He roused his four men and all disappeared into the night. After twenty minutes, the Spandau ceased to chatter and a little later the sergeant came back and said simply to Perrott: ‘That won’t worry you any more, Major.’
He and his men, having suffered no casualties, then slumped down once more on to their rocky bed. The episode, so typical of the fine fighting spirit of the Kiwis, made a tremendous impression on Perrott and his sappers.
At ten o’clock the barrage roared out and the tanks began to crawl forward in line ahead between the little green lights. The Staffordshire Yeomanry were on Bottle route, the Sherwood Rangers, Custance’s brigade headquarters and 3rd RTR on Boat. But tonight the enemy was not to be caught unawares. The advance of the armoured brigades across the ridge had scarcely begun when to the moon’s radiance was suddenly added the fiercer light of parachute flares as the enemy aircraft came over to discover what was going on. The desert was lit up as though by floodlights and the long columns of the British armour, with their artillery, their lorries, and the carriers of their infantry, were glaringly revealed.
In a moment the roar of the barrage was drowned by a more shattering eruption as the bombs cascaded upon the creeping columns. They fell first upon the lorries of the Sherwood Rangers loaded with petrol, oil and ammunition, and upon the battalion headquarters and A Company (under Major B. M. Horley) of The Buffs, on the centre Boat route immediately behind Perrott. These burst into flames and explosions and in an instant Boat route became, in Perrott’s recorded words, ‘the most enormous crackling furnace, which lit the desert up for a radius of two miles all round. The gap was illuminated like a street with modern lighting and everything in it was silhouetted to the enemy’.
The flames, thus clearly revealing the British intention, attracted yet more bombs, incendiary and HE, and to these were quickly added the shell fire of the enemy’s artillery. His infantry, getting up from their trenches, poured in small-arms fire. The attacks spread quickly to other units. The leaping gun flashes on both sides, the blazing vehicles and the brilliant radiance of the moon made union with the trumpeting of the artillery and the crash of shell and bomb to create an inferno of light and uproar. Custance’s own headquarters, immediately behind the Rangers, was caught in the angry chaos, the first stick of incendiary bombs falling six yards from his tank. All the vehicles of The Buffs’ headquarters were destroyed. Some twenty-two petrol and ammunition lorries were on fire. Farquhar, before leading up 3rd Hussars later, saw the charred bodies of their drivers and mates still upright in their cabs, as they had been at the moment when the attack fell on them. The brigade dispersed as well as the cramping mines permitted but could not avoid the spread of the conflagration. The barrage passed ahead and was lost as the brigade strove to prevent disorganization. Through all this stormy disturbance, however, Captain Geoffrey Brooks, the Rangers’ medical officer, his Aid Post demolished by a direct hit, went quietly about the field, accompanied by the chaplain, George Hales, tending the wounded with the absorbed devotion of their kind.
In front of these fierce conflagrations, silhouetted against it to the enemy, peppered by bursting ammunition from the burning lorries close by, stood Perrott’s wireless truck. At the tail of it, sheltering as best he could, Perrott himself was operating the radio set to brigade headquarters. He had ordered his men to disperse, but his greatest fear was to be called by brigade and not be on the air to receive them. Caldwell, ignoring orders, refused to leave him. Boat route, blocked by wrecked and burning vehicles and still under bombardment, was clearly out of use for the time being, as well as Hat, and Perrott, listening to the chatter of the brigade net, wondered anxiously what was to be done. Static electricity and enemy jamming made wireless communication very bad all that night, but Perrott, after a long vigil, deduced that orders were being given to halt the advance. There was a sustained and critical conversation, conducted in the most difficult conditions, between Gatehouse and Custance. Custance was convinced that the operation now had no chance of success, but Gatehouse at first would not agree to any calling-off. Meanwhile, the bombardment by air and by artillery continued and did not stop, apparently, for more than three hours.
