Alamein (Major Battles of World War Two)

by C. E. Lucas Phillips

  Meanwhile, away on the left of 8th Armoured Brigade, striking southwards, 9th Armoured Brigade, accompanied by the Honeys of the New Zealand Divisional Cavalry, had also nearly reached the Pierson Bound, after having badly beaten up some enemy infantry on the way with their machine-guns. Platoons of the Foresters, moving up coolly between the tanks in carriers or on foot, had taken a good bag of prisoners. Currie was there, of course, and Freyberg drove out over the fire-swept saucer in his Honey to see him in the morning. It was intended that the New Zealand infantry should follow them later for the break-out drive.

  Third Hussars had led the attack. Surprisingly enough, they had gone up by the stricken Boat route, passing the burning wrecks of the Sherwood Rangers. Emerging from the minefield, they fanned out, the Foresters among them and the Crusader screen, under Major C. M. Clark, doing tremendous execution with the ‘scything sweeps’ of their Besas machine guns before Clark himself was killed. The Warwickshire Yeomanry were up on their left.

  Daylight found the brigade in an uncomfortable position, though not so vulnerable as that of the Staffordshire Yeomanry. Sitting in a saucer between Miteiriya and Wishka Ridges, they were very soon under fire by well-sited guns and tanks at a range of 1,000 yards or more. Currie eagerly awaited an attack by the enemy armour. When none matured, he proposed, believing that there was not much in front of him, to go forward and attack, but he needed first to withdraw to refuel. Freyberg, however, fearing Lumsden would not let him come back, would not allow him to do so.[45]

  There, partially protected by smoke put down by the NZ gunners, they stayed, being shelled all day, losing several tanks, but knocking out thirteen of the enemy’s and ten guns and taking 300 prisoners. Three of these tanks were knocked out by John Lakin, of the Warwickshire Yeomanry, when, cut off from the rest of his regiment, he carried out a sortie alone.

  Currie, the eternal subaltern, could not sit still. If restrained from attacking, he could not be stopped from reconnoitring. This he did, going far out alone, in his Crusader. His tank was hit and lost a track. Pat Hobart, his brigade-major (whose own tank had been hit the day before), went out in another Crusader to pick him up, but found his indomitable brigadier lying on his back, hands (wrapped in red handkerchiefs to cover the desert sores that plagued him) clasped behind his lion-coloured hair, laughing heartily.

  On his return, Currie climbed up on to Lakin’s tank and ordered him to collect two others, saying: ‘We are going up to sort out those…’ Lakin turned a man out of his tank, took the gunner’s seat himself and handed over the tank to Currie. They sallied out over the crest to within some 800 yards of a battery of four German 55 mms.

  There ensued a duel in which the shooting on both sides seems to have been very bad. Lakin fired about fifty rounds of shot without scoring a direct hit, but they had the satisfaction of seeing the Germans abandon their positions. Currie then drove over to his own disabled tank and recovered his maps and papers, while Lakin tried to keep the enemy quiet.

  Just before dusk, in accordance with the new orders given on the 25th, which we shall notice in the next chapter, his brigade withdrew to Miteiriya Ridge. True to his training, Currie withdrew last. His tank would not start, but Hobart, just in time, ran across to 3rd Hussars and got Alan Dawes to drive over in his Grant, hitch a tow rope on to Currie’s tank and tow it out, while the enemy shelled them hard and Currie laughed and Hobart got left behind, so that he had to run alongside the Grant and beat upon the sponson door before they pulled him in.

  Such are the unreasonable instincts of man that they respond to the calls of the dead no less than to those of the living. As 3rd Hussars withdrew through the minefield gap on the slopes of Miteiriya, Captain Hector Chadwick’s tank was hit. He and his whole crew were killed. Two days later his brother Tom went out in a scout car to look for his body. As soon as he crossed the ridge a direct hit killed him also.

  Similarly, in 2nd Field Squadron, RE, Lieutenant Leslie Sage went out to look for the body of Peter Hattersley on the morning of the 25th. Pyman provided him with a tank, which moved up to a hull-down position to enable him to search the ground with his field glasses. But this would not do for Sage. He crawled out into the open, past the infantry front, searching the Hat route. He was sniped from an enemy trench and shot in the leg. He turned about and wormed his way back on his belly, while the tank gave him covering fire with its machine gun. Three months later Sage returned to the ridge, searched the ravaged battlefield and found the grave, dug by the enemy, of his well-loved squadron leader.

