by Bryn Hammond
12. Orange, Coningham, p.101.
13. Connell, Auchinleck, p.622.
14. Corelli Barnett, The Desert Generals (London: Phoenix, 2007), p.199.
15. Howard Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier (London: Geoffrey Cumberledge, 1949), p.139.
16. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, p.139.
17. Quoted in Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.276.
18. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, p.138.
19. Private papers of G.M.O. Davy, PP/MCR/143, IWM Documents.
20. Martin Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War: Waging World War II in North Africa, 1941–1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 276–82 details Nazi preparations for the extermination of the Jews in Egypt and Palestine. See also Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews of Palestine (Washington, DC: Enigma and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2010).
21. Private papers of A. Page, 02/46/1, IWM Documents.
22. Eric Watts interview, 21555, IWM Sound Archive.
23. Ray Middleton interview, 20996, IWM Sound Archive.
24. Quoted in Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.285.
25. These figures are taken from Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.288. The infantry strengths of the two German armoured formations seem very low given the overall numbers of German troops in the theatre of operations. However, Rommel subsequently described the low fighting strength of his [Panzer?] divisions on 2 July ‘which amounted to no more than 1,200 to 1,500 men…’ Liddell Hart [ed.], The Rommel Papers, pp. 248–49. He also suggested (p.248) that 90. leichte-Afrika-Division’s strength was 1,300 men.
26. Niall Barr, Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of El Alamein (London: Pimlico 2005), pp.73–74.
27. Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.292.
28. Quoted in Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.293.
29. Private papers of A. Page, 02/46/1, IWM Documents.
30. F.W. von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles (London: Futura, 1977), p.161.
31. Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, p.161.
32. B.H. Liddell Hart [ed.], The Rommel Papers (New York: Da Capo Press, 1953), p.246. Kampfgruppe Kiehl was also known as Kampfstaffel des Oberbefehlshabers der Pz.Armee Afrika.
33. The Afrika Korps was still complaining that ‘nothing is to be seen of our own fighter defence’ on the evening of 2 July. See Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.309, quoting the unit’s War Diary.
34. Charles Westlake interview, 11048, IWM Sound Archive. Westlake only joined 7th Medium when 107 Battery (formerly South Notts Hussars) was transferred a little later in July, but he was soon familiar with Elton’s aims and tactical principles.
35. Quoted in I.S.O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume III: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (London: HMSO, 1960 [Repr. Naval & Military Press, 2004]) (henceforth ‘OH, Vol. III’), p.342.
36. Waller was the Commander, Royal Artillery (CRA) of 10th Indian Division.
37. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive. In fact, ‘Robcol’ consisted of two companies of 1/4th Essex, three platoons of Northumberland Fusiliers, two batteries from 11th (HAC) Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery and 11th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery.
38. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
39. See Peter Hart, To the Last Round: the South Notts Hussars, 1939–1942 (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1996) for an excellent use of oral history accounts in describing this action and the events leading up to it.
40. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
41. Private papers of K.L. Phillips, 06/2/3, IWM Documents.
42. Douglas Waller interview, 23447, IWM Sound Archive.
43. OH, Vol. III, p.343.
44. This was the opinion of Sergeant Walter Jones, 95th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, 150th Brigade, 50th Division. See Walter Jones interview, 15474, IWM Sound Archive.
45. Armando Luciano, Guerra dei corazzati in Africa settentrionale: battaglie e ricordi (1942–1943) (Modena: STEM Mucchi, 1980)
46. Luciano, Guerra dei corazzati in Africa settentrionale.
47. Figures from Walker, Iron Hulls, Iron Heart, pp.140–41.
CHAPTER THREE
1. F.W. von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles (London: Futura, 1977), p.163.
2. J.A.I. Agar-Hamilton & L.C.F. Turner, Crisis in the Desert May-July 1942 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1952), pp.317–18.
3. See, for example, [General] Sir Charles Richardson, Flashback: A Soldier’s Story (London: Kimber, 1985). Richardson condemned attempts to use the term ‘The First Battle of Alamein’ for Auchinleck’s ‘piecemeal’, ‘chaotic series of attacks scraped together’ – a comment which suggests that Richardson perceived a battle as an offensive operation ‘teed-up’ by a commander on his own terms in the Montgomery style. Richardson’s comments are refuted in Corelli Barnett, The Desert Generals, p.242.
