After the Rahman Track and the elevated ground beyond it had been seized, the battle would pass to 10th Corps, who were then required to bring the enemy armour to combat and destroy it. Lumsden also had, therefore, been swiftly regrouping. He decided to use only 1st Armoured Division but to strengthen Briggs’s hand with the addition of 8th Armoured Brigade under command.
Montgomery’s intention was that the new blow should be struck on 31 October — designedly on the night following the Australians’ final northward thrust — but forty-eight hours was too short a time for the enormous amount of preparation required. Freyberg asked Leese for a postponement of twenty-four hours and Montgomery agreed.
After many consultations with Oliver Leese, and after a frustrated attempt to reconnoitre the ground from the Australian lines, which even Freyberg found too hot for that purpose, he held a conference of brigadiers and staffs in an unfinished dug-out in the old Alamein line. Wimberley was there, too, a large part of his division being involved.
It was an impressive gathering, composed, with a lone exception, of some of the ablest and most resolute leaders of armour, artillery and infantry in the desert. A sense of drama possessed them all, waxing more keenly as the intent and scope of the design were unfolded. A plaster model was before them, and there, dwarfing them all, Bernard Freyberg expounded his plan, going through the technique of the infantry assault in detail for the benefit of Murray and Percy, whose brigades were working under his command for the first time.
In the two and a quarter miles of desert over which the two infantry brigades had to advance, Freyberg explained, they would face conditions very different from those on the first night of Lightfoot. Much was unknown or uncertain. The country was as flat as a table. Only one substantial minefield was known to exist, but mines must be expected anywhere. To whatever position the Boche was driven back, he observed, the mine was his first weapon of defence, and a patrol of 51st Division in the line had observed the enemy sappers drilling holes with compressors in the rock. In further contrast to Lightfoot, it was thought likely, Freyberg said, that enemy tanks might be encountered in dug-in positions in the zone of attack.
The enemy troops facing them were 115th PZ Grenadiers to the south and probably 200th PZ Grenadiers to the north, together with the Littorio Armoured Division, but very little was known of their locations and strengths, except that air photos showed them to be a good deal thicker on the right flank, where the enemy was exerting all the pressure he could against the Australians. Accordingly, the emphasis in the artillery plan was to cover as much of the ground as possible by means of a moving curtain of fire.
Other consequences of these uncertainties were that the infantry objective would be merely a line drawn on the vacant map and that our own forward localities were to be evacuated in the zone of attack to provide a firm start-line for the Durham and Highland Brigades. To avoid the kind of nonsense that had occurred in the Kidney sector, a line of stone cairns had been erected on this start-line on a true survey and related to the artillery ‘grid’. Thus it was ensured that the infantry would go where they were intended to go and that all arms would be in agreement. Behind the assaulting troops, Gentry’s 6th NZ Infantry Brigade would hold the line.
With this firm basis of survey, the artillery would put down the opening line of their barrage on our evacuated front line with all guns, field and medium, while the infantry closed up to it. After five minutes, the medium guns and a proportion of the 25-pdrs would lift their fire on to such enemy battery positions as were known. Then, as the infantry and sappers moved forward, the barrage would roll in front of them in an intensity not seen since 1918, and it would fall in depth. Closest to the leading infantry would be a curtain of 25-pdr shells twenty yards apart, beyond that another curtain of shells every forty yards and farther behind still the 5.5s and 4.5s would throw down their heavier bursts. There would be 192 guns on the creeping barrage — 168 on such targets as were believed to exist. Halfway to the ultimate objective there would be a primary one for reorganization; as before, both these objectives would be defined by the field gunners with smoke shell and the Light AA gunners would fire bofors tracer to mark direction.
To exercise this formidable artillery programme, the artillery of the Highland Division, 1st Armoured Division, 10th Armoured Division, one regiment from the Australian Division and two medium regiments were added to that of the NZ Division and all were placed under command of ‘Steve’ Weir, the New Zealand CRA. Here was one of the most striking examples of the centralized control of artillery, which was one of the great battle-winning factors of Alamein and, indeed, of all the operations of Eighth Army under the new order.
