Alamein (Major Battles of World War Two)

by C. E. Lucas Phillips

  The infantry-armour failure has perhaps never been summarized with more stinging emphasis than by the New Zealander, Brigadier Howard Kippenberger, one of the best fighting soldiers in the desert, when he wrote of the July battle known as ‘Second Ruweisat’: Two infantry and two armoured brigades had been employed.

  They had made three unrelated attacks from different directions at different times. A single small Panzer division of some twenty to thirty tanks and a fifth-rate Italian division easily dealt with all three attacks in succession and inflicted crippling losses.[7]

  Before the end of July, a deep distrust of each other had grown up between the infantry and the armour. It became a common saying among the infantry that ‘the tanks can be relied upon not to be there when you want them’. The infantry were accused in their turn of always ‘screaming for tank support’ on every possible occasion. ‘I do not think,’ admits Kippenberger, ‘that we of the infantry did nearly as much as we could or should have done to ensure that we fought the battle together.’[8] Certainly most infantry commanders were as ignorant of the employment of armour as most armoured commanders were of co-operation with infantry.

  The fault, however, lay on the shoulders of neither arm. It lay squarely on those of the superior commanders.

  The second deadly ailment from which Auchinleck’s forces had been suffering was the fragmentation and dismemberment of divisions.

  The division, as we have seen, was a balanced and flexible force of considerable hitting power, having its own artillery, engineers, supply and administrative services to support an operation by any one of its brigades or even by a single battalion. Once it was broken up into small components, the hitting power was lost. This was precisely what had been happening. ‘Penny pockets’ were created which the enemy defeated in detail by concentrating superior forces. ‘Brigade groups’, ‘Jock columns’ and other scratch forces had become the accepted order and rule. Thirteenth Corps had almost the appearance of having disintegrated into an assortment of ‘groups’ and ‘columns’ without coherence and without any serious military value.

  Auchinleck was an Indian Army officer and it was believed by many that the conditions in which training and operations there were conducted disposed him to a belief in small, mixed, mobile forces. In this he was abetted by his senior staff in the desert, Major General E. Dorman-Smith, whose brilliant intellect was highly fruitful in fanciful stratagems.

  The independence enjoyed by the commanders of the Dominion divisions enabled them to resist such disintegration, not without sharp words, but the United Kingdom divisions had no such safeguards. Wimberley, when he brought the Highland Division out from home, was warned by Leslie Morshead, commander of 9th Australian Division: ‘The staff here are mad on breaking up divisions. They’ll — you about for a dead cert.’

  The integrity of a division was violated in more ways than one. Second Armoured Brigade, during the eighteen days of the most critical fighting at Gazala, were never certain whether they were under the orders of 1st or 7th Armoured Division, and so sudden and frequent were the changes that they sometimes did not even know on what wireless frequency they should be netted. Fourth Armoured Brigade, when about to attack a sitting target, were ‘stolen’ by a divisional commander merely because they crossed a boundary line.

  There are, of course, situations in which a ‘brigade group’ may be justified. A brigade might also justifiably be lent temporarily to another division for a specific task, but it then became ‘under command’ that division, fought as part of it and was backed by all the divisional resources (a fact that a recent, much publicized critic does not seem to have understood). Montgomery often took such a step in his brilliant regroupings, but he never allowed ‘brigade groups’ to operate on their own.

  These ailments had bitten deep into the body of Eighth Army before Alamein. Between them, they led to the severe tactical defeat of Gazala and to what came to be known as the ‘nonsenses’ of July. Fundamentally, they arose from transgression of the military doctrine of concentration of force. They led to very heavy casualties among some of our best troops, especially the New Zealanders. Von Mellenthin, then a lieutenant-colonel on Rommel’s staff, commented on the ‘complete lack of co-ordination and control’ by the British, on the ‘muddled’ nature of Auchinleck’s tactics and on the ‘lack of drive’ of his subordinates.[9]

  Auchinleck’s intentions for his July battles were well conceived, but he did not succeed in carrying them out, nor in transmitting his own impulse to lower levels. As Lord Ismay has remarked, he was internally a shy person, in spite of his commanding and impressive presence, in which there dwelt the soul of courage and honour.

