With Eighth Army safely behind hastily laid minefields at Gazala, and in the likelihood that there would be no further immediate advance by Rommel, Auchinleck decided to commission an enquiry into its command and control, particularly in the light of the recent reverse. The man he chose to conduct this enquiry was one of the more controversial officers in the British Army, Brigadier Eric ‘Chink’ Dorman-Smith. Dorman-Smith had a reputation for intellectual brilliance combined with personal arrogance which made him unpopular with many of his peers and even more of his superiors. However, he had a very good relationship with Auchinleck, with whom he had worked closely when he had been Director of Military Training in India during Auchinleck’s tenure there as DCGS. He had had a frustrating war thus far, succeeding Galloway as Commandant of the Staff College at Haifa and becoming involved on the fringes of the planning for Operation COMPASS and, in its latter stages, as a liaison officer to O’Connor from Wavell. Both Wavell and Auchinleck had used him in a number of capacities since then, none of which was more than temporary, and he was desperate to obtain an important position in the heart of the action. His new job hardly achieved that goal, but he realized its potential significance.
Having interviewed a disgruntled Godwin-Austen in Cairo, Dorman-Smith set out for the front, where he met Ritchie, Gott, Norrie and the divisional commanders, together with a number of the more junior officers known to him. The common message was that there was little confidence in Ritchie. Bringing this back to Auchinleck, he found the C-in-C still reluctant to replace the Eighth Army commander, partly because he did not want to get a reputation for sacking officers at the first sign of a reverse and partly because he feared that he would have another commander imposed on him by the War Office; it was possible that this would be Montgomery, whom he knew to be a protégé of Alan Brooke, now the CIGS. If Ritchie was to remain in command, Dorman-Smith advised that he would need a stronger BGS and volunteered himself, but Auchinleck decided that he was too abrasive for the army commander. The compromise was to send Jock Whiteley, Auchinleck’s BGS (Ops), whilst Dorman-Smith himself would relieve Galloway as Auchinleck’s DCGS. This followed the replacement of Arthur Smith as CGS Middle East by Tom Corbett, an Indian Army officer who came to be widely regarded as ineffectual by both staff and commanders.
Whiteley was a Royal Engineer and a contemporary at Camberley of both Dorman-Smith and Galloway. He had been BGS (Ops) at GHQ Egypt since May 1940, in which role he played an important part in the planning of Operation COMPASS. Wavell regarded him sufficiently highly to send him to the United States in May 1941 to brief President Roosevelt and members of the US Government and armed forces on the military situation in the Middle East, which at the time looked very bleak. After discharging this duty very capably he had returned via London, where he was interviewed by the Prime Minister, who was losing patience with Wavell at the time and who subjected Whiteley to a tirade about the number of men on the ration strength and the poor results they had delivered. Widely regarded as a safe pair of hands in both London and Cairo, he was retained by Auchinleck after Wavell’s departure. He knew Ritchie well as his former superior at GHQ.
Another new arrival at HQ Eighth Army was the GSO1 (Ops), Hugh Mainwaring. Among the small number of Grade 1 General Staff officers at an Army HQ, the others being those responsible for Planning, Intelligence, Staff Duties and Air, the GSO1 (Ops) was often regarded as the primus inter pares, sitting as he did at the centre of the web of activity. Mainwaring had been commissioned as a regular officer into the 10th Hussars, but had left the Army in 1935, becoming a Territorial and in due course converting to the artillery. He quickly built up a reputation as an original thinker and had already conceived one highly innovative idea, which was in due course significantly to improve intelligence from the battlefield: a dedicated team at Army HQ was directly linked into the radio network of the armoured regiments, thereby providing information which was immediate and thus much quicker than the subsequent reports from corps and divisions. This proved to be particularly valuable for ground/air cooperation, as the locations for their attacks could be transmitted to the RAF instantly, rather than after the need had passed, as had so often previously been the case. Although the concept, which became known as the J Service and was extended to cover infantry units as well, took some time to develop, it would make a material contribution to the rest of the North African campaign.
