It is instructive to remark that the enemy’s methods in this vital battle were his usual ones of making a series of probing attacks in different sectors, searching for a soft spot. In these attacks, as soon as the leading tanks were knocked out, the remainder came to a halt, not attempting to press and continuing the engagement by gunfire. They knew that to press against determined resistance was merely to invite destruction. These were also our own methods — methods, indeed, which we had learnt from him but which our infantry and other arms were so apt to criticize without understanding.
Although Freyberg was disappointed at the lack of progress on the ground and the inability to secure the real break-out for which he was itching, both Montgomery and Leese were well satisfied. To Montgomery it seemed significant that Von Thoma had not thrown in his counter-attack with his usual speed and had allowed Briggs to form a strong front for meeting it in good time.
The explanation lay in the fact that Rommel had again been surprised by both the point and the direction of the new thrust. His dispositions had been made for an attack along the coastal axis. He was soon to be once again surprised.
EXPLOITING SUCCESS
Rommel, however, was not yet completely ‘knocked off his perch’. He had been dealt a very hard buffet and his wings were beating the air, but he still just managed to hang on by his claws. As long as he could throw out a fence of anti-tank guns he could keep the British iron horses at bay. His difficulty was to know which was the right place, for Montgomery, while still adhering to his general plan, kept hitting him in an unexpected quarter.
Among Montgomery’s talents were his skill at exploiting success and his aptitude in creating new reserves to do so. He visited Freyberg’s battle headquarters in his tank and made his decisions in the forenoon of 2 November. He had assessed the value of the attack made by 9th Armoured Brigade and scented the first indications of the forthcoming tank battle between Briggs and Von Thoma, but did not wait for it. He decided to strike again immediately, and once more in a new direction, giving his enemy no rest. Exploiting the success of the New Zealand funnel he was now going to strike from it southwards.
How the break-out was now to be made was pretty clear to him. While 1st Armoured Division continued their frontal pressure north of Tel el Aqqaqir, the funnel was to be widened in order to launch 7th Armoured Division and the New Zealanders in a swinging movement at its south. Montgomery had brought up 7th Armoured from the south the day before and placed them in Army reserve, strengthening them with the celebrated Queen’s Brigade (131st Brigade) from 44th Division as their lorried infantry. Since this move took place six days after Rommel had moved up 21st Panzer Division from the south, it ought to be pointed out how grossly mistaken is a recent denigrator of Montgomery in describing this move as an example of Montgomery’s ‘dancing to Rommel’s tune’.
To carry out his new intentions, Montgomery now ordered the following measures:
Four infantry brigades to be held in reserve in 30th Corps; these were the Durham Brigade, 154th (Black Watch and Argyll) Brigade from 51st Division, 5th NZ Brigade and 5th Indian Brigade.
Two features south of the funnel to be captured this evening. Seventh Armoured Division to move to Tel el Eisa and come under command 10th Corps.
Two South African armoured car regiments to prepare for a break-out westwards.
These measures were put in hand with the speed the situation demanded. For the immediate infantry attacks to the south of the funnel, the baton was handed once more to Douglas Wimberley. The objectives were limited, the one being a ring contour known as Skinflint,[79] 1,500 yards south of the extremity of the funnel, and the other being Snipe, which lay a little more to the east.
Skinflint was duly attacked at 6.15 p.m. by 2nd Seaforth Highlanders and 50th RTR, supported by eight regiments of artillery. Snipe was attacked a little later by the Sussex Brigade, also with powerful artillery support. Both attacks ‘went like a drill’ against small opposition and it was significant that the prisoners taken now were Italians. They were minor operations, but they were to have very important consequences. The funnel had now been widened and from its southern lip would be developed a new attack on the Rahman Track, but this time south of Tel el Aqqaqir.
Thus ended a very remarkable series of operations that had been accomplished in about nineteen hours. On this second day of November had been fought two big tank battles, an infantry battle and two minor operations. The enemy had been almost broken. It was the vital day of the whole of the Battle of Alamein and, as was to be learnt later, it was the most nearly decisive day.
