Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the following for their kind permission to quote from their works and thank them for their courtesy:
Field-Marshal The Viscount Montgomery of Alamein for extracts from his Memoirs and from El Alamein to the Sangro.
Captain B. H. Liddell Hart and William Collins, Sons and Company for extracts from The Rommel Papers.
Michael Joseph Ltd for extracts from The Fatal Decisions.
The Controller, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office for the Order of Battle, Western Desert Air Force, in The Royal Air Force 1939-45. Lieutenant-General Sir Francis Tuker and Lieutenant-Colonel G. R.
Stevens for the extract from Fourth Indian Division in Chapter 21.
Permission on payment of fees was obtained from David Higham Associates Ltd for some quotations from Major-General Sir Howard Kippenberger’s Infantry Brigadier (Oxford University Press), and from the Controller, HMSO, for using the main structure of Eighth Army’s Order of Battle, Orders of Battle, Second World War.
C. E. L. P.
***
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A Short Glossary
Besa: Machine gun mounted in British tanks (tanks of American manufacture had the Browning).
BGS: Brigadier General Staff; the senior staff officer at the headquarter of an Army or Corps.
Bofors gun: Light, quick-firing anti-aircraft gun.
Bren gun: Light machine gun.
Bren gun carrier: A tracked and lightly armoured vehicle, mounting a bren gun and used for carrying men, ammunition, etc. across fire-swept ground.
‘Brew-up’: Slang for (a) to make tea, or (b) of a tank, to be set on fire.
Consolidate: To prepare a captured position for defence against counter-attack.
CRA: Commander Royal Artillery; a brigadier commanding all the artillery in a division.
CRE: Commander Royal Engineers; a lieutenant-colonel commanding all RE units in a division.
‘Hoover’: Australian term for a trench, small dug-out or hole in ground (American ‘foxhole’).
FDLs: Forward Defended Localities (old ‘front line’).
FOO: Forward Observation Officer (artillery).
GSO 1: General Staff Officer Grade One. A lieutenant-colonel, senior staff officer of a division; also on the staffs of higher formations.
O Group: Order Group, at which a commander gives operational orders to subordinate officers.
RHA: Royal Horse Artillery.
Spandau: German heavy machine gun.
Vickers gun: British heavy machine gun.
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Copyright © The Estate of C. E. Lucas Phillips, 1962.
First published by Heinemann, 1962.
The Estate of C. E. Lucas Phillips has asserted its right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
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* * *
[1] Professor Fisher, The Middle East.
[2] Later the Western Desert Force.
[3] Operation Victory. A vivid description of this battle is given in R. J. Crisp’s Brazen Chariots.
[4] All became ‘regiments’ late in 1945.
[5] A ‘box’, when complete, was an area of ground wired and mined all round, with prepared trenches, weapon pits, etc. — an island of defence.
[6] To the author.
[7] Infantry Brigadier by Howard Kippenberger.
[8] Op. cit.
[9] Panzer Battles, 1939-45.
[10] The author witnessed one such cavalry disaster at Monchy-le-Preux in April 1917.
[11] R. J. Crisp’s Brazen Chariots and Cyril Joly’s Take These Men vividly illustrated life in a fighting tank.
[12] It must be recorded that Alexander himself did indeed order defences to be made to cover the approaches to Cairo from the south-and south-west. They were planned by Wimberley, inspected by Alexander and actually manned by the Highland Division during the coming Battle of Alam Halfa. They were not, however, withdrawal positions for Eighth Army.
[13] Op. cit.
[14] To the Author.
[15] Op. cit.
[16] General Ritter von Thoma, Eighth Army Int. Sum. 357.
[17] To the Author.
[18] 1st Arm. Div.: The Passage of Defended Minefields.
[19] This is no longer so.
[20] Currie, having survived the whole of the desert campaign and part of the Italian, was killed by a solitary, stray shell in Normandy.
[21] Includes about 20,000 non-effectives.
[22] 18,000 German reinforcements landed just before and during the battle. A further 77,000 Italians were in rear areas.
[23] Rommel gives 537 on 24 October.
[24] Exclusive of long-range bombers in Greece, Crete and Sicily.
[25] Map refs.: 86702980 — 86702960 — 86972923 — approx. 87802870.
[26] A ‘bound’ was a line or locality where tanks gathered in any stragglers and remarshalled for a further advance. A ‘report line’ was where they paused to await further orders.
[27] Kippenberger, op. cit.
[28] Op. cit. A11 ‘armoured command vehicle’ (ACV) was a lightly armoured lorry fitted up as a mobile operations room.
[29] The original raison d’etre of these companies was to fire poison gas, if used by the enemy first. This was the first time that the rifled 4.2-inch mortar was used in action.
[30] For several weeks afterwards C Company received no officer reinforcements and the platoons, in Gordon’s words, were ‘superbly commanded’ by sergeants.
[31] Map ref.: 87002927.
[32] To the Author.
[33] Either James Hague or Bernard Jarvis.
