SLEDGEHAMMER may have been discarded by the British, but an Allied cross-Channel raid had been planned for July by Mountbatten’s Combined Operations Headquarters, with much of the training prepared by Montgomery before he had been sent to Egypt. Six thousand men would be used – less than half a division – but the assault would also include tanks and massive air cover. On paper, the idea was to force the Luftwaffe into the skies and to capture the port of Dieppe, with the aim of learning some valuable lessons for future raids and amphibious landings, and also to draw German troops away from Russia. Unlike SLEDGEHAMMER, there was never any intention of maintaining a bridgehead; rather it was to be a ‘butcher-and-run’ attack only. Political motivations were also considerable: the need to be seen to be doing something to help the Russians, both by them and by the impatient public in America and Britain, played a significant part in the acceptance of the plan. The majority of the ground troops involved were to be Canadian, 200,000 of whom had been based in the UK since 1940; but special forces were to be included too: 4 Commando under Lord Lovat and a detachment of the 1st Ranger Battalion, despite the fact that the Americans had barely started their training.
It was clearly a scheme fraught with danger, and Brooke, for one, was against it. He was quite happy to support Mountbatten’s plans for specific commando actions – the raid on the docks at St Nazaire on 26 March had been a great success – but the proposed Dieppe Raid was a different matter. All decisions in war are like gambling – the level of risk has to be weighed up. But to land and then extract so many men and machines was very different to the lightning cut-and-dash operations the commandos had carried out before. The odds on the Dieppe Raid being successful were not high.
Sergeant Bing Evans was one of seven officers and eleven enlisted men earmarked to take part in the raid. On Independence Day, 4 July, Bing had been on board ship off the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England. ‘The weather was not at all decent,’ says Bing. In fact it was terrible, and the operation was promptly postponed until 8 July. On 7 July, however, cover was blown when four German aircraft attacked the concentrations of shipping. The crucial element of surprise had gone and so the raid was called off again. The Rangers were sent straight back to Scotland, where Bing was promoted to battalion sergeant-major, and although the raid on Dieppe was rescheduled, with fifty Rangers now involved, Bing was not one of them – Colonel Darby refused to risk losing his most trusted NCO.
That it was remounted was extraordinary. All the troops involved had been told of their destination, so there was a huge security risk in continuing with the same plan. Furthermore, the Germans had now been alerted to its possibility and their coastal forces were expecting some kind of attack. The odds on success had been dramatically slashed even further.
‘Trying to follow the evolution of TORCH is like trying to find the pea in a three-shell game,’ noted Harry Butcher in his diary on 12 August.1 Two days earlier, Ike had submitted his latest plan to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, which, in a nutshell, suggested there should be four landings, at Bône, Algiers, Oran, and Casablanca, ‘with a view to the earliest possible occupation of Tunisia, and the establishment in French Morocco of a striking force which can ensure control of the Straits of Gibraltar’.2 The landings inside the Mediterranean, which would include the US 1st Infantry Division, would come directly from Britain; those along the Atlantic coast would come straight from the USA.
This was agreed in principle, but there were still all manner of stumbling blocks that needed to be overcome, from the issue of timing through to the continued problem of shipping, even to the swell and surf conditions on the Atlantic coast, and the thornier issues of how the Vichy French, and even the Spanish, would react.