Once again Auchinleck found himself under considerable pressure from the Prime Minister to strike back at Rommel and once again he resisted until he was fully prepared. The two corps in Eighth Army retained their previous characteristics. XIII Corps comprised most of the infantry, which it deployed along the Gazala Line behind the minefields. The front for 15 miles inland from the coast was held by 1 South African Division and 32 Army Tank Brigade, whilst 50 Division and 1 Army Tank Brigade extended it further south for a similar distance. There was then a gap of some 10 miles, albeit protected by a large minefield, before a strongly fortified ‘box’ held by 1 Free French Brigade at Bir Hacheim. Also in the corps were the two brigades of 2 South African Division, augmented by 9 Indian Brigade, as the garrison of Tobruk.
XXX Corps once again contained most of the armour, with both 1 and 7 Armoured Divisions located behind the line, ready to strike in whatever direction proved necessary, and 201 Guards Brigade in a static box to the rear, which covered the intersection of two important desert tracks and was given the name of Knightsbridge. Meanwhile, 3 Indian Motor Brigade and 29 Indian Brigade were located in unfortified positions in the desert to the south in order to intercept any attempt by Rommel to hook round Bir Hacheim.
After four months of inaction, it was Rommel who did precisely that, committing all his armour – 15 and 21 Panzer Divisions and the Italian Ariete Division – to an audacious movement on the night of 26/27 May around the end of the Gazala Line. Ritchie’s dispositions proved ill-prepared to meet such a concentration of force. The two independent brigades to the south were overwhelmed or pushed back, whilst Norrie’s armour received a severe battering at first. However, it had a new weapon in the shape of the American Grant tank, provided with good armour and an effective 70mm gun, although it was mounted in a sponson not a turret and thus had a limited traverse. The German commander had set himself too large a task, that of breaking through to the sea, and as Norrie’s scattered tanks began to reform, they were able to take a significant toll of the panzers, bringing them to a halt. Rommel’s way to the sea was blocked by the British armour and Knightsbridge, but instead of retreating he did the unexpected, attacking and destroying 150 Brigade of 50 Division from its rear, where there were no minefields. He then set himself the task of clearing both the Allied and Axis minefields and creating a route through them to his own supply lines.
Rommel was in potentially serious trouble at this point in the battle, and if Ritchie had reacted fast and attacked with all his available forces in the first few days of June, the Axis armour would quite possibly have been annihilated before it could re-supply itself. Ritchie, however, initially did nothing to eliminate the salient, now known as ‘the Cauldron’. Conference after conference took place, but no decision was taken. By the time he had agreed to a joint attack under his own command on the night of 5/6 June by elements of 7 Armoured Division and a newly arrived brigade from 5 Indian Division, the Germans were far too strong and the operation was a disaster.
Further south, the heroic resistance of the Free French at Bir Hacheim came to an end when Ritchie gave permission for them to break out on the night of 10/11 June. With the threat to his flank thus reduced, Rommel emerged from the Cauldron on 11 June, driving XXX Corps in front of him and isolating Knightsbridge, which had to be evacuated. Ritchie now ordered Gott to send 1 South African Division and 50 Division back to the frontier, the former along the coast, the latter through the open desert. Auchinleck, who was unaware of this, in the meantime ordered him to form a new line just west of Tobruk; but with XXX Corps no longer capable of action and the two infantry divisions retreating towards Egypt, this was impossible. XIII Corps’ retreat also meant that Ritchie had no realistic alternative but to abandon Tobruk, which surrendered on 21 June. To Churchill, at the time in Washington meeting Roosevelt, this was the single most crushing blow of the campaign and did more than anything else to harden his opinion against Auchinleck.
Although there were defences on the frontier, they were very exposed to an outflanking movement through the desert. Ritchie therefore proposed to withdraw to Mersa Matruh, where he determined to make a stand with XIII Corps and the newly arrived X Corps. Auchinleck, however, had now totally lost confidence in him and decided to take control of Eighth Army personally. On the afternoon of 25 June, he arrived at Eighth Army’s Advanced HQ at Maaten Bagush and relieved Ritchie of his command.
