by Bryn Hammond
As something more than an interested observer, the opinions of Major-General Francis ‘Gertie’ Tuker of 4th Indian Division on the failure of the attack are valuable and explain the fundamental flaw in the plan:
The divisional objectives were on a vast front of something like 7,000 yards; the depth of attack was on the same scale; the attackers were six weak battalions. All that amounted to was that this division had been given a task which should have been beyond its powers. Unless the ground it covered at night could be well scoured by our tanks at crack of dawn and unless other tanks could be up with the forward infantry to hold while the antitank guns were being sited at first light, then many enemy posts and other defences were bound to be missed, only to come to life at dawn and dislocate the divisional plan to hold its gains.44
Attacks by single divisions or two or three brigades with over-ambitious objectives, and without full consideration given to the problems of supporting the infantry beyond the range of the field artillery, are recognisable issues afflicting British operations on the Western Front in the summer of 1916. It remained to be seen if Auchinleck would repeat these mistakes in his subsequent operations.
The antipathy between infantry and tanks in Eighth Army was now very real. It could be put right out of the line only through revised doctrine, training and effective liaison. These options were unavailable to Auchinleck’s forces. Limited by lack of trained reserves, they remained in the front line for extended periods. It seemed that only when the reinforcements arriving in the shape of 44th, 51st and 8th Armoured Divisions were in good shape could this situation be rectified. However, under pressure of events, this situation was soon to change.
Both Ultra and the British ‘Y’ (wireless intercept) Service provided timely warning of an Axis counter-attack against 5th Indian Brigade on 16 July. Both Panzer divisions were used and the attack was preceded by heavy Stuka attacks – the Luftwaffe was now fully geared up for operations and its fighters were also operating more aggressively again. Although the attack was made in ‘classical’ Afrika Korps fashion with the setting sun behind the Panzers, it was defeated by an effective combination of Grant tanks and anti-tank guns with the former a ‘lure’ to draw the German tanks onto the latter guns. The destruction of the attack was brutally efficient, as Francis ‘Gertie’ Tuker described:
Major Waller of 149th Anti-Tank Regiment and Lieutenant-Colonel Hutton of the 5th Royal Tank Regiment were the two stalwarts on the spot who hastily planned and then fought this important action, the tanks retiring and drawing the panzers on to Waller’s well-concealed 6-pounders. It is to the credit of 149th that, after only a few days’ training on the new gun, it could demonstrate in battle that, co-ordinated with other arms, our 6-pounder was the master of the German armour. Our infantry casualties were negligible and 149th lost only three killed and three wounded. The news spread quickly through the Eighth Army and up went the men’s spirits from doggedness to elation.45
This important, but often-ignored victory resulted in losses of twenty-four tanks, six armoured cars, one self-propelled gun, eighteen anti-tank guns and six 88mm guns.46 It demonstrated that Eighth Army could now mount defensive actions making effective use of its new weaponry.
The following day, however, the Australians made their latest attempt to expand the Tel el Eisa salient. Initially successful, with the capture of 736 prisoners from 102a Divisione Motorizzata ‘Trento’, 101a Divisione Motorizzata ‘Trieste’ and 7o Reggimento Bersaglieri, the Australians were later counter-attacked and suffered approximately 300 casualties. Both Auchinleck and Morshead, despite several disagreements in this period, both saw the value in maintaining pressure on Rommel’s northernmost positions.