The British also seemed to be having great difficulty in letting the Americans know their exact shipping capabilities – again, this depended on a number of factors, including whether they suspended any further Russian convoys and whether the Americans could help out in protecting British home waters. The two navies did agree, however, that they could not jointly provide escort for simultaneous attacks on Casablanca and inside the Mediterranean. Matters were not helped by the sinking of the carrier HMS Eagle – earmarked for TORCH – during a convoy to Malta on 11 August. Another carrier, HMS Indomitable, was also badly damaged on the same operation. Moreover, the losses on this convoy further underlined the danger for any Allied shipping venturing into the U-boat-infested waters of the western Mediterranean. Nor were there enough assault craft, either for the operation itself or with which the troops could immediately train. And the US Big Red One’s equipment had still not arrived. This alone did not augur well. On 12 August, Ike was told that there were only nine combat loaders (vessels of all kinds for unloading troops) available – hardly enough for training the twelve divisions needed for the landings. ‘Ike said he would be glad if someone would give him some good news,’ noted Harry Butcher, ‘as every step in planning disclosed further obstacles.’3
That same day, General Marshall informed Ike that the view in Washington was that TORCH appeared to be increasingly hazardous. ‘As the British might say,’ noted Harry Butcher, having observed their penchant for understatement, ‘the prospect for success is somewhat less than consoling.’4
At least Ike was surrounded by men he both liked and trusted. His deputy for TORCH now that Alexander was out was General Mark Clark, whom he had also placed in charge of plans. General Patton was also in town to discuss planning – he was still to lead the US invasion force. Like Ike, Patton had been one of the few members of the US Army to think progressively during the 1920s and thirties. ‘Patton is a good fellow,’ noted Butch, ‘curses like a trooper and boasts that while he is stupid in many particulars (his own description) there is one quality he knows he has – the ability to exercise mass hypnotism.’5 In these difficult times, Ike needed people with this kind of self-belief around him.
Together with Clark and Patton, Ike drew up an assessment of the situation for Marshall on 15 August. Success or failure depended on a huge range of ‘ifs’. Vichy French forces in North Africa stood at fourteen divisions – mostly poorly equipped, moderately trained, and reasonably ably commanded – and five hundred aircraft, albeit mostly obsolete. If these forces resisted strongly, it would make life very difficult for the Allies indeed. Gibraltar was also a cause for concern, because of its vulnerability due to its proximity to Spain. Though Spain was neutral at the moment, it was a fascist state and might allow Germany to use its airfields or, worse, even enter the war on the side of the Axis. It was recognized that any unusual activity in Gibraltar was known in Berlin within twenty-four hours – so deception plans were also needed. Weather could also potentially become a critical factor. Having taken a copy of Ike’s cable to Marshall, Harry Butcher summarized the situation for his diary: ‘The chances of making successful initial landings look better than even. The chances of capturing Tunis before Axis reinforcements arrive look considerably less than fifty per cent. Building up a land-based air force presents great difficulties. Poor port facilities will delay heavy concentration of ground troops. Communications between Oran and Casablanca are long and uncertain. The attitude of the French remains problematical. Any sign of failure or hesitancy might lead the Axis to occupy Spain at once, with serious results to the whole course of the war.’6
There was about a week between General Alexander’s arrival and his taking over of the reins as C-in-C Middle East. Initially put up in the British Embassy in Cairo, he spent his first few days there looking around and taking in the atmosphere. He wasn’t altogether impressed with what he saw. There seemed to be too many troops in Cairo for starters, and although they looked fit and tough, it struck him that they lacked the usual air of confidence he had come to associate with British soldiers. Talking to a number of officers, this impression was confirmed. ‘They were bewildered, frustrated, fed up,’ he noted. Churchill may have found the Eighth Army in good spirits, ‘but who wouldn’t cheer up at the sight of Winston and his cigar?’7 And he was also troubled to hear that most believed there would be another withdrawal next time the Axis attacked in strength. The awe with which Rommel was regarded had been endemic for some time, but Alex was appalled. ‘That legend contributed a lot to the Eighth Army’s widespread belief in the invincibility of the Afrika Korps,’ he observed, and while he accepted that the German commander clearly had his strong points, ‘it was hardly necessary to attribute to him preternatural gifts in order to explain his successes’.