By this time Rommel had momentum on his side and Eighth Army’s position was not promising. Even the arrival of 2 New Zealand Division and several Indian brigades under the command of 5 and 10 Indian Divisions failed to stem the tide, and Auchinleck was forced to concede that the only sensible option was a further withdrawal to the potentially much stronger position at El Alamein, which Norrie had been sent back to hold. This was helped to a considerable extent by the foresight of Robertson, who had recently succeeded Miller as DA&QMG. Unknown to either Auchinleck or Ritchie, he had prepared for just such an eventuality by drawing up contingency plans. When the moment came, it proved to be a relatively easy matter to backload the stores, whilst the shortening of the supply lines also began to have a beneficial effect.
Whiteley was by this time exhausted, having been effectively managing a round-the-clock crisis ever since Rommel’s breakout. Auchinleck, however, had brought Dorman-Smith with him to the front, on the grounds that, as he remained C-in-C, he would need a senior staff officer alongside him to consult on matters relating to his wider command. In the event, in addition to fulfilling this function, Dorman-Smith began to usurp Whiteley’s role as BGS, his closeness to Auchinleck giving him an influence that the titular holder of the position did not possess.
As the retreating Eighth Army’s Advanced HQ paused briefly at Fuka it was joined by Charles Richardson, who had been appointed GSO1 (Plans). Richardson was, like Whiteley, a Royal Engineer. He had served in the BEF and been evacuated from Dunkirk, before being posted to the Middle East as an instructor at the Staff College, where by this time Dorman-Smith was the Commandant. He already knew Dorman-Smith from his earlier career in England and India and was sceptical about his abilities:
To most of us he became a figure of fun. Though gifted with a sharp intelligence and a creative, unconventional mind, his rhetoric, amply larded with his native blarney, seemed seldom based on any sustained study of the problem. He was certainly not a good tutor for young majors who were about to face the full force of the Afrika Korps.1
Having been greeted effusively by Dorman-Smith and having reported to Whiteley, who in spite of his weariness was able to give him a coherent picture of the situation, Richardson was sent back to El Alamein to see Norrie, who had been ordered to reconnoitre the defensive position and who vouchsafed his opinion that holding a line there would require sixteen divisions. Having passed on Auchinleck’s orders that Norrie would have to plan for only six divisions, Richardson moved on. His destination was a junction of camel tracks on the Ruweisat Ridge, a key feature in the forthcoming battles, rising as it did above the surrounding desert. The ridge ran not north to south, where it would have been capable of fortification, but east to west, where it bisected what would become the front line.
This was to be the new Advanced HQ of Eighth Army, housing much of the General Staff and representatives of the Q Staff. Situated as it was on well-trodden tracks, it was liberally strewn with camel dung, which attracted even more flies than were generally encountered in the desert. It was not far from the front line and thus vulnerable both to shelling and to any success the Axis forces might have in penetration, whilst being a long way from the HQ of the Desert Air Force at Burg el Arab, next to the sea and closer to Alexandria than to El Alamein. Neither Richardson nor any of his immediate colleagues understood why it was chosen by Auchinleck, but it might have been that the C-in-C wished to demonstrate his commitment to withdraw no further. He was, in any event, dismissive of the comforts generally required by army commanders: although he had a caravan he was quite content to sleep on the ground beside it.2 The Main HQ was positioned about 20 miles further back behind another key feature, the Alam Halfa Ridge.
The El Alamein Line had been identified long before the war as the only position in Egypt to have its landward flank protected by a significant feature, the Qattara Depression. Reconnaissance expeditions mounted in the 1920s and ’30s had all confirmed that the Depression could not be crossed other than by small parties in light vehicles; so if a strong line could be constructed between there and the nearest point on the sea at El Alamein itself, it would prevent the traditional hook through the desert, used with varying success in all previous engagements. The land in between was mostly flat desert, but was dotted with features, some of which were raised above the plain, such as the Ruweisat, Alam Halfa and Miteirya Ridges, Tel el Eisa near the coast and Qaret el Himeimat at the southern end, whilst others were below it, including not only the Depression itself, but much smaller areas of low ground such as Deir el Munassib and Deir el Shein.
