At 2130 on 7 April, General Neame ordered the brigade to withdraw the next morning to El Adem. The move was to be carried out by deploying the brigade in a ‘box’, which would be capable of defending itself against tank attacks on its northern and southern flanks. This was an ambitious plan. The brigade had little training to pull off such a fighting withdrawal. Moreover, the plan could only succeed if substantial numbers of Axis guns were silenced before daybreak. But Vaughan had limited artillery and no air power. The only reinforcement he had received at Mechili was a mechanized squadron of 18th Cavalry from El Adem. So his only option was to rush the guns with the squadron firing on the move.
Unsurprisingly, the withdrawal did not work to plan. The formation of the box was delayed and withdrawal could only commence fifteen minutes after first light, and the squadron of 18th Cavalry that was to spearhead the breakthrough was unable to silence the enemy’s guns. In consequence, the brigade had hardly moved when it came under intensive artillery and machine-gun fire. Soon the German tanks began attacking from both sides. After attempting for a while to inch ahead, Vaughan and the armoured division commander decided that the withdrawal was impracticable and held out a white flag.10
The headquarters as well as the supporting units were taken captive. The ill-starred Indian regiments put up a brave show. The breakthrough squadron of 18th Cavalry eventually fought its way past the Axis guns, suffering some 25 per cent casualties. The 11th Cavalry – covering the two flanks of the box – appears to have lost over 65 per cent of its troops. The 2nd Lancers, which formed the rearguard, came off worst. Only parts of two squadrons – led by Major M. K. Rajendrasinhji, a cousin of the famous cricketer Ranjitsinhji (‘Ranji’) and a future chief of the Indian army – managed to fight their way out. The rest were either killed or taken prisoner.
The 3rd Indian Brigade was badly mauled. So high was the rate of attrition that when the survivors of the 2nd Lancers joined those of the 11th Cavalry at El Adem, they were grouped together as just one squadron. After moving from one location in the rear to the next, these troops would eventually join the 4th Indian Division in the summer of 1941. The third regiment of the brigade, the 18th Cavalry, pulled back from El Adem to Tobruk – where it was joined by the retreating 9th Australian Division.
Looking back at these events, Brigadier Vaughan would recall the ‘staunch courage with which the Indian ranks, young and inexperienced, lacking full equipment and training, standing firm when others retired … Where much else failed, their spirit did not.’11 The Indian official history makes an altogether grander claim, that the stand of the brigade at Mechili ‘started a chain of events which ended with Allied victory in Africa and the invasion of Italy’.12 Discounting regimental and national loyalties, it is clear that the Indian troops were pummelled by the Germans. The main achievement of the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade was to hold up – if only by bluff – Rommel’s forces at Mechili for forty-eight hours, so preventing the Australians from being cut off before they reached Tobruk.
On 11 April, German and Italian forces stood at the gates of Tobruk. Although his pursuit of British forces had not worked out as planned, Rommel had managed to roll back the Allied gains in Libya and into the bargain had captured Wavell’s top commanders, including Neame and O’Connor. Having reached Tobruk, Rommel was determined to take it. Successive attacks launched against the hastily cobbled-together defences were beaten back by the Australians. Faced with Rommel’s incessant demand for troops, the German High Command sent Lieutenant General Friedrich Paulus to take stock of the situation. Paulus reported in early May that ‘the crux of the problem in North Africa is not Tobruk or Sollum, but the organization of supplies’. The Royal Navy was interdicting Axis cargo and troop ships to Benghazi, and the Axis lacked the requisite transport to open a supply channel across the 1,100-mile land route from Tripoli. At best, they could cater for a third of Rommel’s requirements – sufficient only for his troops to survive near Tobruk. Rommel was stuck: he could neither advance nor retreat.13
The British learnt of Paulus’ appreciation through Ultra intelligence. Bruised by the defeats in Greece and Cyrenaica, Churchill was raring to have a crack at Rommel’s forces before their logistical situation improved. He immediately ordered the shipment of 300 tanks through the Mediterranean to Egypt. Churchill cabled Wavell that it was ‘important not to allow fighting round Tobruk to die down, but to compel the enemy to fire his ammunition and use up his strength by counter-attack’. He asked Wavell to consider reinforcing Tobruk and harrying Rommel’s forces near the frontier with Egypt.14
Halfaya and Sollum were two key passes that had fallen under Rommel’s control. Wavell was keen to retake these before making any move to throw the Axis forces back west of Tobruk. Operation Brevity was launched with three brigade groups on 15 May. It was an unalloyed failure. Within twenty-four hours, the British forces were driven back to their side of the Egyptian frontier. By the time the operation was launched, the 4th Indian Division had returned from East Africa. The division was deployed over a stretch of 130 miles from Sidi Barrani to El Daba, protecting 14 landing grounds. More importantly, having fought in the mountains for over three months, the troops were training yet again for desert warfare – and now against a formidable enemy.15 The 4th Division was assigned a dual role for Brevity: as a reserve striking force and as a shield against attempts by Axis forces to bypass British thrusts. In the event, the division did nothing more onerous than passing on the wounded and prisoners to rear areas.