Another thing that struck Alex was that the whole of Middle East Command operated from within the city – a city where there were restaurants, clubs, and a thousand other distractions. While troops on leave needed these welcome delights, Alex considered GHQ to be far too divorced from the battlefield. He remembered that during the First World War their superior commanders had been housed in luxurious chateaux, with little understanding of the conditions of the front-line soldier. He was determined not to make the same mistake, and so as soon as he took over he set up his own HQ with key members of both his operational and administrative staff in a series of bell tents and caravans – ‘simplicity itself’ – just west of the Pyramids near Mena. There, he and his staff could get a feel for the desert; moreover, it marked the beginning of the desert road that led to the front. Alex christened his new HQ ‘Caledon Camp’ after his family home back in Ireland.
Although it had been agreed that neither Alex nor Monty would take over until 15 August, Monty hurried straight down to Eighth Army HQ on the 13th, the day after his arrival. He had arranged to meet Brigadier Freddie de Guingand, the Auk’s Chief of Staff in the Field, outside Alexandria. The two had known each other for years, although they had not run into each other since the beginning of the war. De Guingand had been in the Middle East since the beginning of the year as Director of Military Intelligence (DMI); he had only spent a few weeks as the Auk’s COS and was completely new to staff work in the field.8 Even so, Monty liked the cut of his jib and as the car sped on through the desert he turned to him and said, ‘Well, Freddie my lad, you chaps seem to have got things into a bit of a mess here. Tell me all about it.’9
De Guingand did so, frankly and in detail. Morale, he admitted, was not good. What the Eighth Army wanted – and this was undoubtedly true – was direction and ‘a firm grip from the top’. When they finally reached Eighth Army HQ, Monty was appalled. It was Spartan to say the least, with flies everywhere and little shade from the oppressive sun. While these were quite normal conditions for most of those in the desert, it was, as Mary Coningham had concluded, a needlessly uncomfortable place for the army HQ. And where was the RAF HQ? Monty wanted to know. Many miles back, came the reply, by the sea. ‘The Army and the Air Force appeared to be fighting two separate battles, without the close personal relationship which is so essential,’ he noted. ‘The whole atmosphere of the Army Headquarters was dismal and dreary.’10
After a brief conversation with General Ramsden, who was temporarily in charge, Monty told him he was now taking over immediately – despite orders to the contrary. Over lunch with the flies, he did some ‘savage’ thinking then issued the order, as already agreed with Alex, that there would be no withdrawal to the Delta under any circumstances. While no one in Eighth Army had had any intention of retreating further – the Auk included – it was true that contingency plans had been made and a number of troops had been deployed further back to prepare defences there. Both Alex and Monty were in total agreement that this was pointless. There was no better defensive position than the one they were in at present. If they could not repulse Rommel when he next attacked, they would certainly not be able to hold him off in the Delta. Further defences there were irrelevant. Psychologically, it was also important for Eighth Army to know that there would be no more retreating. As Alex pointed out, ‘Anyone can be forgiven for “looking over his shoulder” if he is aware that preparations have been made for a possible retreat.’11
Over the course of the following days, the new team certainly imposed a clarity of purpose and the ‘firm grip’ that de Guingand had hoped for. On 19 August, Alex gave Monty his formal directive, reiterating the decision to stand firm with no thought of further withdrawal. ‘I ordered that this decision should be made known to all troops,’ noted Alex.12 This Monty was already doing in a series of addresses, firstly to his staff at HQ, where he made it clear that things were going to change and that the rot had to stop. If they were to fight where they stood, they needed defences in depth; troops in the Delta were required at the front; ammunition, water, and rations all needed to be stored in forward areas. More troops were arriving, he told them, and they would be brought up quickly too. New equipment was also due soon, including the 300 Shermans promised by Marshall back in June. De Guingand, for one, was impressed. ‘The effect of the address was electric – it was terrific!’ he wrote. ‘And we all went to bed that night with a new hope in our hearts, and a great confidence in the future of our Army.’13
When Air Commodore Tommy Elmhirst first saw the new army commander he thought he looked rather unprepossessing and wondered whether he would be able to stand up to conditions in the desert. He soon realized, however, that he had ‘tremendous drive’ and that he was ‘a veritable little tiger’. Both Tommy and Mary were also impressed by Monty’s talk, which Tommy recounted almost verbatim in a letter to his wife. ‘There is no discipline in this Army! None!’ Monty had begun. ‘And from today anyone in Eighth Army who bellyaches about orders received from his superior, whether colonels to brigadiers, brigadiers to divisional commanders, divisional commanders to corps commanders, or corps commanders to me, will go very quickly to the worst place I can think of, the very worst – the verandah of Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo!’ Since ‘bellyaching’ had been the source of many of Eighth Army’s problems, this was an absolutely crucial change in Eighth Army culture. If Ritchie had been the teacher every pupil talks over, Monty was the schoolmaster whose discipline was unquestioned. As if to prove the point, when General Lumsden raised a question, he was cut off immediately with, ‘I am talking here. You can see me in my caravan afterwards if you want to raise a point.’