Later in the night, having had leave to withdraw and having just lain down to sleep beside his radio truck, Perrott was summoned to go up immediately to 8th Brigade headquarters again. There he saw Ian Spence, Custance’s brigade major, who told him that 3rd RTR, followed by the Sherwood Rangers, were now to go through the one viable gap and he was asked if he would lead them into it. Making way over to Bottle on foot, he did so, walking to the head of it with Pyman. He saw that all the little lamps were lit and led through Pyman’s regiment, accompanied by B Company of The Buffs (Major J. P. N. Samuelson) and a battery of 1st RHA. He watched their spectral shapes begin to fan out beyond the lane. He wished them luck and felt elated that the attack was ‘on’ again.
Meanwhile, the least affected by the bombing, the Staffordshire Yeomanry, had been making good progress by Bottle route under the determined leadership of Jim Eadie, partnered by C Company of The Buffs under Captain J. B. Worts. Pressing steadily forward, after losing two tanks on mines and overcoming some enemy opposition, they saw at length the dim form of the Wishka Ridge outlined against the curtain of stars. Eadie then made a personal reconnaissance with a few Crusaders and the carriers of The Buffs. Finding no opposition on the ground, he led his regiment forward and occupied the slopes of the ridge. He had successfully reached the Pierson Bound. It was a fine performance and one of the outstanding successes of the battle.
While these mixed fortunes were being experienced, Gatehouse himself was on Boat route immediately in rear of 8th Armoured Brigade. He was in the correct position for the commander of an armoured division in action, though Liardet, his square and stocky GSO 1, considered it was too far forward for good staff work.
He had a small tactical headquarters of two tanks, which were under occasional shell fire. Besides Bill Liardet, he had with him his ADC, James Hanbury. Against the chill of the night Gatehouse was wearing his usual poshteen and beret. Ebbels, also in the right place for a CRA, was alongside him in another tank. Gatehouse had resisted Custance’s suggestion that the attack should be called off and was trying to push his regiments on. He was angry with 24th Brigade who, he thought, should have been able to overcome some opposition they had met and were making very slow progress. As the night wore on, the position did not improve and his difficulties were increased by the bad wireless conditions. It was with difficulty that he could make out what was going on and he could not exchange any conversation with his divisional Main headquarters, which was near the Springbok Road, about eight miles away.
In the early hours of the 25th a Signals officer from 10th Armoured Division Main HQ came up to Gatehouse’s Tac HQ on Miteiriya Ridge and told him that, wireless speech being impossible, Lumsden wanted to talk to him on the telephone. Gatehouse, therefore, mounted a jeep, accompanied by Hanbury and driven by Trooper Cadogan, and jolted back to his Main HQ. There ensued a long conversation on the telephone; according to the divisional log, it lasted for more than an hour, but this, of course, we must accept with reserve, there being only one circumstance in which it is likely.
Gatehouse (whose regiments had in fact begun to make progress) now wanted authority to withdraw behind the ridge. Like Custance, he foresaw that, as the result of the delays, his brigades would be revealed at daylight in dangerously exposed ground, off balance and an easy prey for the enemy’s waiting guns. Lumsden, who was inclined to agree, reported in turn to Eighth Army.
At Montgomery’s forward headquarters, de Guingand, his BGS, who had already been troubled by what he had heard from the J Service[40] and Lumsden’s reports, walked over to the headquarters of 30th Corps, which was a few yards away, and asked Oliver Leese for his advice. He knew his chief’s objection to being disturbed unnecessarily at night, but the situation now was critical. Leese advised him to wake Montgomery and to call an immediate conference
.
De Guingand did so and, at the uncomfortable hour of 3.30 in the morning, with bombs falling nearby and amid the clamour of anti-aircraft fire, there took place, in the Army Commander’s map lorry, that meeting of himself, Lumsden and Leese, followed by Montgomery’s personal telephone conversation with Gatehouse, which the Field-Marshal and General De Guingand have themselves related.[41]
In spite of the hour and the situation, Montgomery was in a cheerful and confident mood. He heard reports from Leese and Lumsden on the situation. Lumsden told him that Gatehouse wanted to withdraw all his regiments to the ridge, because of the dangerous situation to which they would be exposed in daylight, and that he himself shared that view. Lumsden knew that Gatehouse was available on the telephone at his Main headquarters and it may be inferred that he had asked him to stay there in view of the conference now being held. Had Gatehouse returned to his Tactical HQ on the ridge, no one could have spoken to him.