[34] Egerton later lost a leg while serving under the Author’s command in 13th Anti-Tank Regiment in Italy.
[35] Map ref.: 88102565 and a point 500 yards farther south.
[36] 23rd Armd Bde Report on Operations.
[37] 10th H. history mistakes the Black Line for the Gordons’ final objective.
[38] The accounts of the operations in front of Aberdeen in this and the previous chapter are compiled mainly from the personal narratives of Major-General Wimberley, Genera
l Sir Horatio Murray, Lieutenant-Colonel Du Boulay, Major Harry Gordon, Major Wigan, Lieutenant-Colonel Barker, with other informants on points of detail.
[39] Early next morning, seeing a bren-carrier cruising about in the confused situation, Heath dashed out to it, secured the capture of his captors and bore away the piano accordion.
[40] A system devised by Eighth Army for analysing the wireless traffic of units in combat.
[41] Memoirs and Operation Victory.
[42] Field-Marshal Montgomery to the Author.
[43] In detail, it might be said, this is not precisely the same as the more general ‘my orders were unchanged; there would be no departure from the plan’.
[44] Apart from the meagre entries in the divisional log and war diary, the account of Gatehouse’s personal movements before his talk with Montgomery is based mainly on the evidence of Major-General Liardet, Colonel James Hanbury, Captain George Thompson and Brigadier Ebbels. The breakdown in health which General Gatehouse himself has most unhappily suffered has prevented his personal narrative from being taken, but I have had the benefit of assistance from his son, Mr Robert Gatehouse.
[45] F-M Montgomery and Brigadier Queree to the Author.
[46] To the Author at that time.
[47] The New Zealand Division in Egypt and Libya.
[48] Two gunner COs in the Division were killed early in the battle: J. H. B. Evatt, 61st Anti-tank Regt., on the 27th, and R. A. L. Fraser-MacKenzie, 40th Light AA Regt., on the 26th.
[49] Map square 868300.
[50] Map. ref. 87053008.
[51] Ed. B. H. Liddell Hart.
[52] Op. cit.
[53] Made from curved sheets of heavy corrugated iron.
[54] Memoirs, pp. 131-132.
[55] To the Author.
[56] 7th Armoured Division was not included, as erroneously supposed by some. Harding’s division, still located in the south, was in Army Reserve and was still shown as such in Montgomery’s directive of 30 October (not 20 October, as dated in the Memoirs).
[57] Map ref.: 86552966.
[58] Map ref.: 86582948.
[59] Early narratives confused the two Black Watch battalions.
[60] Map squares 864293 and 864292.
[61] At 86622939.
[62] Calistan, with the DCM and the MM to his name, was later given a commission, but was killed in Italy. He had been recommended for the Victoria Cross.
[63] 1st Armd Div. War Diary, however, gives the casualties as over 100.
[64] This account of the action has been compiled mainly from the report of the Committee of Investigation, the official report after the action by Bird and Marten (incorporating a report by Flower), the accounts by Turner in The British Army Journal and The Rifle Brigade Journal, the personal narratives to the author by Turner, Bird, Marten, Baer, Roper-Caldbeck, Atkins and Swann, and various other sources in matters of detail.
[65] The Rommel Papers. Italics not in original.
[66] 868303.
[67] 869301 and 870301.
[68] Between Eastings 870 and 871.
[69] This fine action by 40th RTR took place at 87123043; one squadron had been sent over to the western flank.
[70] Commanded at Alamein by the Author.
[71] Field-Marshal Montgomery to the Author.
[72] So highly do the Seaforths and Camerons prize the memory of their achievements on this night that, largely on this account, the new combined regiment — The Queen’s Own Highlanders — now wear Alamein on their pipers’ accoutrements.
[73] He treated with the utmost casualness the loss of both legs in the Italian campaign and after the war rode again to hounds.
[74] This account of 9th Armoured Brigade’s attack has been compiled from such records as are available and from the personal narratives, written or oral, of Brigadier P. R. C. Hobart, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Peter Farquhar, Colonel M. St J. V. Gibbs, Lieutenant-Colonel The Earl Cadogan, Captain C. R. C. Thursfield, Lieutenant-Colonel John Lakin, Major The Hon P. M. Samuel, Major The Marquess of Bath, Major M. Eveleigh, the late Captain C. B. Stoddart and Major-General Sir William Gentry.
[75] Op. cit.
[76] To the Author.
[77] To the Author.
[78] These and other extracts from divisional and brigade signal logs are not, of course, verbatim records. They are what signallers (some better than others) were able to record in the flow of signal traffic.
[79] Map ref. 863295.
[80] To the Author.
[81] The Rommel Papers.
[82] In map square 860293.
[83] Contour 45, map square 859290.
[84] The Rommel Papers.
[85] Eighth Army Intelligence Summary 357.
[86] The Fatal Decisions.
[87] Op. cit.
[88] Singer was killed in action next day. Von Thoma, on hearing the news, wrote his father a touching letter of sympathy.
Alamein (Major Battles of World War Two) Page 42