To the swift blows of the soldiers had been added continued blows from the air. The bombers dropped 165 tons of bombs, mainly on enemy positions west of the Rahman Track. Two more ships were sunk in or off Tobruk harbour by Beauforts and American Liberators. The Hurricane squadrons rallied to the help of the British armour, when the attempts were made by the Germans to attack them from the air, once with twelve Stukas and once with forty, both under fighter escort. The first was met by Hurricanes of 33rd and 238th Squadrons and the second by 213th Squadron and 1st Squadron South African Air Force. Both attacks were broken up, the Stukas on one occasion being driven to jettison their bombs on their own troops.
ROMMEL’S EYES OPEN
In spite of the heavy blows dealt to the German Africa Corps that day by ground and air, Von Thoma, who seems never to have fully apprehended the situation until he was taken prisoner, made that evening another somewhat odd report to Rommel. The British forces, he said, were very superior and their air attacks very trying. In his own DAK there would be only thirty-five (German) tanks remaining on the morrow. His infantry, artillery and invaluable 88s had been reduced to one-third of their original strength. The 50-mm anti-tank guns had shown that they penetrated the main armour of the Sherman and the Grant at only short ranges and they were gradually being overwhelmed by the British tanks and artillery. The Italians, he said, were of little value, except for their artillery.
In spite of all these gloomy facts, however, he considered that the British advance had been checked and that the front was just holding.
Rommel’s eyes, however, were at last more widely open. His forces were being systematically worn down by daily attrition. His losses in tanks and guns that day had been very severe. The indentation of his front was being punched deeper and deeper. He appreciated at last that, if his more valuable troops were not to be destroyed where they stood, he must pull out.
He therefore ordered the first steps to be taken for a withdrawal to Fuka, some sixty miles in the rear, and, on a day of evil omen for them, ordered up the Ariete Armoured Division from the south to assist in covering the withdrawal. He no longer thought in terms of counter-attack, but of erecting a defensive fence to permit a withdrawal in good order. He banked on the hope that the British would follow up sluggishly, as they too often did, but sent a pessimistic report to Germany. To his wife he wrote on the same day: ‘The enemy is slowly levering us out of our position.’
Chapter Twenty: The Day Of Doubt
(3 November)
NOT ENOUGH BAYONETS
The events of the night following this day of success, however, did nothing to further ‘the gradual destruction’ of Rommel’s forces, but lent some colour to Von Thoma’s more sanguine appreciation at that time. It was to be a night in which, as at Miteiriya Ridge, the British waves of impetus seemed in danger of beating fruitlessly against the breakwater of guns.
When darkness came on 2 November, 1st Armoured Division were still not yet across the Rahman Track. Their passage was still barred by the zareba of anti-tank guns that commanded the approaches to the long, low Aqqaqir Ridge. These had got to be shifted by some means before the armour could get on. After a talk with Lumsden, Briggs decided to launch his infantry at the ridge that night. That meant the Rifle battalions of 7th Motor Brigade. They were to capture the track and the high ground beyond it on a front of two miles northward of Tel el Aqqaqir.
The decision was not made until 8.30 at night, so there was no opportunity for reconnaissance. The enemy’s positions were not known in detail, but Briggs believed that the opposition would not be stiff. The brigade, after an all-night drive through the dust-bog of the minefield approaches, had been sitting under shell fire all day, and were, even in the best circumstances, far too few in bayonets for the assault of a defended position. Nevertheless, they nearly succeeded.
The three battalions moved up to their start-line and there lay down on the sand for a few hours’ uneasy sleep in the cold and the din of war all around them. At 1.15 a.m. on 3 November they made their attack. On the right was the London Rifle Brigade (Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Hunt), in the centre 2nd Rifle Brigade of Snipe fame, now commanded by Tom Pearson, and on the left 2nd/60th Rifles, led again by Heathcoat-Amory and directed on to Tel el Aqqaqir itself.