Montgomery wished Lumsden to telephone to Gatehouse and tell him that the attack must be continued, but Lumsden asked the Army Commander if he would do so himself.[42] Montgomery spoke to Gatehouse accordingly and, in his own words in his Memoirs, ‘discovered to my horror that he himself was some 16,000 yards (nearly ten miles) behind his leading armoured brigades. I spoke to him in no uncertain voice, and ordered him to go forward at once and take charge of his battle; he was to fight his way out, and lead his division from the front and not from the rear.’
This imputation, one feels sure, would never have been made if Montgomery had been fully apprised of Gatehouse’s movements. Whatever shortcomings Gatehouse might have had as a divisional commander, he was never the man to be found at the back of a battle. The outcome was that Montgomery ordered that there should be no departure from the general plan, but he accepted the modification that the advance of 8th Brigade should be limited to the one regiment already forward (the Staffordshire Yeomanry), the remainder to be retained on the ridge.[43]
The orders issued in pursuance of this decision were recorded in 10th Corps log at 4.30 a.m. and in Eighth Army log at 4.45 a.m. as follows:
10 Armd Div (G 1)
10 Armd Div plan:
(i) 24 Armd Bde to advance to 86682936-86782900.
(ii) One regt of 8 Armd Bde to move SE to assist 9 Armd Bde, to be there by daylight.
(iii) Remainder 8 Armd Bde remain on Miteiriya Ridge and improve gaps.
While the generals had been conferring with some asperity, the men of 10th Armoured Division had, in fact, been making better progress. Sixth Field Squadron, RE, had doggedly been cutting a double swathe through the mines for Kenchington’s two forward regiments, 41st and 47th RTR. Conditions had been extremely difficult. The rate of progress was that of a sapper on his hands and knees, listening, peering, feeling with his fingers, straining to keep his nerve amid the uproar, the streaking tracers and the flying projectiles.
The lanes completed, Kenchington’s squadrons rallied, formed line ahead and went through slowly, disposing of some slight opposition from enemy guns. On receipt of the new orders, which for them were but the old orders sharply repeated, the two regiments pressed forward quickly and at 6.15 on Sunday morning Kenchington reported that they had arrived on the Pierson Bound. The third regiment, 45th RTR, remained in reserve on the ridge to give covering fire.
It is, however, highly doubtful whether the 41st and 47th did actually get as far, and the brigade major, going forward in two tanks to verify the positions, received direct hits on both tanks at close range after covering 2,000 yards. However, the occupation of a precise ground objective in the desert war had less significance than elsewhere; 24th Brigade got far enough forward, as events turned out, and in due course made contact with 1st Armoured Division and began fighting enemy tanks.
In 8th Armoured Brigade there is a different story to record. Before the orders to retain two regiments on the ridge had been received, the Sherwood Rangers and 3rd RTR, debouching at last by the Bottle route, had been making good progress after the bombing attack. By 5 o’clock in the morning, groping their way across the pock-marked lunar landscape, they had advanced for perhaps about a mile. Some hundreds of prisoners had surrendered to them, to be gathered in by the 1st Buffs, whose carriers marched between the tanks. At that hour they sighted the dim shapes of the Staffordshire Yeomanry ahead of the slope on Wishka Ridge, while away on the left were to be discerned those of 9th Armoured Brigade. The original orders to reach the Pierson Bound had thus been very nearly fulfilled.
About half an hour later, as the stars began to fade before the advance of another day and the chill dawn wind swept icily over the grey scene, the Staffordshire Yeomanry came under devastating fire from 88s that they could not see, and from dug-in tanks. John Lakin, of the Warwickshire Yeomanry, watching from the ground won by 9th Armoured Brigade on the left, saw the Staffordshire’s tanks ‘go up in sheets of flames one by one, just as if someone had lit the candles on a birthday cake. It was a scene I shall never forget.’
