to fight the Japanese in New Guniea and Bougainville. In addittion four RAF squadrons were sent to the Far East, while Britain’s ability to supply Malta was made more difficult by the withdrawal of half a dozen Australian warships from the Mediteranian.

Thanks to the intelligence provided by his ‘Little Fellers’ - the American Military Attach’e to Cairo - Rommel was aware of all this.

[i]"When America entered the war in December 1941, Fellers graduated from trusted friend to indespensable ally with privileged access to the most sensitive information. In a dispatch dated 23 January 1972, for example, he was able to inform Washington (and thus the Germans) that the British were withdrawing 270 warplanes from North Africa and sending them to the Far East. Six days later, he was able to telegraph a complete run-down on British armoured strength, including the number of tanks in working order, the number undergoing repair, the number available for action and their whereabouts. And so forth, right into mid-summer of 1942, when he would give the Pentagon and Rommel full details of British tank losses - ‘70 per cent were put out of action and at least 50 per cent permanently destroyed’ - in crucial battles which would see the fall of Tobruk and Mersa Matruth. He would also tip the Germans off to pending British commando raids on Axis airfields.

As the chief of the German’s radio intercept station at Lauf near Nuremburg, would recall after the war. ‘They went crazy st Supreme Headquarters to get all the telegrams from Cairo.’ Within hours, Feller’s messages were decoded, translated and on their way back to Rommel’s field headquarters, where they kept the Desert Fox informed of British losses and often exact whereabouts of British forces the night before"[/i]

[32Bravo]

German artillery tactics in Norht Africa:

In increasing their precautions against British counterbattery fire in North Africa, the Germans have resorted to the following tactics:

a. Daytime harassing missions fired from roving gun positions in the open.

b. Adjustments made by using one or two guns sited on a flank of the battalion position.

c. The fire of both light and medium batteries directed into the same area simultaneously so as to make it harder for the opposition to locate these gun positions.

d. As many as six batteries fired at once, so as to confuse the opposition’s sound ranging.

[i]An extremely clever trick was reported to have been turned by a German tank unit upon which a British 25-pounder (88 mm) battery was attempting to adjust. After the first salvo hit at some distance from the tanks, a second was fired which apparently fell wide, and the third salvo went wider; the forward observer was frantic.

This is what had happened: the German tanks had timed the first salvo from the report to the instant of burst, which can be done with a low-velocity piece such as the 25-pounder, and fired a salvo from their own guns so that their own shells burst on the ground some distance away from the tanks at the same moment when the battery’s shells struck. The forward observer was attempting to correct his own fire from German shell bursts. [/i]

The most dangerous German artillery fire was not from HE bursting on impact, but HE time fuze air bursts, and ricochet fire. In this latter type of shelling, the projectiles would strike the ground and ricochet upward, bursting over the heads of the troops.

A rather surprising percentage of the German shells were duds. Whether this was caused by defective fuzes, or for the reason that the projectiles were AP, used when the supply of HE had been exhausted, was not known.

[32Bravo]

As Auchinlek was receiving fresh replacements of men and equipment and preparing for a new offensive against the Axis, he was at the same time contemplating a withdrawal to a position well behind the Egyptian Frontier. “Work will be continued in accordance with the original plans for the El Alamein position”. This he had said to Ritchie, some seven months before the name of the position began to feature in the news.

El Alamein may have been considered as a defensive position in pre-war exercises which envisaged an Italian invasion of Egypt. What it is indicative of, is the mindset of a general thinking defensively when planning an offensive. As it happened, he was beaten to the draw.

Re-equipped, Rommel launched his counter-attack against Ritchie and the Eighth Army on 21st January 1942. He had been encouraged by the revealing intelligence afforded by the interception of Fellers’ dispatches, which disclosed the British weaknesses, and took the Britsh completely by surprise.

The Panzers smashed into the unprepared British 2nd Armoured Brigade, fresh out from England. Outnumbered and outfought, their tanks picked off before they were able to orient themselves and be sure from which direction they were being assaulted, their training was forgotten “Who had the time to rally into a box formation now?”
The Panzer steamroller continued on past Beda Fomm and, sixty miles inland, the Germans surprised the largest part of the British tank force while it was trying to deploy. Part of the diviisional staff was captured, and 1st Armoured reduced to roughly fifty tanks from its original one hundred and fifty.

The British fled in a mad panic over the desert in one of the most extraordinary routs of the war, abandoning, in one tank park, thirty battle-worthy Valentine II tanks.