  THE SOUTHERN BATTLE RENEWED

  In the south, directly under the eager binoculars of the enemy on Himeimat, the troops of 7th Armoured and 44th Divisions, though under continuous fire which plagued them all day on the 24th in their narrow, congested bridgehead and which raked the new-cut lanes through the mines, held firmly to the bare ground that they had won between January and February. The armour edged up to the outskirts of February. Later in the day thirty German tanks bore down on the northern flank but they remained at a distance, hull-down, watching.

  John Harding came up and held a conference with his brigadiers in the lee of a tank, with the shells dropping uncomfortably close. He heard their reports and gave his orders for resuming the offensive. As the sun rose higher, the desert shimmered in the heat haze and the salient continued to be swept by fire, so that very little reconnaissance of any value could be done and it was impossible to locate the enemy post with accuracy.

  The attack on February was, nevertheless, resumed that night. Without elaborate re-arrangements, the 1/5th and 1/6th battalions of the Queen’s formed up simply on the line of the foremost tanks and moved forward under a barrage. They had 2,500 yards to go. Keeping well up to the barrage, they thrust right through February and began to consolidate half a mile beyond it, very exposed and under close fire from the open flanks, and there they anxiously awaited the arrival of the armour.

  Behind them, in extremely trying conditions, the sappers of the minefield force succeeded in sweeping two lanes through the thickest of mines, accomplished almost entirely by bayonet prodding. It was one of the stoutest of efforts, made with great determination and at heavy cost; but infantry and engineers seem to have advanced on different axes and to have lost touch, so that, when 22nd Armoured Brigade moved up through the lanes with the City of London Yeomanry and 1st RTR, they found themselves under close fire from anti-tank guns that had escaped assault by the infantry. The exits from February became completely blocked by knocked-out tanks and by other tanks which, seeking a way round, went up on scattered mines. Thirty-one tanks were quickly disabled and no headway was possible without incurring further loss.

  The Queen’s, however, hung tenaciously on to their exposed bridgehead salient, galled by fire on their long flanks from dug-in enemy posts that were as close as a hundred yards, enduring what their historians calls ‘a terrible experience’ and their wounded in acute distress. The whole area on this sector for miles around was under direct enemy observation.

  The remainder of the effort on the southern front is soon told, though a trifle out of due chronological order. On the evening of this day, which was Sunday, 25 October, in accordance with the policy of avoiding serious tank losses, the armour was withdrawn. Had the forces been available and had it been in accordance with the Army Commander’s plan, there is no doubt that a little more pressure would have secured a break-out here and the enemy’s tanks would have been brought to battle.

  The Queen’s battalions, having stuck to their hard-won bridgehead beyond February all day, withdrew later in the night, still under fire and with more casualties, to a position east of February, after a gallant exploit that has been given no place in any major account of the battle. They had done all that had been required of them. They were relieved by the Kent brigade (132nd) under the celebrated fighting brigadier ‘Bolo’ Whistler. The relief was carried out under heavy shell fire, the enemy having guessed what was up, but the Kent regiments took the most r
esolute action and were dug-in by 4 a.m.

  The same night (25/26 October) an attack immediately to the north was put in by 50th Division on the rugged Munassib Depression. This had originally been intended as an operation in support of the main actions by 7th Armoured and 44th, and it was put in, quite properly, despite the changed situation. The main attack was made by 69th Brigade, a fine brigade of Yorkshiremen under the able leadership of Brigadier Cooke-Collis, a tall and imperturbable young commander who consoled himself for his slight deafness because ‘it prevents me from hearing the shells burst’.[46]

  Their task was to attack the formidable feature frontally from the east and north. This they did and 6th Green Howards, under Lieutenant-Colonel G. C. P. Lance, secured nearly all their objectives with great dash, but 5th East Yorkshires got entangled in wire and the terribly lethal S-mines and suffered 150 casualties. An attempt was made by 50th Division to renew the attack next night, but General Nichols called it off.

