Winter Storm

by John Schettler

  “The very same,” said Rommel. “He will do exactly as you suggest, General Crüwell, what else? Only this time they will have more armor, and we will have fewer troops in the field than last time. For that reason, I contemplate no attack on Tobruk. We will fight a defensive action here, and count ourselves lucky if we can hold the Gazala Line.”

  “What about 10th Panzer Division?” said Crüwell. “What about the Big Cats?”

  “I have just come from Benghazi,” said Rommel. “They gave that division to Generalleutnant Wolfgang Fischer—a good man.”

  “Then you have seen our new tanks?” Bayerlein rocked on his heels with a smile.

  “Most impressive,” said Rommel. “Yet how they will fare against the British remains to be seen.”

  “I have seen them fight in Russia,” said Bayerlein. “They smashed three Russian Tank Brigades on the road to Serpukhov!”

  “Well, let us hope they can perform as well on the road to Cairo,” said Rommel. “Yet I must tell you what I have learned about this new British tank, and how we must fight it. And I will also tell you that I have no intention of trying to face it with our new Lions, and you will soon know why.”

  Chapter 29

  “It cannot be stopped,” said Rommel. “At least not by any tank we possess, and I do not even think our new Lions will do the job. This tank is fearsome. It can engage at ranges exceeding our 88s, and that while moving at speeds we have estimated in excess of 50 KPH! Our best 88 gunners can barely track them as they pass, and those that do manage to get a lucky hit say it has absolutely no effect.”

  “Astounding,” said Crüwell. “How could the British be so far ahead of us?”

  “That is the mystery,” said Rommel. “Thus far, the only place we have encountered this new tank is here and in Syria. The British moved that brigade east to stop Steiner before Hitler abandoned his Plan Orient and pulled that division off to fight in Russia.”

  “A single brigade?”

  “Yes, it can be no more than that, a mixed force of light tanks, mechanized infantry and a battalion of this new heavy armor. But mark my words, it would smash the tanks you set loose on that road to Serpukhov, Bayerlein, of this I am certain.”

  “Then how do we attack?”

  “We do not attack,” said Rommel, “at least not in the traditional way we have been accustomed to routing our enemies. Blitzkrieg counts for nothing here now, and you must know this. The British hold this special force in reserve behind their main line. Its speed is sufficient to rapidly react to any breakthrough, so any fast moving penetration by armor will certainly encounter this threat, and be annihilated. No. Here we fight as we did in the last war. In spite of the loss of Grossdeutschland, and Goering’s troops, I still have two good infantry divisions. The 90th Light has been built up to three full regiments, and Hitler has sent me the mountain troops he was holding in reserve for Crete, three more regiments. Those units, along with Meindel’s Sturm Parachute Regiment, are holding the Gazala Line, and they are dug in like the last war—wire, mines, reinforced positions with any good stone we could quarry these last months.”

  “Trench warfare?” Bayerlein shook his head.

  “Backed by every AT gun, and all the artillery we have,” said Rommel. “Hopefully we will have Stuka support this time as well.”

  “And what about the three panzer divisions?” Crüwell’s eyes were wide. “You cannot conduct any offensive with two infantry divisions!”

  “They’ll be held in reserve,” said Rommel. “We wait for the enemy to strike. Then we counterpunch their breakthroughs as best we can. If this new British Heavy Brigade appears, I will fight it with infantry alone, but not my panzers. They must be used to smash the lighter British tanks, which the enemy still has in abundance. Should the moment present itself, I will contemplate a move east, but only if the British are thoroughly beaten, on the run, and not until I know where those damn heavy tanks are. At the moment, the enemy is presenting every sign of an impending offensive, but we have not identified this Heavy Brigade among their forward deployments. This is good. It will give us a chance to lean on the ropes.”

  “The Führer is expecting results this time, Herr Rommel,” said Crüwell. “He won’t stand for another defeat here.”

