by Bryn Hammond
Auchinleck cannot have been aware of the extent to which he was now the focus of the Prime Minister’s criticism and concern. Auchinleck’s correct refusal to attack before June 1942 had rankled with Churchill who had watched the events of June and early July from afar and with an increasingly jaundiced eye. It had been all that General Sir Alan Brooke could do to prevent the Prime Minister going out to Egypt at the end of June. Churchill, blocked in his designs, now used Cabinet meetings as a forum for ill-informed remarks on events in the Middle East [ME]. Typical was the meeting on 8 July, as General Brooke recorded:
PM ran down ME army in shocking way and criticized Auchinleck for not showing a more offensive spirit. I had an uphill task defending him and pointing out the difficulties of his present position. Also the fact that any rash move on his part at present would very quickly lose us Egypt. However PM was in one of his unpleasant moods going back over old ground and asking where the 750,000 men in ME were, what they were doing, and why they were not fighting. After being thoroughly unpleasant during the Cabinet meeting, with that astounding charm of his he came up to me afterwards and said to me ‘I am sorry Brookie if I had to be unpleasant about Auchinleck and the Middle East!’7
This apology was of no value to Auchinleck and the men of Eighth Army who continued to fight and die in defence of Egypt. Churchill’s inability to differentiate between the enormous breadth of Auchinleck’s responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief, Middle East and those connected with the necessary temporary assumption of Eighth Army command produced relentless and counter-productive criticism. It is doubtful whether even a great victory on Auchinleck’s part could now have saved his position. As a professional soldier, however, he stayed firmly focused on the immediate challenge of defeating Rommel.
Since the Gazala battle opened, the Desert Air Force had been engaged at an incredible level in operations in support of the ground forces. In June, there had been heavy losses in aircraft with 113 British against eighty German and eighteen Italian. In July the effort was still being maintained and on 3 July, 770 sorties were flown – the greatest effort to date. When the lull in operations occurred, Air Vice-Marshal Arthur Coningham ordered most of his fighters onto fighter-bombing operations, especially attacks against the Panzerarmee supply route along the coastal road and, from 6 July onwards, the German airfields.
Squadron Leader Billy Drake had by now developed an effective modus operandi for airfield attacks:
Airfields were very nasty. You only did one attack and never, never a repeat attack because that’s where everybody got killed, if they were going to get killed. ‘Surprise, surprise’ was the essence. Ground attacks were always very carefully looked at before attack. You usually had photographs of where the aeroplanes were and the answer was you did one strafing attack, destroyed whatever you could on the ground and then went home and got the hell out of it. Never, never, never a second attack.8
The airfield attacks supported those of the bomber formations which were now being undertaken both night and day. The regular formations of bombers were usually accompanied by three squadrons of Kittyhawks with roving extra-high top cover from Spitfires. These were for protection against the ‘Snappers’ – the high-flying Messerschmitt Bf-109s and Macchi C202s who continually dived and pecked at the formations.9 Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe was now finding plenty of opportunities amongst the stationary Eighth Army units for its Junkers 87 Stuka dive-bombers, which now reappeared (reportedly boosting the Panzerarmee’s morale). However, as Cyril Mount noted, they operated under a law of diminishing returns:
The Stukas were scary because we’d never come across anything like that before. [We were] very, very scared at first, then you realized you’d be very unlucky if you copped it, because they were a terrorizing thing, more than damaging. They only had two bombs and they had a siren. They’d come when the sun was coming down at only a couple of degrees up and they would come out of the sun. The sirens were quite scary AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!! and they seemed to be coming straight for you. At the beginning, you thought you’d had it but, later on when you got used to them, you realized they just weren’t coming straight for you and the bombs they dropped very often did no damage at all to anybody. They just buried themselves in the sand and blew up great clouds of sand. You’d have to be very unlucky to get a direct hit from a Stuka.10
This growing contempt developed to the extent that, in mid-July, one fellow artilleryman, Bombardier Louis Challoner of 2nd Royal Horse Artillery, was reporting that he and his mates ‘were inclined to look on them with some derision’.11
The dive-bombers also presented problems for the Luftwaffe. Oberleutnant Friedrich Körner of Jagdgeschwader 27, an ‘ace’ with thirty-six ‘kills’, noted their need ‘for a fighter escort – being very slow and having poor defensive armament’ and that a particular problem was ‘they were scattered over a wide area after the dive and were very hard to protect’.12 Körner was himself shot down by a Hurricane IIc flown by Lieutenant Lawrence Waugh of 1 South African Air Force Squadron and taken prisoner on 4 July whilst trying to attack a formation of allied bombers as German air operations grew in intensity. The Germans now dispatched large formations of Stukas and Junkers-88 conventional bombers with strong fighter escorts to pound their opponent. As a consequence, the count of aircraft shot down on both sides mounted steadily.