  Indeed, the whole of the southern operations were now halted on Montgomery’s orders. They had served their main purpose, which was to contain the two enemy armoured divisions in the south as long as possible. They had been expensive in infantry, 1st Rifle Brigade, for example, having lost nineteen officers and many of their best NCOs in the sticky minefield operations. The bulk of 7th Armoured was withdrawn, leaving elements of 44th Division, the Free French and a few other units, to form a very exiguous defensive front. A loud-speaker unit was installed to simulate the sounds of tank movement at night.

  The enemy still sat on top of Himeimat, watching everything that was being done in the sandy plain below, like an eagle in its eyrie.

  Chapter Thirteen: The Change Of Tune

  (Day 25 October and Night 25/26)

  MAINTAINING THE INITIATIVE

  Henceforth our narrative is concerned exclusively with events in the north, and thither we return on the morning of 25 October, which was D Plus Two.

  As the sun rose on that Sunday and breathed sudden warmth into chilled and tired limbs, it disclosed a widened battlefield drifting with clouds of dust and smoke, scarred with the wrecked and burning hulks of tanks, vehicles and guns, littered with bodies in all the sad postures of death and scattered with the debris and desolation of combat. Westward of Miteiriya Ridge the two armies glared at each other across the minefields. On Boat route, where the bombing had taken place the night before, the scenes of human and material destruction were, in the words of David Egerton, the gunner, ‘pretty horrible’. Behind the ridge the British tanks, their crews dog-tired, sat hull-down, watching and engaging. There was another sharp attack by German dive-bombers. On the eastern lee of the ridge was a congested mass of tanks, vehicles, guns, carriers and men of two divisions, stationary for the greater part or moving warily among the mines. Everyone not too tired to think was wondering what the next move would be.

  As the sun waxed and commanders took stock of the situation, it became apparent that it had not improved, to any significant degree, in the past twenty-four hours. The front was firmer, 1st Armoured Division had progressed and were at grips with the enemy, 24th Brigade had got out and were joining hands with them, but no vital new development had occurred to transform the prospect. There was a danger of a premature stalemate.

  Soon after 9 o’clock Freyberg met Oliver Leese and emphasized that the infantry and the armour had no common front, that the enemy were reinforcing and would be stronger the next day. It would be impossible to exploit south with infantry as intended, the element of surprise having been lost. He urged that an attack should now be directed westward from the bulge now showing prominently on the map, with another timed bombardment, to a depth of 4,000 yards.

  ‘We all knew’, he recorded, ‘that the first attack had just failed to push the enemy off his gun line and this further attack would, I considered, take us beyond his minefield and gun line into an area where the tanks would have room to manoeuvre.’[47] He was certainly right in his proposition that what was needed was another assault by infantry, had they been available, not tanks. The main minefields having now been penetrated, the most serious obstacle to progress was the anti-tank gun, and no means were so effective for overcoming it as infantry and field artillery.

  The Army Commander held a conference with Leese, Lumsden and Freyberg at noon. It was clear to him that no dividends were likely to accrue from any further attempt to break out south-westward from Miteiriya Ridge at that time. Many commanders would have doggedly persisted and perhaps succeeded at heavy cost, but among the military precepts that Montgomery taught was to avoid ‘reinforcing failure’. The Miteiriya operations could not, of course, by any means be called entirely a failure, having achieved results very important to his plans, but they gave no immediate promise of the break-out south-westward which he intended and which he at length did achieve from a little farther north.

  He now demonstrated this precept by firmly turning his back upon Miteiriya Ridge. At the same moment, looking in an entirely different direction, he began to demonstrate a second characteristic precept: retain the initiative and ‘make the enemy dance to your tune’. This he acted upon by beginning a series of blows at unexpected points which kept the enemy guessing and forced them to react as he wished them to do, in pursuance of his ‘crumbling’ policy.

  He ordered accordingly that 10th Armoured Division should be withdrawn that night, except for 24th Brigade, which was to pass to the command of 1st Armoured Division in the northern ‘corridor’ (a term no longer valid). Ninth Armoured Brigade was also to draw back, taking station behind Miteiriya Ridge with the Kiwis. The latter were to organize for defence and to husband their infantry. In the South, 13th Corps was to break off its operations.