4. Barton Maughan, Australia in the War of 1939–1945: Volume III – Tobruk and El Alamein (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1966) (henceforth AOH, Vol.III,) p.552.
5. Phil Loffman interview, 21614, IWM Sound Archive.
6. Peter Salmon interview, 21613, IWM Sound Archive.
7. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds), Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke: War Diaries, 1939–1945 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2001), p.278.
8. Billy Drake interview, 27073, IWM Sound Archive.
9. Christopher Shores and Hans Ring, Fighters over the Desert: The Air Battles in the Western Desert, June 1940 to December 1942 (London: Neville Spearman, 1969), p.141.
10. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
11. Private papers of L. Challoner, P479, IWM Documents.
12. Shores and Ring, Fighters over the Desert, p.140.
13. A.J. Hill, ‘Hammer, Heathcote Howard (1905–1961)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hammer-heathcote-howard-10405/text18439, accessed 21 August 2011.
14. Stuart Hamilton, MC, Armoured Odyssey: 8th Royal Tank Regiment in the Western Desert, 1941–42, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, 1943–44, Italy, 1944–45 (London: Tom Donovan, 1995), pp. 68–69.
15. Quoted in Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.328.
16. Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, pp.164–65.
17. Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, p.165.
18. Quoted in Craig Tibbetts, ‘Australians in the first battle of El Alamein July 1942’ in Sabretache (Journal of the Military Historical Society of Australia), 2004, I, pp.5–20.
19. See Niall Barr, Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of El Alamein (London: Pimlico 2005), pp. 109–11 for an explanation of this attack as an attritional one, and therefore an anathema to Liddell Hart.
20. Barr quotes Eric Dorman-Smith’s description of the attack as ‘a shattering, and almost decisive blow’.See Barr, Pendulum of War, p.109.
21. Private Papers of A.D.R. Wingfield, PP/MCR/353, IWM Documents.
22. Hans-Otto Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign, 1941–1943 (London: William Kimber, 1985), p.170.
23. Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign, p.170.
24. B.H. Liddell Hart [ed.], The Rommel Papers (New York: Da Capo Press, 1953), p.254.
25. Charles Laborde interview, 15103, IWM Sound Archive.
26. Charles Westlake interview, 11048, IWM Sound Archive.
27. David Tickle interview, 14794, IWM Sound Archive.
28. J L. Scoullar, Battle for Egypt: The Summer of 1942 (Wellington: New Zealand Historical Publications Department, 1955), p.221.
29. Howard Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier (London: Geoffrey Cumberledge, 1949), pp. 156–57.
30. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, p.159.
31. Scoullar, Battle for Egypt, p.221.
32. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, p.157.
34. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, pp.160–61.
35. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, pp.159–60.
36. Quoted in Jim Henderson, The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945: 22 Battalion (Wellington: New Zealand Historical Publications Department, 1958), p.173.
37. Quoted in Jim Henderson, 22 Battalion, p.175.
38. Quoted in Jim Henderson, 22 Battalion, p.176.
39. Quoted in Jim Henderson, 22 Battalion, p.176.
40. Quoted in Jim Henderson, 22 Battalion, pp.176–77.
41. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, p.169.
42. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, pp.169–70.
43. Consisting of the staff and one battalion of Schützen-Regiment 115, a detachment from Panzer-Regiment 5 and one artillery battery.
44. Sir Francis Tuker, Approach to Battle: A Commentary – Eighth Army, November 1941 to May 1943 ((London: Cassell, 1963), p.169.
45. Tuker, Approach to Battle, p.169.
46. Tuker, Approach to Battle, p.172.
47. Private papers of C.T. Witherby, 78/61/1, IWM Documents.
48. Private papers of C.T. Witherby, 78/61/1, IWM Documents.
49. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, pp.169–70.