The Panzers advanced with their 88’s in close support:

“We leapfrogged from one vantage point to another, while our Panzers, stationery and hull-down if possible, provided protective fire. Then we would establish ourselves to give them protective fire while they swept on again. The tactics worked well and, despite the liveliness of his fire, the enemy’s tanks were not able to hold up our advance…We could not help feeling that we weren’t up against the tough and experienced opponents who had harrassed us so hard on the Trigh Capuzzpo”

Eventually, the British were pushed back to the Gazala Line, at which point, Rommel was no longer able to continue until his fuel and ammunition had been replenished. The British took up fresh defensive positions.

[32Bravo]

Major general Neil Ritchie command 125,000 British and Commonwealth troops that made up the Eight Army. His superior, general Sir Claude Auchinlek, Commander-In-Chief, Middle East had laid down plans to attack Rommel west of the Gazala Line.

Ritchie new that Rommel’s objective was Tobruk. To counter this, he constructed lines of minefields (known to the germans as ‘Devils gardens’), interspersed with ‘Boxes’ of infantry and artillery, protected by barbed wire and mines. These boxes stretched intermittently from Gazala on the Mediterainain coast to Bir Bir Hachim, about 40 miles to the south which was held by elements of the 1st Free French Brigade.

The boxes had two main functions, according to Ritchie:

1. to prevent Axis engineers from clearing the defensive minefilelds without being subjected to heavy defensive fire;

2. to provide strongholds that an advancing enemy must first neutralize.

The Gazala Line was divided into two sections by Ritchie. His right of axis his right flank from Gazala to the ‘box’ at Sidi Muftah (roughly in the centre) about twenty miles to the south, where the Knightsbridge Box was located.
Ritchie’s left flank continued from Knightsbridge, south to Bir Bir Hachim.

This was orthodox military thinking inwhich Rithcie believed that as his troops were frimly entrenched, the fighting would follow a static pattern. His right flank was protected by the sea, but his left flank hung unprotected.

Rommel had two options: he could either attack in the north along the coast and make straight for Tobruk - which the British guessed he would - or he could undertake a long flanking movement, swinging south of Bir Hacheim.

Rommel began his attack on the night of 26 May 1942:

Feinting to the north, he attacked to the south.

It was a three pronged attack, the first consisting of the Itallian 20th Corps was ordered to attack Bir Hachim, while the centre prong being the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions, continued east before turning northward to attack behind the allied line. His third, most southerly, prong being the German 90th Light Division, would describe an even wider arc arc, directed at the Britsih 7th Armoured Division, some twenty miles east of Bir hachim. (click on link at bottom for map).

http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paterson/Maps/gazala_map.jpg

[32Bravo]

Having turned his enemies flank, Rommel swung north, his panzers thrusting on through the barren and featureless desert.

However, the Itallians failed to take Bir Hachim, due to a stout defense by the Free French. Thus, Rommel’s supply line became overstretched and his assault was in danger of grinding to a halt (to the point that he considered asking Ritchie for terms).

There was only one option, and that was to break through the British centre from the east, taking the British in the rear, and by doing so he would halve the length of his supply line.

Rommel attacked the ‘box’ manned by the British 150th Brigade on the morning of 31 May.

There were no natural defensive features in this part of the desert, so the British ‘boxes’ had been designed with minefileds and barbed wire protecting their perimeter. Each of the boxes was supplied with ammunition and stores of food and water to last several days’ siege. The box garrisoned by the 150th Brigade in the area hich was was to become known as The Cauldron.

The Brigade consisted of two battalions of the Green Howards and one from the East Yorkshire Regiment. These were tough men from mining and ship-building towns of northeastern England. They were supported by Matilda tanks from 1st Tank Brigade.

Each company of about a hundred men formed a self-contained defensive area with Matilda 1’s and guns of all types. This area was also surrounded by mines and more barbed wire, and sandbags protected trenches and gunpits.

[32Bravo]

Rommel shelled and bombed the 150th Brigade Box for three days before attacking on the 1st June. By now strewn about in the stifling heat and dust thrown up by shells and mortars were knocked-out guns and tanks, piles of spent shell cases, the dead and wounded. Among them the British remained in their well-camouflaged and skilfully sited positions.

German infantry soon found paths through the minefields and advanced on the few machine-gun positoins still in operation.
Rommel’s men had to battle for every gun, trench and dug-out. Fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place with hand-grenades rifles and bayonets.

Panzer III’s together with half-tracks crammed with troops were closing in for the final attack against B and C Companies of the Green Howards. It was a sign of both the tenacity of the defenders and the leadership of Rommel, that he personally led a platoon of Panzer Grenadiers.

The final post was finally overrun at about 14.00hrs.

Rommel would later write: “The men of 150th Brigade proved a vallient and stuborn enemy. His troops had to fight their way against the toughest resistance imaginable. The defence was conducted with considerable skill and, as usual, the British fought to the last round.”

Rommel now had control of the key central points of the Gazala Line, and was able to bring forward his re-supply.