by Jeff Shaara
The maneuver had been perfected all across North Africa, the tanks baiting and drawing the enemy forward, while the big guns lay in wait. The eighty-eights would do their work and the tanks would surge forward again, mopping up. They would repeat the tactic over and over, Rommel’s simple game of leapfrog.
T he names of the villages and oases were like so many of those spread all over this part of the massive continent: Sidi Muftah, Bir el Hamat, Acroma, El Adem. Often villages weren’t villages at all, but a hut or some ragged tents perched around a deep hole in the dirt, a place where blessed water could be found, sometimes a cluster of trees separating the precious well from the desolation that surrounded it. It had been the same all across Libya, meaningless names, barely visible landmarks a tank driver would ignore as he rolled past. There was no stopping to fill canteens, no marveling at the odd bits of ancient architecture, the occasional Roman ruin. This land was now only a battleground, a stage for hundreds of tanks and troop carriers, mobile machine guns and half-tracks. The infantry was here too, swarms of men suffering through the fog of dust that was their only protection, seeking an enemy who was mobile, or armored, or simply dug into slit trenches in the hard ground.
In the north Rommel had placed the Italians, infantry and mobile troop carriers, armored cars and their outdated tanks, pushing eastward along the coastal road, to pressure the British flank, drawing precious British strength from the fight in the center. There, and in the south, Kesselring, Rommel, and the German armor pressed and prodded, taking every advantage of the indecisive tactics of the British. But it was not a one-sided fight, no simple victory. For days, the British held tightly to what they called the Gazala Line, a stout defensive position that ran from the sea in the north, far down along a string of minefields, outposts, and fortified “boxes.” From the first day of the attack, Rommel had pierced and flanked the line, but still, the British held to their strong points, and so, as days passed, both sides were used up, the sea of dust and rock littered with growing numbers of machines, and the bodies of the men who drove them.
In the center of the line, the fight came from every direction, perfect confusion, large battles and small duels, tanks fighting tanks, infantry caught in between. The place would soon appear on the British maps. They would call it The Cauldron. After a long desperate week, both sides were losing energy and equipment, but Rommel’s tenacity prevailed. The British positions began to collapse, and gradually the machines that could still move pushed eastward to make their escape. Though Rommel had won the day, his own panzer divisions were a shadow of themselves, hundreds of wrecked and charred vehicles spread among the carcasses of the British. But no one on either side doubted that this time, the fight belonged to Rommel. By withdrawing from the Gazala Line, the British had pulled their protection away from a garrison penned up inside a strong defensive ring on the coast. The city and its valuable port had long held Rommel’s attention. It was called Tobruk.
3. ROMMEL
JUNE 20, 1942
I n the mid-1930s, the Italians had come to Tobruk, to carve out one more piece of Mussolini’s playground. The Italian military had recognized the city’s value and its vulnerability, and so, the engineers had ringed the entire area with trench works, tank traps, and minefields. When the Italians were swept away, the British improved those fortifications, making good use of the precious harbor to help supply their army in the field. The Germans’ main supply lines came through the port of Tripoli, nine hundred miles to the west. For that reason alone Tobruk, which was much closer to the front lines, could become an invaluable supply hub for German men and matériel. Rommel knew as well that if Tobruk remained a British stronghold, no matter his success on the battlefield, the British would continue to have a major presence in the area, a permanent thorn in his side. With his success at the Cauldron, the British were ripe for pursuit, but any major push eastward would leave the British garrison at Tobruk in his rear, allowing the troops there to threaten both his supplies and his flank. To Rommel that was simply unacceptable.
He had been in the same position the year before, one more chapter of the seesaw battles that had rolled in both directions across Libya. In the spring of 1941, he had focused on Tobruk with dangerous arrogance, believing that his forces were unstoppable, and that the enemy would simply give way. He had been wrong then, and the result was his greatest failure of the war.