Hastily mounted, the infantry action was carried out with great spirit but was not very well co-ordinated with the artillery. All battalions made a good start as they disappeared into the darkness and on the left the attack of 60th Rifles went well. They crossed the Rahman Track, encountered no guns there and, together with two troops of 6-pdrs of 76th Anti-tank Regiment, dug themselves in on some high ground on the ridge beyond. They believed they were on the Tel itself, but in fact were on some broken ground east of it. At first light they were joined by 10th Hussars, who, together with the anti-tank gunners, saw off an attempted counter-attack by the German armour, the gunners brewing up at least one panzer.
The other two battalions, however, ran into unexpectedly fierce opposition on and along the Rahman Track, where the enemy positions had, no doubt, been reinforced during the night. There was a very tough close-quarters fight in the moonlight right in the gun-line at revolver and bayonet range. The riflemen were leaping into the gun-pits. Gun crews were overcome, infantry and machine-gun positions captured. D Company of the London Rifle Brigade, commanded by Stephen Trappes-Lomax, overran the guns and made contact on their right with 2nd Rifle Brigade, who had got two companies through and were beginning to entrench themselves in the rock. Both battalions had taken prisoners.
Both were, however, far too thin on the ground and the enemy strength had not been accurately gauged. Pearson’s battalion had no more than sixty officers and men on the position. A counter-attack by tanks was clearly imminent but the 6-pdrs were barred from coming forward by a heavy counter-barrage, which the enemy now knew exactly where to place. The positions were clearly untenable and Bosvile radioed permission for the two battalions to extricate themselves and withdraw, an operation almost as hazardous as the attack.
Of this action, the historian of the Rifle Brigade, comparing it with the renowned engagement at Snipe, remarks: ‘One week later, in this trifling, inconsequent, nameless battle, of which no one has ever heard and which ended in undignified retreat, the casualties were nearly as many and individually quite as important.’
Not least of these was Captain Michael Mosley, who had commanded B Company at Snipe and who was now killed by a machine-gun burst as he was standing beside Pearson awaiting the order to withdraw. The effort, however, was not in vain, for it served to keep Rommel’s attention to the area north of Tel el Aqqaqir while Montgomery was preparing to surprise him by a further series of attacks south of it on the next night.
APOLLO’S BOW
Thus the dawn of 3 November did not appear to break auspiciously for the Allies. Bernard Freyberg, sniffing the powder-laden air that morning and a trifle sanguine, as he sometimes was, thought that the enemy was ‘cracking’. Briggs also thought that there would be a big break-out within twenty-four hours. But the time had not quite come.
It was D plus 11 and the physical and nervous strain was beginning to tell on the British as well as on the enemy. They were very close to the zenith of their effort. While the front-line troops naturally had the most to endure, an arduous and exhausting duty was laid also upon all who backed them up. The RASC lorries that brought up ammunition, fuel, rations and stores, as well as the fighting units’ own supply echelons, ploughed daily and nightly through the ‘bloodiness’ of the ever-lengthening minefield gaps, churning and bumping in low gear through the dust-bogs, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, snatching meals when they could. In a subsequent tribute to them Montgomery wrote: ‘The RASC has risen to great heights.’
No one, however, lay under greater strain than the staff officers of formations, who lived under perpetual pressure, divorced from sleep, preparing every day and every night for some operation, each involving concentrated study, planning and quick action. The constant switches of troops which Montgomery required (and which was one of the secrets of his success) alone caused severe staff strains, but Montgomery never spared his commanders or staffs. Many were now beginning to be mentally and physically worn out. We shall see an example of this strain in a divisional commander in the next chapter. For such men as George Walsh, Oliver Leese’s BGS, the battle had been ten days of sustained crisis and they had no time to think whether we were winning or losing. ‘It was all very well’, he said,[80] ‘for Monty to express his confidence, but for most of us it was really touch and go to the end.’
The like was true also of all artillery commanders, who had not only to direct the artillery of their own divisions, but also to cooperate every day in the operations of every other division, a task that imposed upon all the most exacting care and the most detailed calculations and planning. Wimberley noted later in his journal that George Elliot, his CRA, was ‘by now utterly exhausted, worn out with days and nights of calculating fire plans’.