On 8 July Auchinleck relieved Lieutenant-General Sir Willoughby Norrie of command of XXX Corps and replaced him with William Ramsden, commander of 50th Division. Ramsden was immediately instructed to prepare an operation to capture two low ridges at Tel el Eisa (‘the Hill of Jesus’) and Tel el Makh Khad at the extreme northern end of his opponent’s front. This was at a time when Rommel’s attention had been drawn to the more open southern flank once more. Auchinleck was still thinking well ahead of his opponent. He had decided as early as 3 July that he would abandon the Bab el Qattara Box, but then considered using it as the basis for a thrust northwards towards El Mreir. Having decided against this, and with this box now offering little value defensively or for the attack, he ordered Gott to abandon it and withdraw the New Zealand defenders eastwards on 8 July. This pre-empted any effort by Rommel against the southern part of the Alamein line where the Panzerarmee commander dispatched 21. Panzer-Division, Divisione ‘Littorio’ and elements of 90. leichte-Afrika-Division to make ‘a full-dress attack’ on the well-built concrete strongpoints and gun emplacements. These forces consequently arrived too late and encountered only slight resistance from the retiring rearguard. Neither Rommel nor Generalmajor Georg von Bismarck, commander of 21. Panzer-Division, were able to understand why the position had been given up.
Auchinleck’s northern attack would make a strike against the coastal highway a possibility and would be focused principally on the Italian infantry, now brought into the line. In this way, Auchinleck was not only out-thinking Rommel, he was also unwittingly anticipating his successor’s plans by several months.
The attack was preceded by a raid on 7 July in which 2/43rd Battalion killed at least fifteen Germans, took nine prisoners and destroyed four anti-tank guns and one field gun. This led to sharp criticism by Rommel of his subordinates and severe strictures concerning officers sleeping in front-line positions at night because of the raid threat. Perhaps the Australians’ reputation in two world wars for aggressive raiding was responsible for this rather edgy response.
The capture of Tel el Eisa was to be 9th Australian Division’s responsibility, whilst 1st South African Division was to take Tel el Makh Khad. Thirty-two Valentine tanks of 44th Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) (with one squadron of 8th RTR attached) were to assist the Australians; the South Africans received only eight A12 Matilda II tanks. The 2/48th under its redoubtable commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Heathcote Hammer (known variously as ‘Tack’ or ‘Sledge’ and whose motto was ‘hard as nails’),13 would lead the Australian attack with 2/24th following and operating along the coast. A veteran tank officer, Captain Stuart Hamilton of the 8th RTR, witnessed the
Australian methods of preparation at first – and was suitably impressed:
We had just had our usual ‘O’ Group Orders for the forthcoming attack, done in the traditional format and style of: 1. Information; 2. Intention; 3. Method; 4. Plan; 5. Administration; 6. Questions etc. I then noticed a crowd of Aussie infantry gathering around an empty 44-gallon oil-drum to get their orders, so I wandered up to hear how this was to be done. They were an incredibly scruffy crowd with no one appearing to be dressed the same: some stripped to the waist with dirty, ragged shorts and scuffed boots: others in dirty slacks and equally dirty singlets: some wearing slouch hats, others with tin hats or bare-headed: talking, smoking and laughing amongst themselves as they grouped around this oil-drum and waited for an RSM to stand on the top of it. He looked magnificent and would have done credit to a Guards battalion. He was a good 6’ tall with a fine physique to match: deeply bronzed and bare-chested: wearing immaculately clean and well-pressed shorts, puttees and highly polished boots and a clean slouch hat with polished chin strap. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at them and bellowed, ‘Friends, Romans and Countrymen’ – this is going to be good I thought – ‘lend me yer fuckin’ ears you heap! You lucky bastards are going to have the chance once more of putting the shits up the fuckin’ Jerries! Aren’t you the lucky ones…?!’14