His plan the year before had looked good on paper, but fell apart almost immediately. First, the Italians had failed to supply him with accurate maps of the fortifications they themselves had constructed, and Rommel could only guess what kinds of obstructions lay in the path of his tanks. But then, his attacks were uncoordinated, and supply problems immediately plagued both the German and Italian forces. Bad intelligence and poor coordination would usually doom any attack, but Rommel was confronted by yet another surprise, the tenacity of the enemy troops, who stoutly manned their fortifications, not as eager to quit as Rommel had believed.
Every veteran of the Great War knew of the Anzacs, the men of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, men who had stood tall throughout that horrible war, who had fought with a fierceness that had made them legends. Twenty-five years later, at Tobruk, Rommel was facing some of those same men, and their sons as well. The fortifications that surrounded the city had been occupied by the Australian Ninth Division, under the command of Major General Sir Leslie Morshead, and the Australians would not yield. The result was a long, fruitless siege that produced losses Rommel could not afford. The British had taken advantage and, late in 1941, had pushed Rommel back across Libya.
But that was then. This time, there would be no failure. This time there were accurate maps, and officers in the field who knew what they were expected to do. And the British high command had made a significant mistake. The Australians were no longer in Tobruk. Their replacements were South Africans, under the command of General Hendrik Klopper. The South Africans were certainly respected, and Klopper was a reasonably capable commander. But no one believed they had the backbone of Morshead’s Australians.
At dawn on June 20, Kesselring’s bombers opened the attack, and within two hours, Rommel began the kind of assault he had wanted to launch the year before. Rather than a diluted general advance all along the thirty-mile front, Rommel bluffed an attack in one sector of the line, then pounded his armor against unprepared defenses in an area where the South Africans had almost no armor. German engineers quickly opened pathways across the once treacherous antitank ditches, and using the same blitzkrieg tactics that had overwhelmed Poland and Western Europe, Rommel’s tanks went forward in tight punching blows, ripping breakthroughs in the South African defenses. Once through the gaps, the German tanks fanned out behind the enemy, surrounding and engulfing them. In twenty-four hours, it was over.
JUNE 22, 1942
He had briefly stayed in Tobruk, allowing himself the luxury of a bed. The staff had been scattered and busy, coordinating with the rear services for the handling of prisoners, and the cataloging and distribution of the amazing haul of goods they had captured in the city. Klopper had surrendered nearly thirty-five thousand men, and the German success had come so quickly that the South Africans had had no time to destroy their precious supplies. Besides the critical fuel, food, and ammunition, the Germans had captured nearly two thousand vehicles of all kinds, including thirty undamaged British tanks.
Rommel had met with Klopper, a brief, formal ceremony, the South African concerned about the treatment of his men. It was never an issue with Rommel, there would be no mistreatment of prisoners, ever, but he did not spend any more time than required in the presence of the enemy commander. There was nothing to be gained by humiliation, and Klopper would certainly not reveal any British plans. Besides, Rommel knew that his own intelligence people probably knew more about British intentions than the one senior officer they had left behind in Tobruk.
H e had decided to make a quick tour of the city, was being driven in a new command vehic
le, an actual staff car, typical for senior officers, but unusual for Rommel himself. The Mammoth had been left behind for now, but the staff knew to have it prepared and ready, that this brief rest was no vacation.
They were near the small harbor, and he ordered the car to halt, climbed out, would see what ships the British had left behind, what Kesselring’s bombs had destroyed. It was always a price for the capture of a port, enemy vessels either sunk or scuttled by their crews, always blocking the channels, making the job more difficult for the engineers to clear passage for the supply ships of the port’s new owners. He walked close to the concrete of a shattered pier, stepped over debris, could see more of the same all around him. If there had been beauty here, there was none now. The streets were hardly streets at all, narrow passages that wound past gaping bomb craters, the wreckage and destruction not just from Kesselring’s bombers, but from Rommel’s own siege the year before, long, drawn-out artillery duels that had converted most of this seaport city into complete ruin.