  “What are you talking about? What defeat? We were that close to taking Tobruk!” Rommel held up two fingers to emphasize his point. “I had infantry firing at enemy positions in the harbor! And I am still sitting on the same ground I took with my first offensive, where I’ve been watching the Führer shuffle my divisions about like chess pieces!”

  “Yes,” said Crüwell, cautiously, but firmly. “You have certainly been sitting here. I’ve been sent to see that we get moving again.”

  “You’ve been sent?” Rommel gave him an incredulous look. “Is that what you think you are here for, Herr General? You fancy yourself a new crusader in the desert, ready to lift up our fallen banners and run with them all the way to Cairo? Well you have not seen this new British Brigade in action, nor has Hitler. I tried to press upon him the importance of upgrading our armor, and so now it is finally arriving with 10th Panzer Division. All the better, but gentlemen, we must be very cautious now, and very stubborn. No doubt you were both excellent officers in Russia, but here in the desert, there is much you have to learn.”

  He gave them a quick map briefing, and related his intentions. “The Italian Trento Division is on the coast holding in front of Gazala. They have a regular infantry division behind them, and the Ariete Armored Division is here, south of these escarpments. That is their reserve. Next comes our three mountain regiments. They’ll hold the line between the escarpment and Bir Hacheim. South of that I’ve placed our 90th Light Division in this difficult ground leading down to Wadi Thiran. And Meindel’s Sturm Regiment is covering these secondary tracks south of that wadi. He is the end of the line. The two Panzer Divisions are here.” He circled the assembly areas well behind that hard crust of his infantry.

  “They will most likely hit us with infantry, and then push hard with their armor through this sector.” He fingered Bir Hacheim. “21st Panzer will react in that sector, and the 15th Panzer will stand in reserve should they attempt any envelopment south or through Wadi Thiran. Hopefully 10th Panzer will hasten up from Benghazi, and that will be my ace in the hole.”

  “Why not use both Panzer Divisions together?” said Crüwell. “I would mass them here, then push right up this road through Sidi Muftah to this crossroads here.”

  “The British call that Knightsbridge,” said Rommel. “There’s bad ground north of Sidi Muftah, and escarpments beyond that crossroad.”

  “Yes, but it is the most direct axis to Tobruk,” said Crüwell.

  “And for that reason,” Rommel said quickly, “that will be where they position the bulk of their reserves. No. Any attack through Knightsbridge must go here.” He pointed to a track leading southeast, “to Bir el Gobi. But all that is academic. We are not going to Tobruk, General Crüwell. My intention is to break the enemy offensive and hold the Gazala line.”

  “What? No further offensive east?” Crüwell folded his arms. “At the very least we could envelop Tobruk and restore the siege.”

  “If we beat the British badly enough,” said Rommel, “destroy their armor divisions, then they will have no recourse but to withdraw.” He tapped the map. In that instance they will have to decide whether or not to give us Tobruk. But don’t get any ideas about a mad dash to the wire on the Egyptian border,” he cautioned, which was the very thing he had done himself in Fedorov’s history of that battle. That Rommel had vanished in the night, commandeering any vehicle he could keep running as he raced from one scattered unit after another and sent them all on a wild jaunt toward the wire. At one point he had been trapped east of the wire himself, spending the long night in a Mammut command vehicle within a few kilometers of 8th Army headquarters and not even knowing it. British messengers had been racing past all night on motorcycles, but not a one gave a
second thought to the solitary vehicle sitting sullenly in the desert that night.

  This Rommel had already been chastened for his reckless abandon twice. He knew his enemy now, their capabilities, and the grave danger of unprepared advances into thin air that might meet with utter disaster should the British find them with those awful new heavy tanks and fast mechanized infantry. This time he would fight to destroy the British Army in the field, and not to simply take kilometers of useless desert ground.

  “If we do move east again,” he finished, “then it will be a cautious, well managed pursuit of a beaten enemy, but until we achieve that, we stay right here on this line in the sand.”

  Crüwell frowned, giving Bayerlein a sideward’s glance, but said nothing more.