When the operation began, the tanks found the ‘going’ near the coast difficult even during the approach march. The hard crust of the salt pans broke up and several tanks and support vehicles bogged down, effectively limiting their participation. The attack went ahead, however, preceded by the sort of concentrated artillery fire that Auchinleck and Dorman-Smith had hoped for in their reforms to centralize artillery control. The availability of 7th Medium Regiment’s heavier 4.5-inch guns provided depth to the barrage beyond the capabilities of the 25-pounders from three field regiments and from batteries of three more. The war diarist of the Afrika Korps witnessing the barrage from twenty miles away was sufficiently impressed to note that ‘particularly heavy artillery fire can be heard from the north. Veterans of the Great War say it is even stronger than the Trommelfeuer [drum fire] of the Western Front’.15
The recipients of this concentrated ‘hate’ were troops of the inexperienced 60a Divisione di Fanteria ‘Sabratha’. Just how ill-prepared for its task this Italian division was is indicated by the fact that the attacking infantry had already penetrated the Italian front-line positions and captured 400 men garrisoning Point 26 without a single casualty before the barrage started. Now it had begun, the infantry followed it and 2/48th seized Tel el Eisa station despite heavy fire from German and Italian field guns. Meanwhile 2/24th had taken its first objective, Trig 33, in spite of delays caused by crossing the salt marsh. However, without supporting tanks and machine guns, the battalion commander ordered them to dig in on these positions. Elsewhere, the South African attack on Tel el Makh Khad saw the position taken.
The attack prompted a crisis for the Axis forces. There was a gap near the coast where the ‘Sabratha’ had broken – a fact recognized by Oberstleutnant Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin, now Panzerarmee Afrika’s acting Chef der Operationsabteilung. His prompt action prevented any possible further exploitation of the Australian success:
Panzerarmee headquarters was on the coast, only a few miles behind the front, and early that morning I was startled to see hundreds of Italians rushing past the headquarters in the final stages of panic and rout. Rommel had spent the night in the Qaret el Abd Box, far to the south, and it was for me to decide what to do. When a headquarters is threatened the first instinct is to move and safeguard its irreplaceable equipment and documents. It was clear to me, however, that Sabratha was finished – their artillery was already ‘in the bag’ – and something must be done immediately to close the road to the west. I called on the staff and personnel of headquarters to form a rough battle line, which I strengthened with our antiaircraft guns and some infantry reinforcements which happened to arrive.16
The infantry reinforcements were from Infanterie-Regiment 382, which was one of the advance units of what was to be 164. leichte-Afrika-Division and had just flown in from Crete. Mellenthin continued:
Without these reinforcements the northern flank of the Panzerarmee could have been broken through. At noon Rommel came up from the south with his Kampfstaffel and a hastily organized battle group from 15. Panzer-Division. He attempted to cut off the Australian salient at Tel el Eisa by an attack from the south, but the artillery fire from Alamein Fortress was too strong.17
Throughout the day the infantry endured artillery fire, five visits by Stukas (with as many as thirty to forty planes in each attack) and tank assaults against which 2/3rd Anti-Tank Regiment’s 2-pounders achieved exceptional and surprising success. In the early evening a penetration of the positions near the railway station was repelled by a determined counter-attack in which Corporal Tom ‘Diver’ Derrick of 2/48th Battalion took part:
We were to move forward in one long extended line, cross the railway line without a sound and on a shot from the OC [Officer Commanding] we were to open up with everything and continue to advance firing as we went and calling out ‘Come on Australianoes!’… From the din of the light machine-guns, tommy guns, rifles and grenades, also the blood-curdling cries of advancing men, the enemy must have thought there were thousands and I think the Australianoes business helped a lot.18
Attempts by the Germans to drive the attackers from their positions eventually ended in failure and the Australians set to constructing better defences for their gains. The attack had been a classic of Great War ‘bite and hold’ tactics in which the seizing of limited gains provoked a succession of counter-attacks which were decisively destroyed by a combination of the infantry defenders’ own firepower and strong artillery support. It succeeded in relieving the immediate pressure on the Alamein Box and reducing Axis observation over the defences.