50. Dawyck Haig interview, 32636, IWM Sound Archive.
51. Kippenberger, Infantry Brigadier, pp.169–70.
52. Dawyck Haig interview, 32636, IWM Sound Archive.
53. Dawyck Haig interview, 32636, IWM Sound Archive.
54. Private papers of C.T. Witherby, 78/61/1, IWM Documents.
55. Geoffrey Bays interview, 17610, IWM Sound Archive.
56. Private papers of G.P. Jackson, PP/MCR/350, IWM Documents.
57. Alan Potter interview, 22084, IWM Sound Archive.
58. Phil Loffman interview, 21614, IWM Sound Archive.
59. Phil Loffman interview, 21614, IWM Sound Archive.
60. Phil Loffman interview, 21614, IWM Sound Archive.
61. Patrick Toovey interview, 22393, IWM Sound Archive.
62. Phil Loffman interview, 21614, IWM Sound Archive.
63. Vernon Northwood interview, 18383, IWM Sound Archive.
64. Vernon Northwood interview, 18383, IWM Sound Archive.
65. Vernon Northwood interview, 18383, IWM Sound Archive.
66. Vernon Northwood interview, 18383, IWM Sound Archive.
67. Vernon Northwood interview, 18383, IWM Sound Archive.
68. Vernon Northwood interview, 18383, IWM Sound Archive.
69. Alan Potter interview, 22084, IWM Sound Archive.
70. Ray Middleton interview, 20996, IWM Sound Archive.
CHAPTER FOUR
1. Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman (eds), Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke: War Diaries, 1939–1945 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2001) [henceforth Alanbrooke War Diaries], p.280.
2. I.S.O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume III: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (London: HMSO, 1960 [Repr. Naval & Military Press, 2004]) (henceforth ‘OH, Vol. III’), p.361.
3. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, pp.281–82.
4. CIGS to General Auchinleck, 17 July 1942. Quoted in John Connell, Auchinleck: A Critical Biography (London: Cassell, 1959), p.676.
5. CIGS to General Auchinleck, 17 July 1942. Quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, p.676.
6. Auchinleck to CIGS, 25 July 1942. Quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, pp.677–78.
7. Auchinleck to CIGS, 25 July 1942. Quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, pp.679–80.
8. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.286.
9. Sir Arthur Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, p.433, quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, p.687.
10. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.286.
11. Auchinleck to CIGS, 25 July 1942. Quoted in Connell, Auchinleck, p.678.
12. C.S. Nicholls, ‘Williams, Sir Edgar Trevor [Bill] (1912–1995)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2011 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/57959, accessed 21 Oct 2011] and Daily Telegraph obituary.
13. Auchinleck to CIGS, 25 July 1942 in Connell, Auchinleck, p.679.
14. Whilst Guingand’s appointment is often credited to Montgomery, Auchinleck’s assessment of Whiteley was spot on and the latter subsequently saw successful service at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and later became Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
15. [Auchinleck’s Official Dispatch] Operations in the Middle East, 1st November 1941 – 15th August 1942, issued as a supplement to The London Gazette, 15 January 1948.
16. Sir Francis Tuker, Approach to Battle: A Commentary – Eighth Army, November 1941 to May 1943 (London: Cassell, 1963), p.224.
17. John Harding interview, 8736, IWM Sound Archive.
18. John Harding interview, 8736, IWM Sound Archive.
19. Eric Dorman-Smith’s account of the meeting quoted in Niall Barr, Pendulum of War: The Three Battles of El Alamein (London: Pimlico 2005), p.187.
20. Private papers of D.N. Wimberley, PP/MCR/182, IWM Documents.
21. Private papers of D.N. Wimberley, PP/MCR/182, IWM Documents.
22. Bryant, The Turn of the Tide, p.433.
23. ‘APPRECIATION OF THE SITUATION IN THE WESTERN DESERT – El Alamein, 1445 hours, 27th July 1942’ in Corelli Barnett, The Desert Generals (London: Phoenix, 2007 [reprint of 1960 edition]), pp.339–45.
24. Private papers of Brigadier D.M.O. Davy, PP/MCR/143, IWM Documents.
25. John Harding interview, 8736, IWM Sound Archive.
26. Private papers of Brigadier D.M.O. Davy, PP/MCR/143, IWM Documents.
27. Brian Wyldbore-Smith interview, 19956, IWM Sound Archive.
28. ‘Appreciation by C-in-C ME at Eighth Army at 0800hrs 1st August 1942’, in Barr, Pendulum of War, p.188.