Allotting the infantry tasks, Freyberg put the Durham Brigade on the right of the attack. On this side the enemy defences were thickest and here also was the most sensitive flank, fortified by some of his pre-Alamein defences and lying nearest to his counterattack forces. Under their command he placed the Maori Battalion, with the special mission of wiping out a known strongpoint at the junction with the Australians, near Point 29.
To the Sussex Brigade, borrowed from 10th Armoured Division, and rather oddly placed under Wimberley’s command for the night, was allotted a similar task on the other flank, their target being Woodcock, where they had suffered such grievous losses early on D plus Five. Close support for the two main assaulting brigades was to be provided by the Valentines of 8th and 50th RTR. The code names for the infantry final objectives were Neat for the Seaforth and Cameron Brigade and Brandy for the Durhams.
Finally, as the climax and zenith of the NZ Division’s battle, John Currie was to follow with 9th Armoured Brigade to attack and break the line of guns dug-in on the Rahman Track. Their ground objective was the long, mounded Aqqaqir Ridge, of which the Tel was the highest part. ‘We all realize,’ Freyberg said, ‘that for armour to attack a wall of guns sounds like another Balaclava; it is properly an infantry job. But there are no more infantry available, so our armour must do it.’
This, it was expected, would be the last barrier. Through the breech in the wall made by Currie’s brigade the armour of 10th Corps would push and the baton would then pass to General Lumsden, while the NZ Division prepared for the final phase of pursuit and encirclement.
This was the outline of the plan that Freyberg explained to the tense and expectant commanders and staffs in the Alamein dug-out. He was insistent that the assault had to go forward ‘at all costs’. He told them bluntly that the situation after dawn would be difficult, that the new rectangular salient to be created would be shelled and bombed and gunned from three sides. A counter-attack on attaining the objective was almost inevitable.
When Currie’s turn came to ask questions on these orders, he observed, somewhat diffidently, that the task given to his brigade, of breaking the line of guns on the Rahman Track and seizing the Aqqaqir Ridge, was one in which 50 per cent losses must be expected.
To this Freyberg replied in a matter-of-fact way:
‘It may well be more than that. The Army Commander has said that he is prepared to accept 100 per cent.’
There was a moment of dead silence before the next brigadier, clearing his throat, turned the attention of the conference to a different issue.
At eight o’clock on the morning of 1 November Freyberg held a final co-ordinating conference. Without minimizing the hazards, many of which were unpredictable, he was confident of success. He pointed out that the enemy was clearly hard put to maintain his position and if we could get the armour forward to attack before dawn the battle was won. All depended on that. Finally, he recapitulated the timings, which were these:
The infantry to move forward from their tapes on the line of cairns at fifty-five minutes past midnight.
The guns to open fire at five minutes past one, which was Zero hour.
The infantry objective to be taken at 3.45.
At 5.45 9th Armoured Brigade to advance behind a creeping barrage to their objective beyond the Rahman Track.<
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At 6.45 10th Corps to take over and to pass 1st Armoured Division through 9th Armoured Brigade.
Meanwhile, Raymond Briggs was likewise holding his final conference for 1st Armoured Division. He assembled his commanders in a large tent at El Alamein. They came along not quite in the same mood as Freyberg’s conference, wondering if it was to be ‘the medicine as before’, but Herbert Lumsden walked in, together with Ralph Cooney, and put them all in a good humour. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘the bet is on. The odds look a bit long but I’m sure we’re on a winner.’
Operationally, Briggs’s orders (embodied in Operation Order, No. 34) were simple, the greater part of them being taken up with the intricate and tedious business of routes, traffic control, timings, and all the other problems of getting a large volume of fighting vehicles to their right places through the long minefield lanes in the dark. The division, he said, would move up from the rear in three columns by the Australian routes — Diamond, Boomerang and Two Bar — led on each column by the Minefield Task Force under Tom Pearson (who had succeeded Turner in command of 2nd Rifle Brigade). They would carry forward the lanes cut by the New Zealand engineers and reconnoitre for mines forward towards Recluse, the code name adopted for the Rahman Track.