The 4th Indian Division played a more prominent role in another offensive, launched in mid-June 1941. Operation Battleaxe was a more exacting gambit aimed at clearing the frontier area of all Axis forces and at pushing Rommel’s troops back to the west of Tobruk. Yet Wavell was also aware of the fate of Operation Brevity and wished to proceed cautiously. Churchill disagreed. Having sent his tanks, the prime minister wanted his offensive; Wavell reluctantly complied. The plan was to attack in three columns. Advancing along the coast, the eponymous Coast Force – made up of one brigade from the 4th Division – would attack and secure the Halfaya Pass and Sollum. The Escarpment Force – the rest of 4th Division with additional infantry, artillery and armour – would advance atop the escarpment and expel the Axis forces from Halfaya, Bir Musaid and Capuzzo. The (now rested) 7th Armoured Division would move parallel to the Escarpment Force and protect its left flank. Further, the division would draw Axis armour into battle and destroy it. Thereafter, the two divisions would move towards Tobruk.
To keep Rommel guessing about the direction of the main attack, the concentration of forces for Battleaxe took place in dribs and drabs over a week. A little after midnight on 15 June, the approach march was completed. The attack began at dawn. First off the blocks was the Coast Force, which aimed to capture the lower Halfaya Pass. The Coast Force was drawn from the 11th Indian Infantry Brigade, along with six Matilda tanks of the 4th Royal Tank Regiment. Supporting the Coast Force was the so-called Halfaya Group – a battalion, the 2nd Cameron, of the 11th Brigade and a squadron of the Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) with twelve Matildas – which attacked the pass from atop the escarpment.
The Halfaya Group’s advance towards the pass was initially smooth. The Matildas raced ahead with the Camerons following in motor vehicles. As the tanks drew close to the objective, two 88mm anti-aircraft guns opened up at close range and made short work of the entire squadron of the RTR. Shorn of their armour and wireless links to their artillery guns down below, the Camerons tried to advance on their own – only to be attacked by Axis tanks, and forced to withdraw by noon. The Coast Force, moving up the slopes of the escarpment towards the Halfaya Pass, met with a similar fate. The six tanks of the RTR ran into a minefield and only two managed to limp ahead. Simultaneously, the leading infantry battalion, the 2nd Mahrattas, came under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire from close quarters resulting in several casualties. Soon, it became evident that the attempt to wrest the Halfaya Pass from the Axis forces had failed.16
The Escarpment Force fared only a bit better. The advance brigade of the 7th Armoured Division faced a curtain of fire brought down by Axis guns from well-entrenched positions. Only later that afternoon did the tanks manage to take control of Capuzzo–Bir Weir. By the time infantry units had arrived, consolidated the position and prepared to clear Axis forces near Bir Musaid and Sollum, it was reported that a hundred Axis tanks were massing for a counter-attack on Capuzzo. In consequence, the planned operations were halted.17
On the morning of 16 June, as both sides’ armour engaged in skirmishes, the Coast Force made another attempt at taking the Halfaya Pass. The 2nd Mahrattas and the 1st Rajputana Rifles made for the pass, while the Camerons were held in reserve. Both the battalions had barely crept up when they came under sustained fire. When they had managed to reach to within 500 yards of the road leading to the Halfaya Pass, the Camerons were called up from the rear. The Rajputana Rifles, however, came under a barrage of artillery fire – losing their commanding officer and almost two rifle companies. As night fell, the coast Force was pulled back.18