Accordingly it appeared to few people, if to any at all, that we were about to win one of the great battles of history. Montgomery himself was outwardly the soul of confidence, whatever might be his private thoughts and communications, but victory was not yet convincingly assured. While we certainly could not now lose the Battle of Alamein, we could not win it until we had broken the enemy, and there was no sign yet that we had done so.
Thus, although in retrospect it was to be seen that the first day of Supercharge was very nearly a knock-out, to nearly everyone at the end of that day the position was still critical, indeed, seriously critical. Few people are aware today, or ever were aware, how strong this feeling was in quarters by no means inclined to give up easily. Commanders of all grades were beginning to wonder how long they, their staffs and their regiments could stand the strain and they were wondering, in particular, where the troops were coming from for the further infantry attacks that they saw to be likely; 30th Corps never had enough infantry, since the infantry of the three Dominion divisions, for one reason or another, could no longer be employed offensively. Had not some old Roman said that even Apollo’s bow was not always at full stretch?
Thus the picture as we see it in review, the picture of a victory imminent, by no means resembles that which was seen by the officers and men who that morning struggled through the dust, sheltered in their shallow trenches from the flying metal and saw the smoke pouring from the stricken tanks. Monty, they reflected, had warned them to expect a vicious and exhausting dog-fight for twelve days. Well, he had certainly been right about the dog-fight; would he be right about the twelve days? This was already the eleventh; would it really be all over in one more?
NO PROGRESS
Unseen events were shaping the course of the battle to a swift climax, but on the surface it seemed a day of frustration. First Armoured Division could not get on, try as they would. The 4/6th South African Armoured Cars, seeking a way through at Tel el Aqqaqir, came to grief on mines and on the innumerable empty gun pits. Eighth Armoured Brigade, dispatched south-westward, came up against a dozen 88s and the remaining guns of 33rd and 604th Panzerjager Battalion, together with the newly arrived tanks of the Ariete Division. The Sherwood Rangers attempted by an audacious dash to cross the track but were seen off. By the end of the day the Division had lost twenty-six tanks.
Thus the defence continued to hold t
he advantage against tanks, despite weight of numbers. But Montgomery, who had assessed the probable outcome in the morning, had taken measures to prevent the threatened stagnation by developing the more southerly threat he had in mind, in a manner that we shall see in the next chapter.
If there seemed to be stagnation on the ground, there was certainly none in the air. Soon after dawn twenty Stukas, escorted by twelve Messerschmitts, came out of the skies but were intercepted so effectively by Hurricanes of 33rd and 238th Squadrons and by Spitfires of 145th Squadron that they jettisoned their bombs on their own troops. Exactly the same outcome followed from a stronger raid at about noon, which was broken up with great effect by 80th and 127th Squadrons. The enemy’s new fighters, however, attacked with some success our fighter patrols in the coastal area and that day we lost sixteen aircraft.
The Allied air effort was now at its peak. The bombers were at their business from dawn onwards, making their main effort on 1st Armoured Division’s front. In the twenty-four hours of that day the Desert Air Force pilots made 1,208 sorties and the American Squadrons 125.
The Eighth Army soldier who that day saw his tanks going up in flames and their crews reeling from the furnace that not all escaped, or who prepared himself for yet another night assault, watched with joy these exploits in the skies, but on the ground saw no end to the gruelling dog fight. We were not moving. The rations were hard, the water short, the flies worse than ever they had been in our old lines at Alamein and sleep was short and fitful. It was some time before the soldier learnt that, if we were not moving, the enemy was.
HITLER INTERVENES
The first signs that the enemy might be intending a withdrawal were observed by the Australians. Nothing very definite. A withdrawal from the Thompson’s Post pouch would have been no surprise. It was a heavy liability to the enemy rather than an asset and should have been vacated long ago. More significantly, reports then began to come in from 13th Corps down in the south. An increasing quiet and a thinning out of troops. Then came reports from the air of increasing westward movement along the coast road and of backward trickles down the desert tracks. The Australians in the north, 50th and 44th Divisions in the south sent out patrols and by the evening the Australians reported the redoubtable Thompson’s Post empty.
Alamein (Major Battles of World War Two) Page 38