Auchinleck’s next major attack – Operation Splendour – was to be against the centre of the Axis defences where he hoped finally and conclusively to break the Italian infantry and induce a collapse in the Panzerarmee. It began on the night of 21–22 July and was a true tragedy in many ways. The whole attack had the virtue at least of combining the efforts of XIII and XXX Corps. At Tel el Eisa 9th Australian Division with 50th RTR tanks in support would make another effort to expand the salient and threaten the Axis northern flank. The main attack forces included 161st Indian Motor Brigade (recently arrived from Iraq), 6th New Zealand Brigade (brought up to the line from the Delta after the loss of 4th New Zealand Brigade) and the remaining two Territorial RTR battalions of 23rd Armoured Brigade equipped with Valentines, whose experiences since their very recent arrival in the desert had not been happy ones, as Captain Tom Witherby of 46th RTR attested:
We had found our vehicles by 10th July and were horrified by their state. We considered that they were OUR tanks and they had not only been sent off from our Camps in England in tip top condition but they were also stowed with personal kit. Nearly all the kit was looted and the tanks were in a terrible state after being ‘overhauled’ in workshops. Brigadier Misa, the Commander of 23rd Armoured Brigade, went to Cairo and saw General McCreery, our former divisional commander, who was at GHQ as Armoured Fighting Vehicles Staff Officer Class One. McCreery came down and forbade all further work and allowed us to have our tanks to ourselves. We were also given tanks from 24th Armoured Brigade stock to use for ‘cannibalization’. By 17th July we were more or less ready.47
Nor did the brigade’s briefings inspire confidence, as Witherby described:
Two Warrant Officers arrived as tank instructors. One of them walked out to the tank park and went up to a Valentine. He stood looking at it as if admiring it and then pointed at the turret and asked ‘What is that funny little thing sticking out of the turret’? Someone said it was the two pounder gun. He said ‘They’ll murder you if you go up there with that. You might as well go into action with a pea shooter’.48
Brigadier Misa did not consider his brigade ready for battle and protested at its being sent straight into action, but he was overruled.
The first tragedy occurred when it was discovered that Panzer-Regiment 8 had grouped to make a counter-attack against positions taken during the first Ruweisat battle on 15 July. This was the same ground over which 6th New Zealand Brigade was making its night attack on the El Mreir depression. Howard Kippenberger told the story:
We could see and hear that the attack was progressing slowly but little else. Our fire programme ended but I ordered part to be repeated as it was clear that the infantry were not yet on their objective. After the repeat, we carried on at a slower rate, for some ammunition had to be kept for the morning. We were concerned to see explosions and fires in the path of the advance.49
Soon after daylight, the reports of the wounded indicated that there had been another disaster. The three battalions and headquarters of 6th New Zealand Brigade had reached the depression, but had lost their anti-tank guns and transport. Two liaison officers – one being the son of a very famous father – had been assigned to the New Zealanders from 22nd Armoured Brigade in an endeavour to avoid the previous week’s debacle, but these too had problems. Major Dawyck Haig, one of the assignees from 22 Armoured’s HQ Staff, recalled:
I had a tank which should have had good communications with 22nd [Armoured] Brigade but those communications were not much use because our wireless was jammed – stopped by the Germans. They wouldn’t allow it. Anyway, the attack went through quite well. Everything would have been alright had the armour, the 22nd Brigade, been ready to liberate us and defend us at first light. Not a sight of our armour!50
Signals communication had supposedly advanced rapidly since the days when his father had been a Field Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France, but this was not Dawyck Haig’s experience.
The expected tanks from 2nd Armoured Brigade had made no appearance and German tanks had attacked the brigade at first light and forced them to surrender. Brigadier George Clifton was captured and taken to Rommel. The New Zealanders did not even have the compensation of substantial captures of prisoners and equipment; plenty of prisoners were
taken but hardly any retained. As Kippenberger wrote, ‘Worst of all, we had again relied in vain on the support of our tanks and bitterness was extreme.’51
The experience of the armoured division’s liaison officers, as voiced by Dawyck Haig, was equally bitter:
There we were in a sort of bowl and I’m in my tank. We’re being shot at by German armour and guns at quite close range really and they had 88s – a lot of 88s. We were absolutely mincemeat. There was no way that we could have survived. Sooner, rather than later, my tank got brewed up. You suddenly realize you’ve been hit. It was a Crusader tank with a 2-pounder gun and it didn’t have much armour. It was really an uncomfortable position to be in. You realized full well that you had been hit, which was really what one was hoping to happen quicker and we wouldn’t be either obliterated or lose our legs or whatever. I got into the nearest slit trench with some New Zealanders. One New Zealander was very grateful to have me guarding his bottom by lying on top of him!52
Haig was captured and spent much of the rest of the war as a prisoner in Colditz. He recognized that, being in a tank, he and his crew could have escaped but felt this would have been dishonourable:
It’s quite a shock, but on the other hand it’s also a big relief. You’ve had this night battle – which in itself is a bit frightening and then you realize you’re not in a very happy position and you couldn’t really move. You didn’t want to leg it – we could’ve legged it straight off, but it would not be looked on very well by the New Zealanders, if of the only tanks they had, one of them – which was us – legged it off into the Delta. So, one more or less said ‘Well, there’s nothing else to do but just to wait and be a prisoner’. We had no firepower – I mean a 2-pounder against 88s!53
Although 161st Indian Motor Brigade managed to achieve some success, capturing 190 prisoners in their attack, they could not take the troublesome Point 63. Neither had the minefield gapping operations which were essential to the plan’s success been accomplished satisfactorily. This work was essential for the advance of 23rd Armoured Brigade to succeed. Strenuous efforts were being made to call off the attack because of the problems encountered during the night by the New Zealanders and Indians. Nevertheless, the attack still went in at 0800hrs on 22 July with 40th and 46th RTR side by side. The long-range fuel tanks which the Valentines had carried to enable them to reach the front line with enough fuel were dropped off and lay on the desert in three lines to mark the position occupied by the Valentines and Matildas. Tom Witherby recounted:
In broad daylight, we moved up a track to the top of Ruweisat Ridge and formed up ready to start. The scene was unreal. The tanks were freshly painted, pennons flew from radio aerials, jeeps and scout cars moved up and down, but there was no massive bombing, no saturation bombardment, no accompanying Infantry. Our Armoured Cars, which would have been a useful screen, had been sent elsewhere. To attack a German-Italian force in broad daylight and without surprise was like trying to break a block of concrete with a woodman’s axe.54
More than one hundred Valentines armed with 2-pounder guns and Matildas with three-inch mortars rolled westwards along Ruweisat Ridge, with Bren carriers, 2-pounder anti-tank guns and artillery following. Ironically, here was a mass of ‘infantry’ tanks being used without infantry. The New Zealanders would have welcomed the presence of squadrons from these regiments in their two disastrous attacks.
Very soon the tanks came under tremendous anti-tank fire in which at least four types of gun were used: the 88mm Flak, 50mm Pak 38, Russian 76mm anti-tank gun and captured British 2-pounders. Trooper Geoff Bays of 46th RTR recalled:
I was LOB – Left Out Of Battle – as reinforcements. You trailed up in one of the ammunition wagons or the fuel wagon, waiting for your call. They went straight up and virtually straight into action with appalling staff work – very amateurish – and of course they got cut to ribbons on their first action. Starting off in the morning, I think they had forty-four per cent dead by midday.55
Many tanks were stopped on the minefield and destroyed when trying to find a way through non-existent gaps. At 1100hrs the remnants were attacked by 21. Panzer-Division and were ordered to withdraw. The disastrous ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ attack cost the brigade 203 casualties, with about forty tanks destroyed and forty-seven badly damaged. Attempts further south to get 2nd Armoured Brigade into action to support the New Zealanders and 23rd Armoured eventually saw a narrow lane being cleared through the minefields and at 1700hrs 9th Lancers and 6th RTR attempted to go through the gap, only to suffer heavy tank casualties. After forty minutes, the attack was called off by Major-General Alec Gatehouse, the acting divisional commander, who was well up with the attack. Lieutenant Gerald Jackson of 6th RTR, 1st Armoured Brigade, remembered:
Major-General Gatehouse came up to visit us, just then we were heavily shelled and one fell about five yards away from me as I was going to Frank’s tank. It blew me head over heels but the only damage was a cut finger and cut knee. Gatehouse was more unfortunate and got a nasty wound in the arm and another chap next to him was killed.56
The experience of the delays in this mine-clearing were to colour the opinions of armoured commanders like Gatehouse and Fisher, 2nd Armoured Brigade’s commander, in future operations.