He knew his army was worn-out, so many weeks of constant motion, the hard fight that had finally given them victory. The cost was high, men and tanks, the figures alarming. He was down to fewer than two hundred serviceable tanks, and even with the precious gasoline captured at Tobruk, they were dangerously low on fuel.
He stared into the harbor, watched work crews on small barges, cranes straining to move sunken debris. We can make good use of this place, he thought. It is not so big as Tripoli, but it is one more port that is ours and not theirs. Perhaps now Rome can be persuaded to send us some supply ships.
“Sir!”
A second staff car pulled up alongside his own, and he recognized the big man, oversize in any vehicle he rode in. It was Berndt, the man pouring himself out of his cramped seat.
Berndt moved toward him, all smiles, and Rommel said, “You have returned, Alfred. How was Berlin?”
Berndt stopped, made his formal salute, always the good show for the men.
“Berlin is celebrating, Herr General. You have brightened the light in every staff room. The Führer has never been in a better mood. Your name is spoken with great respect! And, I come with a very special message.” Berndt seemed to prepare himself, puffing out his chest a bit more than usual. “General Rommel, it is my honor to communicate to you the Führer’s personal congratulations for your magnificent victory. I have been instructed to notify you that the Führer has promoted you to the rank of field marshal. The appropriate certification will arrive shortly. Allow me to be the first, sir.”
Berndt took a step back, saluted, said, “Field Marshal Rommel.”
Rommel didn’t know what to say, Berndt seeming to expect a speech.
“That is quite…wonderful. Yes, I am deeply appreciative.”
There was an explosion out past the pier, the engineers blasting through some obstruction in the waterway. Rommel turned that way instinctively, watched as smoke drifted past the men working hard at their task. Yes, he thought, promotion is good. Lucy will be proud. I should write to her tonight, though surely she has heard of this already. In Berlin, success is not kept secret.
Berndt was fidgeting, moved up beside him now, seemed mystified by Rommel’s lack of response.
“Does this not call for a celebration, sir?”
Rommel nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose so. It will be good for the men. They should know that someone beyond this dreadful place is paying attention to us.”
A lfred Berndt was a Gestapo officer, sent to Africa by Hitler’s propaganda master, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Berndt was not a spy, precisely, though Rommel understood that the man’s job was to serve as a direct conduit between his command and Hitler’s inner circle. There had been nervousness by some of Rommel’s staff that Berndt must be handled discreetly. He had arrived in Libya with a bit too much noise, seemed to have an inflated notion of his own value. It was an annoyance Rommel had been quick to correct, and the man had actually fit in quite well, had become accepted by the staff as just one more man with a job to do. If there was one lingering absurdity, it was that Berndt was, technically, only a lieutenant. It was a poor attempt to hide the man’s influence, a decision made by someone in Berlin who no doubt believed Berndt would draw less scrutiny as a junior officer. Rommel was certainly not fooled, had quickly learned that the big, overbearing man did not come to Africa to be ignored. But he had come to trust Berndt’s intentions, believed that anything the man reported to Berlin would be accurate and fair. It was perfectly reasonable that Hitler and his staff would want to know precisely what was happening in Africa, and at the same time, by reporting to Goebbels, Berndt would pass along the kind of information that the propaganda ministry would find useful. Whether those news reports were accurate was not Rommel’s problem. He knew that he had no control over anything Goebbels put into the newspapers, or any control over how Rommel himself would be presented to the German people. Regardless of the discomfort Rommel had given many of Hitler’s “chairborne” officers, right now he was certainly being trumpeted throughout Germany as a great hero, the man of the hour. For the moment at least, his harshest critics would have to keep silent.