Another attack was planned for the next day, but it never went in. The British commanders had hoped to entice Rommel’s Panzers into a main battle and destroy them. As it turned out British armour was no match for that of the Axis forces. By the morning of 17 June, the 7th Armoured Division had to beat a hasty and unseemly retreat in the face of an Axis threat to envelop all the British forces. The commander of the 4th Indian Division followed suit, undertaking a ‘record withdrawal’, as he later observed. In three days, the British had sustained heavy casualties: 122 officers and men killed, together with almost 850 wounded and missing. More telling were tank losses. The British lost ninety-one tanks, while the Germans lost only twelve. Later that morning, Wavell cabled the CIGS: ‘Regret to report failure of Battleaxe.’19
The performance of the Indian units showcased some of the key problems that led to the defeat. The Matildas were designed to fight in support of infantry. As such they had much armour and little speed. Moving at a maximum of 15 miles per hour, they were sitting ducks, from both near and afar, for the 88mm anti-aircraft guns of the Axis. In turn, the Matildas’ own 2-pounder gun was little more than a souped-up pea-shooter. More importantly, the British forces suffered from a flawed – not to say missing – doctrine. Unlike the Germans, they had no conception of combined-arms warfare. Training for infantry–armour co-ordination was inadequate. Nor was there any attempt to integrate the operations of anti-tank units with advancing armour supported by infantry and artillery.20
The failure of Operation Battleaxe reinforced Churchill’s doubts about Wavell’s abilities as a commander. Not only had he presided over the defeats in Greece and Crete, but even the successes in Iraq and Syria had been secured in the teeth of Wavell’s resistance. Churchill concluded that ‘Wavell was a tired man’.21 This was more than a trifle unfair to Wavell, for Churchill’s insatiable demands had also contributed to the outcome of Battleaxe. Wavell had, in fact, made clear the problem posed by his slow armour and had yielded to political pressure against his better judgement. That said, Wavell’s grip over operations, from the latter stages of Operation Compass through to Battleaxe, had been less than sure. And the prime minister was not wrong in thinking that a change in leadership was essential. Having been impressed by General Auchinleck’s initiative in the campaign in Iraq, Churchill now decided to swap his command with that of Wavell. In July 1941, Auchinleck took over Middle East Command, while Wavell went to India as commander-in-chief.
Auchinleck set about preparing his forces for a more deliberate offensive aimed at relieving Tobruk. He took his time. Despite Churchill’s carping, Auchinleck spent four months reorganizing, re-equipping and training his troops. Lieutenant General Alan Cunningham was given the command of the newly created Eighth Army, consisting of two corps, the 13th and the 30th. Immense quantities of materiel began flowing into the Middle East. The armoured force of the Eighth Army was upgraded by gradually replacing the discredited Matildas and hastily produced Crusaders with the superior American-built Stuart and Grant tanks. And the formation in October 1941 of the Desert Air Force ensured better support for ground operations and overall air superiority in the theatre.22 Auchinleck also gave much attention to training. A Training Memorandum issued by Middle East Command headquarters soon after Operation Battleaxe noted: ‘A war of movement such as this one requires troops to be trained to a considerably higher standard.’23 Particularly emphasized was the movement in the desert of mechanized columns by day and night. An entire brigade of the 4th Indian Division was also sent for a full course at the Combined Training Centre at Kabrit.24
The Eighth Army’s plan for the offensive – Operation Crusader – aimed at encircling Rommel’s forces in a two-pronged attack. The 30th Corps, which contained the main armoured forces, would outflank from the south the Axis defences near Sollum and would turn north-west as if to relieve Tobruk. This would smoke out Rommel’s armour, which could be destroyed near Gabr Saleh. Having taken the battle to the Panzers, the infantry-heavy 13th Corps would swing around the Sollum front, push north to the coast and thence west to Tobruk.