The attack by 9th Australian Division with 50th RTR was also a failure. The inexperience of the new tank unit was evident, certainly to Company Sergeant Major Alan Potter of 2/28th Battalion:
It was the 50th Tank Battalion [sic]. British tanks who’d never been in action before coming to the desert. They had poor training, and I believe they were on their way to Burma. Once they got under fire, they really didn’t know where they were at and the Germans by this time had the 88 millimetres, which were superb guns.57
To transport the infantry a dangerous expedient was adopted. Lance Corporal Phil Loffman, with 2/28th Battalion, was one of those involved:
We had to sit on the Valentine tanks and go into the attack – which is quite a precarious position to be in when you go into an armoured attack, sitting on a front row of the armour. Officially there was going to be a full company to go on the armour, but in the finish I don’t know what happened but it was only 10 Platoon. That was only 30 Diggers.58
These were the battalion pioneers who, despite their own war experiences, could not fail to admire the tank men’s courage from their new vantage point:
Anyway we perched ourselves on the front of these guns and before we went in I said to the chap ‘they’re little guns you’ve got’ and he said ‘Yeh, 2-pounders’. I said ‘You know what you’re up against?’ He said ‘We know’. So these fellows were bloody heroes. They were going to take this armour straight on and meet these 88s and the bigger tanks head on. We knew what would happen – and it did!59
Slow-moving tanks could still outdistance burdened infantry advancing on the ridge. Consequently, the tanks soon left their ‘partners’ behind and, without adequate infantry support to overcome the anti-tank gunners, began to take many casualties. The men riding the tanks soon also suffered losses to their numbers, as Loffman discovered:
Our platoon commander … lost his life. He was on a tank fifteen metres from me and I thought they were throwing a red flag off the tank and he got a direct hit with an anti-tank shell and was just blown to pieces. The platoon sergeant, he had both legs taken off and wanted to commit suicide with a grenade. He died of loss of blood. Two or three of them went up on the minefield. We got heavy losses on that day. The chap who got blown up, he’d only just finished his officer training course in Cairo. Came out in his new uniform with his pips on and his batman, sat on the tank and lasted about … 20 minutes.60
The failure in co-operation saw twenty-three tanks knocked out. Some advance had been made but the attackers were forced to withdraw and their objective, Ruin Ridge, remained untaken.
Auchinleck’s final effort – Operation Manhood – was prepared with more time than most of the previous operations. It saw XXX Corps reinforced by 4th
Light Armoured Brigade and 69th Brigade and aimed to break through between Miteirya and Deir el Dhib. It was a return to a single corps attack and enjoyed as little success and as much failure as many of the previous attacks. The attack relied on minefield gapping – an operational task for which Eighth Army was still inadequately equipped and trained. Nevertheless, on the night of 26–27 July a wide gap in the Axis minefield south of Miteirya was made by the South Africans assigned to this task. Meanwhile 2/28th Battalion, Australian Infantry Force (AIF), though delayed, took its objective on the eastern end of Miteirya Ridge. Private Patrick Toovey, from 2/28th, was present:
It was all supposed to be ‘hush hush’ but we set off at midnight and from my memory we started having casualties before ten minutes or quarter of an hour was gone. The firing started almost as soon as we got going. We had a lot of casualties on the way in.61
Despite heavy fire the Aussies made good, though delayed, progress. Phil Loffman recalled:
The artillery barrage was magnificent. It built up confidence. It gave us all the sting in the world and I actually felt sorry for the Germans. I said ‘If those blokes see that how’re they going to get through to Cairo with guns like that in front of them?’ The firefight wasn’t that bad – we got onto the ridge. We accepted casualties on the start line so you’re going to get a few going in too, but we got onto the ridge and the battalion was pretty well intact.62
The barrage on Ruin Ridge was supposed to ensure the Australians had less opposition. Whilst waiting for it to lift, a company commander from 2/28th Battalion, Captain Vernon Northwood, noticed a disturbing development:
I saw a gun coming up on the ridge just as we were going forward over on my left, a gun was being pulled into position. And I thought ‘That can’t be one of ours’. And, in any case, it wouldn’t be on the back side of the ridge, it’d be forward here somewhere where there was danger. I watched as we were waiting – because we had to wait to go onto the ridge… Then two truck loads of men came up and they turned this gun round. It was an 88mm. An anti-tank gun. They were vicious. They were the worst gun that we ever encountered.63