It was on the very last of these, at the western end of the Ruweisat Ridge, that the weight of the Afrika Korps fell on 1 July, as Eighth Army turned to face the enemy. The unlucky recipient of the attack was the newly arrived and inexperienced 18 Indian Brigade, which had little opportunity to fortify its position. Nevertheless, it put up a heroic resistance and, even though annihilated in the end, bought time for the army to consolidate elsewhere. When Rommel tried to pass 90 Light Division (formerly 5 Light Division) between the ridge and the sea, he was halted by the well emplaced artillery of 1 South African Division.
In the meantime, Belchem was sent by Auchinleck with an urgent message for Morshead of 9 Australian Division, now at Alexandria and fully refitted after its losses during the siege of Tobruk. The division was galvanised into immediate action and was in position by 2 July, shoring up the defences and, ten days later, taking Tel el Eisa in an aggressive action.
There followed over the next few weeks the confused series of engagements which have come to be known, erroneously in the eyes of many, including most of those at Eighth Army HQ, as the First Battle of El Alamein. They were characterised on both sides by the application of insufficient force to create a breakthrough or, if one looked likely, insufficient reserves to exploit it. On the British side, the outstanding problem was the inability of the armour to work in close cooperation with the infantry, to the extent that the latter lost all trust in the former. The British obsession with destroying the enemy’s tanks as they moved about the battlefield, rather than with seizing and dominating ground of their own choosing, was no match for the German tactic of luring the British on to anti-tank guns and hull-down tanks. On the other hand, the Germans now lacked the strength to do more than defend, short as they were rapidly becoming of supplies and equipment at the end of their very long lines of communication. By the end of July Auchinleck had fought Rommel to a standstill, but was incapable of any further effort himself.
There were those who thought that Auchinleck was bereft of ideas, but the truth was that there were too many, most of which emanated from Dorman-Smith. As Richardson was to write later:
Ideas in plenty from the top of his head were liberally distributed, larded with Irish ‘blarney’, to any listeners available in our small group, more particularly at the ‘Evening Prayer’ session which six of us attended every evening in General Auchinleck’s caravan. The unfortunate Jock Whiteley, as the accredited subordinate of the C-in-C holding executive authority, seldom knew which hare of Chink’s was running at the moment; and I felt sure he realized, as I did, that Chink’s intellectual dominance of the Auk was such that it was not possible to arrange the removal of this dangerous supernumerary adviser.3
Some of the ideas were quite radical, notably those involving the deployment of the armour, which all agreed was unsatisfactory. Dorman-Smith came up with two proposals. One was to increase the number of squadrons in an armoured regiment from three to four, to enable a quicker recovery from losses in any engagement. The second was to convert infantry divisions to mobile divisions by the inclusion in each of an armoured brigade. Both had their merits, but both were untenable in the middle of a battle, as they would require a long period of training for the formations and units involved. As such they fell foul of Auchinleck’s chief adviser on armour, Major General Richard McCreery, who was resolutely opposed to them. His opposition was not well received by Auchinleck, who lost his temper on more than one occasion and threatened to sack McCreery if he did not fall into line; this he refused to do, bolstered by the support of most of the divisional commanders and many senior staff officers at GHQ.
There was also a general tendency towards employing troops in any attack in brigade groups incorporating all arms, rather than using complete divisions. This played particularly badly with the Australian, New Zealand and South African commanders, all of whom wished to see their formations employed as one rather than have their strength dissipated.
Richardson’s own depression at the lack of sensible ideas at ‘Evening Prayer’ was heightened when he was instructed to draw up a plan for the retreat of the Eighth Army down the Nile to Khartoum. He felt that his effort, based on a school atlas purchased in Alexandria, was deeply unconvincing. Whiteley sympathised and told him to lock it away in a box.
As July drew to a close, it was clear that Whiteley would have to go. Auchinleck continued to rate him highly, but considered him suitable for a superior headquarters, not as the most senior General Staff officer in a field formation.4 After consulting with Dorman-Smith, he decided that the man for the job was his Director of Military Intelligence at GHQ Middle East, Freddie de Guingand, who relieved Whiteley on 27 July.