  NEW BATTLE TECHNIQUES

  Besides these drawbacks inherited from earlier operations, Eighth Army found itself completely baffled during this July fighting on the Alamein positions by two relatively new and menacing weapons. These were the land mine and the anti-tank gun. Previously the Germans had not used mines in any quantity, but they now began to lay them on an increasing scale, especially anti-tank mines. They were a complete barrier to the passage of tanks, but the locations of the minefields were rarely ascertained with any accuracy and the methods of tackling them were primitive, slow and highly dangerous.

  The anti-tank gun, on the other hand, was by no means new, but the Germans had developed the highly effective device of forming screens of anti-tank guns, stretching over a considerable frontage, and these guns, dug-in to ground level and almost invisible, were much more deadly than an enemy tank. It was a favourite trick of the German armour, for which we more than once fell, to entice our tanks on to the anti-tank guns, with shattering results.

  The anti-tank gunner, if well-sited and strong of heart, really had the tank ‘cold’ nearly every time. This became all the more so with the employment by the Germans of the formidable 88-mm high-velocity gun and the similar Russian 7.62. Their numbers were continuously being increased and, in August, Flak Regiment 135 was joined by Flak Regiment 102.

  So serious an obstacle had these anti-tank screens become and so shrewdly were they co-ordinated with the tactics of their own tanks that 1st Armoured Division’s Operation Instruction No. 20 for the Battle of Alamein itself was to include this emphatic injunction:

  Second Armoured Brigade will start more than a match for any German armoured division. It is imperative that this strength is not dissipated against the enemy anti-tank guns, but reserved to destroy the enemy armour. The enemy will certainly try to weaken our armour with his anti-tank guns and to prevent a close engagement between the tank until our strength has been reduced, by his anti-tank screen.

  The infantry who so often criticized our armour, even the most senior infantry commanders, quite failed to see, as we shall repeatedly see, that tanks, whether British or German, could no more advance in the face of resolutely manned anti-tank guns than the cavalry of their fathers’ day could advance in the face of quick-firing field artillery.[10] The guns had to be eliminated first.

  Alamein was to show a dramatic change in the shape of warfare. Whereas, hitherto, the tank had dominated the previous battlefields of the desert, what were to dominate the fierce struggles at Alamein were not the tank, nor the bayonet, nor the air, nor even the field artillery, but the mine and the anti-tank gun. Both required considerable guts and considerable skill to overcome. The emphasis of advantage was powerfully on the side of the defence and, against a first-class enemy, could be overcome only by great superiority in numbers.

  The truth was proved again, and on both sides, of the axiom recognized after the First World War that, against strong defences, the attack could not succeed without a superiority of three to one in the zone of impact. For the defence, on the other hand, it is not numbers that matter, but fire-power: fire-power concealed within and behind physical obstacles.

  LIFE IN A TANK

  The warlike glamour of the tank, its intimidating aspect and its outward mien of invincibility gave to the infantry a great sense o
f security. Its vulnerability against modern weapons and the technical problems of maintaining it in action were less obvious.

  Its frontal armour gave to the tank considerable protection but its tracks and suspension were very vulnerable to a flank shot, not only by armour-piercing ammunition but even by field artillery high explosive. Our 25-pdrs, with their swift concentrations of fire, several times stopped German armoured attacks. Indeed, a direct hit on its thick front plate by a medium or even field shell could loosen the welding and cause the front plate to drop off. A direct hit in the fuel tank was crippling, but more dangerous was the shot that, penetrating the main armour, set fire to the cartridges of the gun ammunition. In a few seconds the tank became a furnace.

  It came as a surprise to many infantrymen and others that, although a tank was able to shoot with its main armament while on the move, it could at that time seldom do so very effectively. Only the most highly trained and experienced men could kill their birds on the move. Gyro stabilizers had not yet been fitted, except in the Sherman and these were imperfect. The popular notion of a tank ‘charge’ was likewise fallacious.