  *

  The night of October 14th, radio silence was imposed all along the British line, and ominous hush that seemed to portend the imminent onset of the attack. The British hit the Gazala Line hard on the morning of the 15th, a little over a month before the historical start date of Operation Crusader. Montgomery was to begin the attack along the main coastal road, with the intention of taking Gazala itself, and then pushing on to Derna. To this end he decided to commit his 32nd Tank Brigade to support the infantry of the 2nd New Zealand Division, and they were going up against the Italian Trento Motorized Division, entrenched astride the main road in good positions.

  The 32nd had over 50 Matilda II tanks, most with 4th RTR, and they led the attack, grinding through heavily sandbagged positions once the New Zealand sappers cleared a path through the mine infested wire. The success of this attack was largely due to those tanks, and the heavy artillery preparation Monty heaved over to cover his sapper advance. It was scissors, paper, rock, and this time the Italians were paper, and Monty’s tanks a hard metal scissors cutting through.

  The Italians struggled to regroup, sending in the 102nd Engineer battalion to try and hold the airfield just south of the town, but their best reprisal was the artillery of the 46th Regiment, blasting away at the advancing enemy. They were soon answered from a most unexpected direction, when the three destroyers that had been stationed at Tobruk sortied up the coast and began firing at targets of opportunity, which included the closely massed Italian artillery, troops reorganizing in Gazala, and the division headquarters even took several direct hits, causing a good deal of disorder.

  Monty’s advance was methodical. The Armor would punch through and blast away at the hardened enemy bunkers to eliminate machine gun and mortar positions. Then the New Zealand infantry would charge in support of the tanks, bayonets fitted on their rifles, and carry the position. All the while, Montgomery was closely directing the supporting artillery fire, walking it ahead of the advance, which made for an attack that seemed like a slow fire that was burning through the enemy lines.

  Further south, beyond a staircase of ragged escarpments, the 99th Mountain Regiment had also been pushed off their prepared positions by the surging New Zealanders, but they immediately organized a counterattack near a secondary road. Beyond that point, west of Sidi Muftah, it was the veteran troops of the 9th Australian Division locked in close combat fighting with the 100th Mountain Regiment. The Germans held the line, except at Bir Hachiem, where the tanks of the British 5th RTR of 2nd Armored Division rolled out of the sallow dawn and made several inroads into the small settlement.

  A stolid Sergeant rallied his men, bawling out an order to regroup for a counterattack. Up came the new Panzerfaust teams, fresh off the trucks, rushing through the confusion and smoke of the battlefield. They were going to take a terrible toll on the British tanks of the 5th RTR. Six Crusaders and two older cruiser tanks were the first to feel their bite. With relatively thin 40mm armor on those tanks, the Panzerfaust was lethal at close quarters when the armor attempted to break through.

  The attack thundered on to the south, where the British 1st Army Tank Brigade was coming up the road towards a knob labeled Hill 541 on their maps. It would be defended by III Battalion of the 155th Schutzen Regiment of the 90th Light, but before the tanks got there, the dogged infantry of the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade had dismounted and charged in to attack. All three battalions of this unit hit the Germans, eventually overwhelming the position, which was buckling just as the tanks of the 1st Brigade arrived to seal the deal.

  O’Connor was listening to radio reports very closely on all the action, waiting for news of any breakthrough on the first day. The mystery was where the German panzer divisions were, as no unit of the 21st or 15th had been identified on the front. When the Indians took Hill 541, he thought he saw his first real opportunity, and decided to go all in or nothing. He got to the nearest field radio and called up General Brink of the 1st South African Division.

  “Come on, Georgie! Move your boys up after dusk. I want to hit them with another full brigade of infantry before sunset!”

  Brink was only too happy to comply, and he also had a couple battalions of fast armored cars to throw in to exploit any holes his men might open. That was to be the danger point for the Germans on day one of the battle. O’Connor was thinking to push through with that infantry, and see what reserves the enemy had at hand. It was like a bear sticking his snout in a beehive, and he was not going to like what he found.