The Wishka ridge was in fact strongly defended by the enemy, being part of the anti-tank screen that ran up behind the Kidney feature to Woodcock, of which we shall hear a great deal more. The Staffordshire Yeomanry quickly lost ten tanks and Eadie ordered them back a little to save further loss.
The two other regiments then, according to the new orders, withdrew right back to Miteiriya Ridge.
A little later Eadie himself drove back to the ridge, where he saw Gatehouse. Eadie was weeping. Some of his dearest friends had just been killed before his eyes, their bodies roasted or broken in pieces. He had lost virtually a whole squadron. Two nights of fighting had cost him thirteen out of his fifteen Crusaders, fourteen out of his twenty-eight heavies. He was certain to lose more if he stayed out in the open and he asked Gatehouse’s permission to withdraw.
Gatehouse had been in an angry mood; the events of the night had given him ample cause. But the quality of the man inside the general now appeared to the little group of spectators. Eadie’s distress touched him deeply. His own grievance was instantly annulled. His anger melted and he became, in the words of Ian Spence, who was standing by, ‘the soul of charm’. He spoke very gently to Eadie and, accepting a responsibility that was in keeping with his judgement and his conscience, if not with his orders, gave him the permission that he wanted.
Thus by soon after sunrise all three regiments of 8th Armoured Brigade, after having very nearly reached their goal, were back on the ridge from which they had started.
There are many obvious questions that one may ask about this much-debated night’s operation. There are also some less obvious ones. Why was not an infantry attack put in ahead of the armour? Why was the Lorried Infantry Brigade not sent forward to secure Wishka Ridge? Was too much armour being used? Why were the regiments of 8th Armoured Brigade recalled from an objective nearly reached?
These and others are valid questions and there are answers to them that may also be valid. At least two courses that might have produced better results clearly suggest themselves. It is not, however, our purpose to speculate wisely after the event, nor to suggest any apportionment of blame. Hindsight on military operations is a game much overplayed by authors, especially those who have never been in battle. It was the bombing attack that bedevilled the operation from the very start and, in the face of the unpredictable, criticism is of little validity. On the brigade level, Custance, faced with a situation of exceptional difficulty, had directed affairs with calmness. On the broader level, the men of 10th Armoured Division had proved Montgomery’s belief that, with their own resources, they could fight their way through to an objective, but the enemy guns had shown that they could not stay there by daylight alone.
Field-Marshal Montgomery has recorded that ‘by 8 a.m. all my armour was out in the open’, by which he meant beyond the minefields. However, the 8th Armoured Brigade, though they had reached ‘the open’ in this sense, were no longer there by that hour, though 24th were and so, as will be presently recor
ded, were 9th. General De Guingand is mistaken in saying that the New Zealanders and 8th Brigade were, by 8 a.m., clear and ‘advancing south-westwards’. Fundamentally, it may be said that the inability to ‘break out into the open’ was due to the fact (aggravated by the bombing) that ‘the open’, as more generally understood, had yet to be reached.
Freyberg records that, at a conference held about this time, Lumsden observed (with a regrettable mixture of metaphors): ‘Playing with armour is like playing with fire. You have got to go carefully. It is like a duel. If you don’t take your time, you will be run through the guts.’ However, on the Army front as a whole, the objective of the operations was being successfully, if slowly, maintained, for 1st Armoured Division, soon linked with 24th Brigade, had begun their long battle of attrition with Von Thoma’s tanks and guns as Montgomery required that they should.
For us, what is most important is that the operations so far, and for several more days still to come, demonstrated again that the arms which dominated the battlefield were the mine and the antitank gun, giving to the defence an advantage that completely neutralized any superiority in numbers possessed by the offence. Until the mine and the gun were disposed of, tanks could not fulfil an offensive function. To the mine a slow and painful answer had been found, but few people seemed yet to appreciate that to the dug-in, almost invisible anti-tank gun the best answer was infantry and field artillery. When the tanks of either side attempted to assault the guns, the result was slaughter, as these pages will show. In spite of modern inventions, the infantry remained the Queen of Battles. Quite likely, they will always remain so.[44]
Alamein (Major Battles of World War Two) Page 23