Like all salients, the captured ground might offer a position of potential from which further attacks could capitalize on the initial success but, equally, it placed the defenders in relatively crowded positions on which their opponent could pour concentrated artillery fire. In Auchinleck’s view the necessity outweighed the probable consequences. Post facto suggestions of a connection between this attack and Basil Liddell Hart’s ‘Strategy of the Indirect Approach’ are spurious.19 The threat to his northern flank was something Rommel had previously failed to appreciate. The attack drew his attention back from grandiose schemes for a further effort towards Cairo to the very real need for effective defence. His deployment of an Italian infantry division to hold the line showed he had seriously underestimated the growing power of his opponent. In this sense, the attack was a shattering, though not decisive, blow.20
It had a shattering effect in another way too. This was the destruction of Nachrichten Fernaufklärungs Kompanie 621. This ‘radio intercept company’ under its ambitious commander, Hauptmann Alfred Seebohm, had provided Rommel with an immediate and extremely valuable insight into Eighth Army’s plans, intentions, manoeuvres and actions since April 1941 by the simple expedient of listening to British wireless traffic. Under the pressure of events on the battlefield, these messages were usually sent ‘in clear’ i.e. without being encoded using a cipher, but with some codewords for places, units and so on. It was a flawed system, as even its users recognized, including Major Anthony Wingfield of the 10th Hussars:
There was a system of code words and disguised language which had been adopted by the Eighth Army, and which now had to be learnt for use when wireless communication was in operation. I cannot help feeling that the Germans and Italians soon understood that ‘Sun-ray’ meant one’s senior commander, etc. Those units who had recently served in India often adopted some Urdu words; but as there were Indian troops in the Desert it seemed obvious that the enemy would have Indian interpreters in their ranks.21
Seebohm’s unit therefore consisted of skilled linguists with powerful wireless receivers. Howeve
r, the men he commanded were also able to stand up to combat if necessary, as they had proved on several previous occasions. Supposedly out of the way at the northernmost end of the Axis line, this specialist unit fed back to Rommel details of Eighth Army deployments and intentions. It was extremely effective and had been working well both at Gazala and at Alamein, as one of its members, Leutnant Berno Wischmann, attested:
Since the beginning of June, I had been assigned to Rommel as liaison officer with two operators. Any important message intercepted by the company reached me a few minutes later and thereby Rommel. I kept the wireless situation map for him. Not infrequently, the intercepted enemy signals had been deciphered and were in Rommel’s hands whilst the [less well positioned] enemy signallers were still querying them. Rommel thus often had signals in his hands before the enemy commanders to whom they had been addressed. It was to achieve such brilliant results that Seebohm had taken the risk of putting our company in such an exposed position by the sea, just a few hundred yards behind a sector defended by Italian troops.22
When 2/24th Battalion attacked on 10 July, NFAK 621 was directly in their path. Seebohm was badly wounded and died in captivity soon afterwards and most of his unit were killed or captured after an hour’s fight against the Australians and some Valentine tanks. Rommel’s response to this news indicated how significant the loss was. According to Berno Wischmann:
When Rommel asked me at about 09.00 on 10th July, for the latest intercepts, I had to tell him that we had still not established radio contact with the company yet. ‘Where is the company positioned?’ he asked. I showed him on the map. ‘Then it is futsch – lost!’ he said, absolutely furious.23
This was the second intelligence loss Rommel had suffered in less than two weeks. Firstly the ‘Good Source’ – Gute Quelle – had been blocked and now NFAK 621. The former could not be replaced. The latter was reconstituted in September but was never as effective again, although British wireless discipline continued to be lax.