  A tank could spray the enemy with its machine gun while moving (the Besa being the standard British equipment and the Browning in the Shermans and Grants); but to aim accurately with its main armament it preferred to stop. Tank battles were, therefore, largely fought out at the halt at whatever might be the killing ranges of their guns, and they would manoeuvre tactically for that purpose. Whenever possible, the tank sought a ‘hull-down’ position — using whatever irregularity there might be in the ground to hide from the enemy all but the gun-turret. It was often said that the best man to fight a tank was an experienced poacher; they had a very successful one in 9th Lancers! In the earlier desert actions, when we had to fight with guns of inferior power, the stalking of enemy armour was an exciting and highly skilful affair.

  Tanks could carry only a limited amount of fuel and ammunition and these had to be renewed in a long action. For this purpose regiments had a special echelon of unarmoured lorries (‘soft skins’). When ammunition was needed they might often be required to drive right up into the heart of a battle and unload, round by round, by hand. For fuel replenishment, however, the tank had to withdraw. Except in the most critical situations, it also had to withdraw every night for mechanical maintenance tasks, for general replenishment, for food and for such rest as was possible.

  Withdrawal was usually into a ‘leaguer’, which, in the open desert, meant ‘close leaguer’, with all the tanks, soft skins, field and anti-tank artillery and infantry in a solid phalanx, defensively disposed. Withdrawal, which might involve an hour or more of cautious and difficult driving, could not be until well after dark. Maintenance by the crews and repairs by the REME detachments would go on far into the night. The crews were often too dog-tired at the end of it to bother about cooking a meal and would eat nothing but a little hard tack before bedding down where they were.

  Each man then had to stand an hour’s guard, so that about three hours was the maximum of sleep before the crew had to be up again and, after tea and a biscuit, drive back to their battle or patrol position. Our leaguers were always in complete darkness. The Germans, withdrawing likewise, did the opposite; they turned on arc lights for their repairs and ate a hot meal.

  Life in a tank that was long in action was, therefore, physically very exhausting. It also imposed a peculiar nervous strain. The feeling of claustrophobia was but one of these strains. Crews had to be tough in both senses. To command, drive, operate its exterior wireless and man its main gun, the Crusader had a crew of only three, the Sherman, when it arrived, of five. All had to be men of intelligence as well as spirit. Upon the skill, nerve and intelligence of the driver a great deal depended. Coated in a gritty amalgam of oil and sand, he was the last man to bed down for the night and the first to get up, while it was still dark. He had to be something above the ordinary, like Brigadier Richards’s stout-hearted Corporal Douglas. Upon the wireless operator, earphones clapped to his head all day and much of the night, listening to ‘the babbling jargon of the air’ that filled every minute and trying to evade atmospherics and enemy interference in his set, there was a considerable strain.

  But it was upon the tank commander, who might be either an officer or NCO, that the greatest strain fell. He had to stand up in his open turret and maintain unceasing vigil with binoculars over the glaring desert from first light to last light. His eyes became red lozenges set in the dust that covered his face like talcum powder. He was constantly talking on the radio either to other tanks, taking or giving orders and information, or to his own crew on the separate ‘intercom’. At that time cold water and hard rations were the crew’s only refreshment in situations when it was unsafe to dismount and ‘brew up’.

  In terms of human casualties, however, the tank crews were far more fortunate than the infantry and the gunners who accompanied the infantry. The man with the rifle, the artillery FOO and the anti-tank gunner had no shield against the flying shell-splinters and the bullets. But tank wounds could be shocking. Like air crews shot down in flames, a man might be in hospital for four or five years, with one operation succeeding another, or, with bloated face and limbs and broken mind, he might wander witless in the desert.[11]

  While the armour of both sides was in night leaguer, much would still be going on where they had fought their day battle. There were our own derelict tanks to recover and there were the enemy’s derelicts to be destroyed by explosives. The former was the task of recovery squads provided by the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in the armoured brigade workshops. They sallied out into the night with towing and winching gear and tank transporters, like devoted shepherds, to bring home the lame and the halt. The business of ‘tank busting’ (and ‘gun busting’) of the enemy derelicts was in the good hands of the Royal Engineers. First Field Squadron RE destroyed and marked ninety enemy tanks during the Battle of Alamein.