Behind them, 2nd Armoured Brigade, on the right of the divisional front, were ordered to advance to a ring contour two miles northwest of Tel el Aqqaqir and 8th Armoured Brigade, under command, were directed on to the Tel itself. In those areas they would stand prepared to meet the attack which he hoped the enemy armour would launch against them. The most likely and the most dangerous direction from which the counter-attack would come, Briggs considered, was from the north and it would most probably be directly against that flank of the New Zealand ‘funnel’.
Seventh Motor Brigade were to advance in battalion groups by all three routes to a central deployment area, prepared to meet a counter-attack from the north or north-west. The divisional artillery, having completed their programmes in support of the New Zealand attack, were to move right up to the same area. The armoured cars of 12th Lancers were to advance behind 2nd Armoured Brigade on the northern flank, prepared to slip through and penetrate deeply.
Briggs emphasized, however, that the operations of the armour were not dependent on the success of the infantry. ‘Even if 2 NZ Div fail to reach their objective in whole or in part’, ran his operation order, ‘1 Armd Div will fight to reach its objective.’
‘LIKE A DRILL’
As before, the prelude to the battle was sung in the air.
On the evening of 1 November, while the assaulting troops below them were moving forward to their battle positions, sixty-eight Wellingtons and nineteen Albacores began a seven-hour attack on targets in the areas of Tel el Aqqaqir, Sidi Abd el Rahman and beyond. Six tremendous explosions and twenty large fires were observed and the signal system at Von Thoma’s advanced DAK headquarters wrecked. The ruddy glow of their burning could be distantly seen from the British lines, illuminating the palls of smoke that hung over them.
On the ground, the night was exceptionally cold. The Jocks and the Durhams, thinly clad, waiting on their tapes along the line of cairns with their anti-tank and machine-gunners and their New Zealand sappers, shivered a little as they listened to the roar of the distant bombs. The Durhams had had a seven miles night march from Tel el Eisa, ploughing through powdered dust a foot deep, and they arrived looking like ghosts or as though dipped in a huge tub of flour. Hot from their march, they soon felt the two-hour wait in the chill night-air the more keenly.
The night was very dark, the myriad stars providing no substitute for the unrisen moon. Officers and NCOs went briskly up and down the line, checking equipment and correcting the spacing between platoons. On the right of the Durhams, the dusky Maoris were itching to be off in their whirlwind manner. It was too dark to see the shapes of Richards’s Valentines that were waiting just a little way behind unless you adopted the desert trick of crouching on the ground.
Farther back still, the trails of 360 field and medium guns were being swung round until all the muzzles converged on the 4,000 yards of frontage ahead of the infantry and the layers were bringing the cross-wires of their sights on to the pinpoint lamps of their night aiming-posts. Fifteen thousand shells stood ready to be fired during the next four-and-a-half hours. Once again every man was looking at his watch as the hands passed midnight and crept into the first minutes of 2 November.
Fifty-five minutes later, with the shrunken moon now diffusing a wan light, the assaulting troops got up from their knees, fixed bayonets and stepped silently across their tapes, guided by compass and regulated by counted paces. Ten minutes later the barrage, a real barrage, burst ahead of them with ‘a frightful shattering’, standing still on its opening line as the soldiers closed up to it, a shell every twelve yards.
Then, as it jumped forward 100 yards every two-and-a-half minutes with reduced intensity, the infantry and their companions followed it at the set pace, moving into a dense cloud of smoke and dust. They coughed and spluttered as the dust and the fumes of high explosive enveloped them. The moon was blotted out and no man could see more than thirty yards, but, ominously visible above the pall, the enemy’s SOS rockets, calling for the fire of his own artillery, shot up along the line. Amid the smoke and smother the notes of the Scottish pipes, filling the momentary pauses between the successive crashes of the shells, ‘like linnets in the pauses of the wind’, stole stirringly upon men’s ears. On their right, where the spectral shapes of the 9th Durhams glided in their blanched accoutrements, they were answered by the hunting-horn of Major Teddy Worrall.