  The new point of attack chosen by the Army Commander was without any doubt an inspiration. Instead of continuing to drive west and south-west, he suddenly turned his face to the north. He resolved that, from the top of the new bulge in our line, where the Australians kept watch upon our flank, he would make a surprise attack towards the sea.

  This would not only be of great value in the ‘crumbling’ process, but it would also quite certainly make the enemy dance very quickly indeed to the new tune. A northward thrust, threatening to trap strong forces of 164th Light Division and the Italian Bersaglieri and to throw open the main road behind the mined areas, was one to which the enemy must be extremely sensitive and it would divert his attention to a new danger area. The attack by 50th Division on Munassib the same night would add to his uncertainties.

  Foreseeing how events might shape themselves, Montgomery had already warned Morshead the day before to be ready for this new thrust with his Australians. He now ordered the attack to take place tonight. Meantime, 1st Armoured Division, with Kenchington’s brigade under command, was to press forward in the Kidney sector; Montgomery hoped that there might be an opportunity for the armour to reach the Rahman Track at the northern end of the Skinflint report line. Here it would not only disrupt the enemy’s main lateral supply roads to the south, but from here also it might be able to strike northwards to get in behind the northern salient.

  The emphasis of the whole battle was thus to be shifted overnight. In support of this new thrust, Montgomery asked for maximum air support for the Australians. Throughout the day the enemy air forces were very subdued. Our fighters patrolled over their airfields without interference and even the obsolescent Hurricanes flew without escort. The splendid efforts of Tedder’s pilots could not, of course, entirely annul those of the enemy and throughout the battle there were frequent Stuka attacks, short and sharp, and little night bombing. Unlike the sustained bombing on the night of the 24/25 October, which completely upset Gatehouse’s attack, these swoops had no influence on operations.

  TANK BATTLES

  The day of 25 October was signalized by the sustained hammering of 1st Armoured Division to break the barriers in the Kidney sector, provoking Von Thoma to a violent reaction later in the day.

  Since first ligh
t the division had been disposed approximately on the Oxalic line or a little short of it. In 2nd Armoured Brigade, Fisher still had the Bays on the right, 9th Lancers in the centre and 10th Hussars on the left. Southward, and in touch, was 24th Armoured Brigade. North of the Bays, Bosvile brought up 7th Motor Brigade, who threw out a carrier screen to make contact with the Australians on the right and who made their surprise encounter with Paton’s company of the Gordons on the left.

  Soon after first light, 2nd Armoured Brigade, now almost clear of the entangling minefields, began feeling forward towards Pierson, but were barred by a zareba of anti-tank and field guns deployed approximately on that line. The Kidney sector became very hot. The Aberdeen position on the ridge had not yet been seized by 1st Gordons and we begin to encounter other defences of which we shall hear much as the battle progresses — Point 33 opposite the Australians, Snipe of heroic memory and Woodcock. These defended localities were part of Rommel’s main defences, behind the minefield ‘battle outposts’, where he hoped to destroy whatever elements of an attacking force succeeded in penetrating his Devil’s Gardens. He very soon attempted to do so.

  In the dawn twilight the Bays renewed their overnight attempt on Point 33, but were met by point-blank fire from heavy anti-tank guns that had been brought up during the night and concealed among the derelict tanks that the Bays themselves and their supporting artillery had knocked out the day before. Six leading Shermans were lost in five minutes and the regiment withdrew. Until the enemy anti-tank guns could be shot out of the way progress was impossible, but the difficulty was to locate them. Only puffs of dust from their blast gave some vague evidence.

  Later in the morning Von Thoma’s attempt to throw us back began to develop. Nearly the whole sector of 1st Armoured Division, including the positions of the Australian infantry, was subjected to heavy shelling, and it was in this shelling that the Australians witnessed the ‘terrible carnage’ of 7th Rifle Brigade. Through the smoke and dust, fleeting glimpses were caught of distant tanks and trucks manoeuvring and all the forewarnings of an impending counter-attack in the typical German manner disclosed themselves step by step.