  The enemy, of course, was doing the same things. Among the prowling parties of the night, fierce little fights would take place as one side strove to recover its own injured tanks and the other to destroy them. On one occasion Brigadier Richards’s intelligence officer, going to search an Italian tank for documents, came up to it at the same moment as an Italian officer arrived to recover them — and found that he was an old school friend; it was to the British lines that they both walked back.

  On another occasion Major Peter Moore, Royal Engineers, out on a ‘gun busting’ mission one night, entered a German gun pit to find it still fully manned by its detachment. He was confronted by a corporal armed with a sub-machine gun. Moore sprang at him and seized the weapon. The German threw a grenade at him, but Moore shot him with his revolver. The rest of the gun detachment fled.

  Chapter Five: The New Commanders

  ALEXANDER

  In August Mr Churchill paid his historic visit to Egypt and made those changes in command that were to result in so much talk but were to have so decisive an effect.

  He appointed a new C-in-C Middle East in the person of General The Hon. Sir Harold Alexander, a soldier who had proved his ability in the most adverse situations and who added to his professional excellence the highest personal qualities and gifts of character, not least of which was the ‘modest stillness’ of his breeding. He and ‘The Auk’, indeed, had a great deal in common. As his Chief of Staff, Alexander appointed Major-General Richard McCreery, a tall, lean and wiry figure of severe character who was a tank specialist but whose advice Auchinleck would not accept, as he was opposed to the splintering of armoured divisions. He was one day to command Eighth Army himself.

  Though another figure was still to fill the centre of the stage in the public eye, we must at all times remember Alexander directing behind the scenes, approving or modifying the new operations that were to begin in the desert and supporting them by his able direction of the large resources at his command. Like Wavell and Auchinleck, he had other large responsibilities also
as C-in-C Middle East, but his ‘prime and main duty’, as set out by Mr Churchill, was to destroy Rommel’s forces. There were those who did not miss the significance of his name in a land that perpetuated the memory of his great namesake.

  To us, however, there is a greater significance in the officer who was appointed to command Eighth Army under the overall direction of Alexander. This officer was at the time known as Lieutenant-General B. L. Montgomery. Let us take a detached look at this man who was to become so much a figure of controversy and see him as he then was.

  MONTGOMERY

  Montgomery, fresh from England, presented himself to the sunburnt army of the desert as a figure without any remarkable physical attributes. He had not Auchinleck’s impressive presence, nor the handsome, martial bearing of Alexander, nor the rugged, bulldog features of Wavell. He was slender and wiry and not very tall. He had fair hair, faint eyebrows, a moustache clipped very close, a sharp, inquiring nose and pale blue eyes the colour of a harebell.

  It was the eyes that signified. At first sight of him, one was not particularly impressed by his physical appearance, but at closer range his eyes declared much of his character. When he spoke, the absence of sonority in his voice disclosed other facets. Eyes and voice together told you that he was incisive, lucid, firm of purpose, not warm-hearted, not brooking disputation, not likely to make allowances for the fallibility of others. He was brisk and business-like. You were left in no doubt that he had decided exactly what was going to be done and that it would be done. You were at once aware that he had no use for weak instruments, nor for instruments that did not fit his hand.

  A practising evangelical churchman, he was strict in his personal habits: a teetotaller, non-smoker, simple in his tastes and constantly insistent on physical fitness. Ever since Sandhurst he had been a serious and dedicated student of the soldier’s trade and had made himself a complete master in the technique of that craft. He knew how to handle all its tools and understood the capabilities, limitations and tensions of his raw materials. Whether he had the quality of genius remained to be seen.