After several false starts, Operation Crusader was launched on 18 November 1941. The 30th Corps was soon bogged down in a series of tangled and whirling armoured battles around Sidi Rezegh. A week into the offensive, Auchinleck had to replace Cunningham with Major General Neil Ritchie. However, the latter also struggled to impose his design on the churning battlefield. Rommel characteristically sought to up the ante and threw all he had into these engagements. But he too was unable to master the confusion. As a British officer put it, ‘Apparently nobody, not even the enemy, knew what the hell was going on anywhere.’25
Meanwhile, the 13th Corps marked time waiting for orders to kick-start its operations. These were originally planned to begin only after the 30th Corps had substantially degraded the Axis armoured formations. As it happened, Cunningham gave the 13th Corps the green light on 21 November, harbouring a misapprehension about the scale of enemy tank losses. Given the course of the tank battles near Sidi Rezegh, this was just as well.
The 13th Corps consisted of the 4th Indian Division, the New Zealand Division and the 1st Army Tank Brigade. The 4th Division’s initial task was to attack with forty-five tanks and capture the two main defended areas along the frontier: the Omar Nuovo and the Libyan Omar. These attacks laid bare the problems that continued to plague the Indian forces as well as the Eighth Army.
In the first place, the division was widely dispersed and could bring only one brigade into battle. The 5th Infantry Brigade had returned from Syria barely a month before and was short of both equipment and transport. In consequence, it was employed in the rear areas to secure communications and key facilities. Of the remaining two, the 11th Brigade was deployed in a holding role to prevent Axis forces from sloping down the escarpment towards the sea. The 7th Brigade was pressed into action. In fact, it was the only brigade of the 4th Division that had had collective training and that held its full complement of motor vehicles.26
Secondly, the standard of training was still below scratch. During the attack on Omar Nuovo, for instance, the forty-five tanks supporting the leading battalion were supposed be in position two minutes after the artillery fire was lifted, but arrived only after twenty minutes – so squandering the effect of the preparatory shelling. Furthermore, the British commanders bafflingly continued to underestimate the role played by the 88mm guns of the Axis. At Omar Nuovo, these guns stopped the tanks squarely in their tracks and almost derailed the attack; the infantry had to fix bayonets and rush the gun nests. At the Libyan Omar, too, the 88mm guns inflicted considerable losses on British tanks. In the event, these positions were taken only after several days and at a substantial cost.27
The confusion in the 30th Corps area had a knock-on effect on the 4th Division. On the afternoon of 24 November, a young staff officer at the division headquarters noticed
a gre
at column of vehicles of every size and description, which turned out to be most of XXX Corps supply column, with a few other odd detachments which had joined up. The whole column went through the Div. HQ [sic] at a good speed and in a great cloud of dust … we stopped one or two lorries and asked what it was all about. No one apparently knew what was really happening but the general idea seemed to be that a column of tanks was somewhere behind them and they were getting out of it quick.28
Given the possibility of Axis tanks attacking British lines of communication, it was decided to pull back the division behind the Omars. The fear was not unfounded, for Rommel was dashing ahead on a raid towards the Egyptian frontier.
By this time, the rest of the 13th Corps was headed towards Tobruk. The new army commander, General Ritchie, also abandoned plans for Sidi Rezegh and instead sought to capture El Adem. This would provide the British tanks with a better location in which to fight the Axis forces. On 3 December, the 4th Indian Division with all its brigades – 5th, 7th and 11th – was ordered up from the frontier to the 30th Corps area south of Tobruk.
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