ROMMEL’S HEADQUARTERS, NEAR TOBRUK—JUNE 22, 1942
The celebration was hardly a party at all, a few of his staff toasting him from a single bottle of whiskey they had secured from some unspecified stash in Tobruk. Rommel had actually allowed himself to take a drink, a rare occurrence in the desert. He accompanied his glass of whiskey with a tin of South African pineapple. It was all the luxury the evening required.
The celebration concluded, the men drifting back to their work. He moved out into the open, the air cooling, no breeze, the daylight nearly gone. There was activity in the distance, trucks and armored cars, the first of the night patrols moving out, heading east, toward the enemy. It was a constant routine, scouting, probing, the enemy doing the same. The patrols would often confront each other, short fights that shattered the darkness with lightning streaks of tracer fire. But more often, the patrols would pass right by each other, avoiding the fight. Combat was an inconvenient distraction to the scouts, something to keep them from doing their jobs. Each was patrolling the desert with one goal, seeking information of some movement of the enemy, whether anyone was shifting position, gathering strength. Before dawn, they would scamper back through the cleared pathways in their own minefields, reporting back to their commanders whether the enemy was threatening to launch some dawn attack.
Rommel watched them pull away, thought, there will be no attack now, not by us, and certainly not by them. We are both used up, bloodied, worn into uselessness. The men…no, the men are fine. They can rest now, gain strength. It is the machines that suffer, the power drained from this army by the loss of so much steel. He looked to the west, toward the far distant ports of Tripoli and Benghazi, old habit now. He had grown weary of sending the urgent messages for supplies, but he sent them still. The requests followed the chain of command, went usually through Kesselring, then up the mythical ladder of authority to Comando Supremo in Rome. And there, he thought, my urgent requests go into some box, shoved underneath someone’s feet, to use as a footstool.
He heard the sound of an airplane motor, slow, nothing like the hard screams of the Messerschmitts. He saw a Storch, floating downward like a small black bird, bouncing once, slowing, rolling to a stop. Ground crews moved quickly, ropes tied to the landing gear, anchoring the plane against some sudden windstorm that would easily flip it over. The door of the plane opened, and an officer stepped down, followed by the pilot, and the ground crews saluted stiffly. It was Kesselring.
Rommel stayed put, waited for Kesselring to approach. It was a small show, purposeful, discreet disrespect. No matter your rank, this is my ground, and my army. If you wish to see me, you will come to me. If Kesselring even noticed, he showed no hint of annoyance. There was annoyance enough in Kesselring’s visits as it was, for both of them. If he was there at all, it was usually because something bad had happened.
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br /> “Good evening, Erwin.”
“Field Marshal.”
Kesselring laughed, surprising Rommel. “Oh, I stand corrected. Good evening, Field Marshal.”
Rommel was suddenly embarrassed, had crossed a line, even for him. “No, sir, I did not…I was not correcting you. I was referring to you. I meant it as a greeting.”
Kesselring still laughed, put his hand on Rommel’s shoulder, a rare gesture of familiarity.
“Humility. A rare trait in the Afrika Korps. Don’t bother yourself about it, Erwin. I made a poor joke. But, it seems you have already been informed about your promotion. I had hoped to be the first to bring the news, but then, that was not to be expected.”
“Lieutenant Berndt has returned from Berlin. He brought word.”
“Berndt. Yes, your public relations wizard. The man thrives on good news, does he not? And if there is no good news, he will provide his own.”
“He does his job.”
“Quite well too. He has the Führer’s ear, you know. That gives you an enormous advantage, should you wish to avoid my nagging and make your grievances known only to Berlin.”
Rommel felt cautious, was disarmed by Kesselring’s high spirits.
“I assure you, I have not done so.”
“I know, Erwin. I have the Führer’s ear too. May we take a walk?”
Rommel said nothing, followed, and Kesselring said, “General Bastico is concerned about your intentions. He is concerned about a great deal more, actually. He is not the least bit amused that you now outrank him. I have been told that Mussolini will promote him quickly, to maintain his paper authority over you. They are so very sensitive about such meaningless matters.”