  The XXX Corps attack was developing in a very odd way, with 7th Armored sandwiched between two infantry divisions now, the 1st South African on their right, and the 4th Indian on their left. Both infantry divisions were breaking through, while the armor seemed hopelessly tangled with the infantry of the German 90th Light Division, dug in and firing from well prepared defenses. Reports of a new hand held enemy anti-tank weapon began to come in from one regiment after another. The Germans had something that could stop even a Matilda II dead in its tracks, which made the commitment of armor in a breakthrough role very costly, unless it was strongly supported by infantry.

  So it was that, while Brink’s infantry was swarming through the gap west of Hill 541, the fast motorized troops of the 4th Indian had swung down around the badlands of Wadi Thiran, where they finally found what they thought was the southernmost end of the German line, held by the 442nd flak battery, with 37mm guns. Using artillery to shake up the German gun positions, a full regiment of the veteran Indian troopers went in and put the remaining gun crews to rout. As dusk fell, O’Connor was getting reports that the Indian Division had found and turned the enemy flank, but they were all wrong. Dawn would bring the truth to light, and O’Connor would finally learn where the German Panzer Divisions were.

  *

  Rommel had been listening to reports all that day as well, noting the progression of the British attack on his map, and surprised by its scale and scope. By mid-day, Crüwell was nagging him for permission to commit Ravenstein’s 21st Panzer Division to stop the British attack between Bir Hachiem and the gap in the line at Hill 541, and he also wanted the 15th Panzers to begin moving up.

  “Not yet!” Rommel admonished him on the radio. “Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s thrown four infantry divisions at the two we have on the line, hoping to pull our teeth, and there you are wanting to oblige him. Don’t show your reserves yet. Keep your nerve. Tell the 90th Light to hold their ground, even if the enemy gets through. We will see what the situation looks like near dusk.”

  Crüwell stewed, wanting to meet fire with fire, and not really knowing what staying power those two German infantry divisions might have. He had not yet seen the new Panzerfaust, and beyond that, the idea that a single man could hold something in his hands capable of destroying a British heavy infantry tank would never enter his mind. So he chafed and fretted with Bayerlein, eventually sending word to Ravenstein to be prepared to move at first light the following morning.

  He had come here to set things right for the man he most loved and respected in this world, Adolf Hitler, and he was going to do things his way, come hell or high water. There would be no high water to face in the dry Western Desert, but Crüwell would soon learn what it was to be in hell, and
he would have a devil to pay.

  Chapter 30

  On the morning of the second day, Monty took Gazala from the Trento division, and he had no intention of ever giving it back. The Matildas of the 32nd Armor Brigade rattled into the narrow streets, backed by infantry of both the New Zealand and British 70th Infantry divisions. It was his intention to push well beyond that fortified town, moving west beneath the high stony escarpment that overlooked it to the south. From there he would have to choose whether to drive up the coast road towards Derna, or to swing southwest into the desert, and either choice rested on the outcome of O’Connor’s maneuvers to the south.

  In that sector, developments would lead to a most difficult decision. The 4th Indian Division had gotten through the tortuous wrinkled gullies of Wadi Thiran, then swung northwest, thinking they were turning Rommel’s flank. There, several thin tracks led due west towards a distant Hill 597, perhaps 50 kilometers away, which was now getting visitors in the arrival of the 10th Panzer Division. Fischer’s battalions were strung out west along the roads for miles, but once they snaked past that hill, every road was going to lead them right into the thick of that turning movement by 4th Indian.

  It was an attack that looked so promising to O’Connor, that he quickly reinforced it with the 4th Armored Brigade, and troops from the 7th Armored Support Group on light carriers. This was the sector being covered by 15th Panzer Division and, in spite of Rommel’s admonitions, it had been slowly drawn into that battle, the 115th Schutzen Regiment infantry going up to check the advance of the Indian troops, and then the tanks of Cramer’s 8th Panzer Regiment swinging south to take up the road that led right through Wadi Thiran. He was supposed to be recovering in a hospital, later to be reassigned to a post in Germany, but that artillery round had not found him in this telling of these events, and so he still led the 8th Regiment into the winter of 1941.