Very different were the fortunes of this night from those of D Day. On the left the attack of the Seaforth and Cameron Brigade went, in Freyberg’s own words, ‘like a drill’. The brigade attacked with 5th Seaforths, the Caithness and Sutherland men, on the right, 5th Camerons (Ronald Miers) on the left and 2nd Seaforths (Kenneth MacKessack) following. At the last moment Jock Stirling, commanding 5th Seaforths, his arm in a sling from a septic infection, was obliged by his medical officer to leave the field and Major Jack Walford was brought up from the rear to take over just as the battle began. He was a small, almost insignificant figure of a man, but was to show himself a wonderful leader in battle, with a life charmed against all danger.
In this exhibition attack George Murray was throughout in good wireless contact with his battalions, and to Freyberg’s tactical headquarters in his Honey tank there flowed throughout the night-hours a series of model signals that told with graphic composure their own story of resistance swiftly overcome and objectives won.
1.48 a.m. We are in touch with both battalions and everything appears to be going smoothly.
2.18 a.m. There is light shelling and moderate machine-gun fire on our front. We have taken some prisoners, a mixture of Italians and Germans. Everything appears to be going according to plan.
2.35 a.m. Newly laid minefield discovered.
3.59 a.m. On left flank our tanks [i.e. 50 RTR] are engaging enemy tanks.
4.17 a.m. Both battalions have reached objective and are in action with enemy tanks. Artillery concentration ‘Roxbrough’ called for and fired.
5.25 a.m. Enemy tanks are melting away and battalions are getting supporting arms up. One Italian tank captured intact.
5.35 a.m. Reorganization of final objective is proceeding and battalions are linking up. Right gap is through and left, will be open as soon as small minefield is cleared. Our casualties will not exceed 40 per battalion.
Murray’s brigade had, indeed, captured all their Neat objectives very aptly and on schedule and had executed an operation in full battle conditions better than many a manoeuvre on training exercises. Throughout the attack and its subsequent phase the Jocks were balanced, composed and in command of the field. Their communications were sound and when threatened they were able to call for artillery support and receive it promptly. In Freyberg’s own words, ‘it was a very fine performance.’
The Highlanders’ assault, however, was by no means the cakewalk that Murray’s matter-of-fact signals seemed to suggest. As Freyberg thought they might, both battalions ran into the dark and forbidding shapes of dug-in tanks during their advance, and when they consolidated on Neat it was ‘amidst the enemy armour’. In the Cameron battalion Lance-Corporal Mightens and in 5th Seaforths Sergeant Carnduff’s platoon, dropping grenades into the turrets, each captured a tank intact and the commander of the first fell to Mightens’s rifle.
Casualties, which had not been severe against an enemy shaken by artillery fire in the assault, mounted rapidly after winning the objective, when heavy and continuous shelling pounded the battalions and where the ground was like iron. Then and in the succeeding hours 5th Seaforths lost twelve officers and 150 men and by the morning’s light Lieutenant H. S. Robertson and seventeen men were all that were left of C Company. Captain Murdo Swanson, his leg shot off, lay cracking jokes till he died with the soldier who lay near him. The battalion’s MO, Captain Farquhar Macree, went about unconcernedly tending the wounded, was captured and escaped.[72]
On the right of 5th Seaforths, however, the attack of the Durhams, though successful, did not march with the same precision. The opposition on their sector was stronger, particularly in the path of the 8th Battalion on the right, where there was a series of ten or more enemy posts, in depth, and there were many more on the dangerous and strongly-manned right flank, where the enemy had been facing the Australians.
This battalion was commanded by the blunt and forceful Lieut-Colonel ‘Jake’ Jackson and on his left was the 9th Battalion (Lieut-Colonel Andrew Clarke). Following them was the 6th Battalion, led by Lieutenant-Colonel William Watson. His special and difficult mission, on reaching the first objective, was to execute a right-wheel and face northwards to guard this flank. A New Zealand anti-tank battery was under Brigadier Percy’s command.
Alamein (Major Battles of World War Two) Page 34