29. Barr, Pendulum of War, p.189.
30. Connell, Auchinleck, pp.621–23.
31. Auchinleck’s ‘Western Front – Appreciation of the Situation’, 2 August 1942, in Barr, Pendulum of War, pp.192–93.
32. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.288.
33. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, pp.288–289.
34. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.289.
35. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.290.
36. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.291.
37. Private papers of G.M.O. Davy, PP/MCR/143, IWM Documents.
38. Private papers of G.M.O. Davy, PP/MCR/143, IWM Documents.
39. Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate (London: Cassell, 1954), p.458.
40. Dorman-Smith’s account quoted in Barr, Pendulum of War, p.201.
41. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.293.
42. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.295.
43. Connell, Auchinleck, p.706; Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.295.
44. Connell, Auchinleck, pp.708–09.
45. Danchev and Todman, Alanbrooke War Diaries, p.296.
46. This error, which has remained unchallenged since in the writings of many of Montgomery’s admirers, appears to be based on Montgomery’s signature as Staff Captain appearing on a document circulated by IX Corps prior to the first of the attritional attacks conducted in September and October 1917 by General Sir Herbert Plumer’s Second Army. The document in question was actually the August 1917 version of SS 135 ‘Instructions for the Training of Divisions for Offensive Action’, first produced in December 1916.
The battle of the Menin Road Ridge, which took place on 20 September 1917, was the epitome of Plumer’s ‘bite and hold’ tactics and sought to make modest gains in advance before inflicting heavy casualties on the counter-attacking Germans. For more on this important battle, see John Lee, ‘Command and Control in Battle: British Divisions on the Menin Road Ridge, 20 September 1917’ in Gary Sheffield and Dan Todman [eds
], Command and Control of the Western Front: The British Army’s Experience 1914–18 (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2004), pp. 119–39.
47. Private papers of G.M.O. Davy, PP/MCR/143, IWM Documents.
48. Quoted in Nigel Hamilton, Monty: The Making of a General, 1887–1942 (Feltham, Middlesex: Hamlyn, 1981), pp.622–25.
49. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate, p.522.
50. Jonathan Fennell, Combat and Morale in the North African Campaign: The Eighth Army and the Path to El Alamein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp 206–07.
51. Quoted in Nigel Hamilton, Monty: The Making of a General, 1887–1942 (Feltham, Middlesex: Hamlyn, 1981), pp.622–25.
52. Quoted in Hamilton, Monty: The Making of a General, 1887–1942, p.626.
53. John Harding interview, 8736, IWM Sound Archive.
54. B.H. Liddell Hart, [Generalleutnant] Fritz Bayerlein and G.P.B. Roberts, A Battle Report: Alam Halfa (Quantico, Virginia: US Marine Corps Association, 1956), p.9.
55. Eric Watts interview, 21555, IWM Sound Archive.
56. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
57. Carol Mather interview, 19629, IWM Sound Archive.
58. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
59. Private papers of J. Anderson Smith, Con Shelf, IWM Documents.
60. Private papers of I.D. King, 96/12/1, IWM Documents.
61. Carol Mather interview, 19629, IWM Sound Archive.
62. Private papers of K.L. Phillips, 06/2/3, IWM Documents.
63. Private papers of E. Kerans, 86/61/1, IWM Documents.
64. Mick Collins, ‘One Man’s War’, 92/1/1, IWM Documents.
65. Private papers of D.N. Wimberley, PP/MCR/182, IWM Documents.
66. David Elliott interview, 16706, IWM Sound Archive.
67. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
68. Private papers of G.F. Bartle, 85/27/1, IWM Documents.
69. Private papers of E. Kerans, 86/61/1, IWM Documents.
70. Private papers of L. Challoner, P479, IWM Documents.
71. Private papers of C.W.K. Potts, Con Shelf & 92/28/1, IWM Documents.
CHAPTER FIVE
1. Unless otherwise stated all statistics listed in this chapter are from I.S.O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume III: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (London: HMSO, 1960 [Repr. Naval & Military Press, 2004]) (henceforth ‘OH, Vol. III’).