‘He gave an excellent talk on leadership and organisation,’ wrote Tommy, ‘with every word of which I silently agreed.’ Even better, close co-operation with the RAF seemed to be at the heart of his military philosophy. Tommy was also encouraged to hear him outlining his plans ‘as though nothing could prevent their accomplishment’. ‘Rommel will attack in two or three weeks’ time,’ Monty had continued, ‘and we shall dig in and defeat him. Then we shall do some hard training for two months. Every unit will go out of the line one by one to train, and on the beach, if it is possible, to bathe and get clear of flies. Then I shall attack with two Corps in the line, a mobile one in reserve to come through the break, which we shall make in his line, and chase the remnants of his Army out of Africa.’ ‘It was,’ noted Tommy, ‘quite clear as to who was now commanding Eighth Army.’14
The low morale that Alex had noticed, and that de Guingand had mentioned, was felt more keenly by the commanders than it was by the men, although there were obvious exceptions, particularly among men whose units had been decimated by the recent fighting. The 6th Royal Tank Regiment now had just twelve tanks left – less than the full complement of a single squadron. Sam Bradshaw and several of the crews from ‘B’ Squadron were transferred to ‘C’ Squadron – now comprising six Grants and six Honeys. ‘We did feel low,’ admits Sam. ‘The regiment had almost ceased to exist, although I think we’d also lost a lot of confidence in the commanders. Gazala had a been a mess.’
Harold Harper was another who felt morale was low. After his extraordinary escape at Gazala he’d been taken to hospital in Tobruk and then to the 42nd Military Hospital at Ismailia, between Cairo and Port Suez. After a week or so, he’d then been transferred to a convalescent hospital nearby. One day he spotted a vehicle with South Notts Hussars markings on the side and, realizing it was a regimental HQ truck, called over to the driver and asked him for news. It was then that he had heard that the regiment had been annihilated. ‘I felt terrible, terrible,’ says Harold. By chance, earlier that same day he’d been told by an orderly that Captain Ivor Birkin, who’d been in the truck with him the day he’d been captured, was in another hospital nearby, so he immediately asked the driver to take him to see the captain.
Like Harold, Birkin had not been told the fate of the regiment. ‘He took it reasonably cheerfully, I suppose,’ says Harold, ‘but this was probably the worst moment of the war as far as I was concerned.’ Having discharged himself, Harold then hitched a lift with the same driver back to Cairo, where the remnants of the regiment – mainly men from regimental HQ – were being reformed into the 7th Medium Regiment. Far from being physically fit, mentally he was also feeling the strain. ‘To say that one was war weary was putting it very mildly indeed,’ he admits. For the next month the new unit trained together at Mena Camp. ‘The battery was formed from a lot of rag-tags,’ says Harold. ‘Cooks, clerks, stores blokes – all sorts of people were flung together.’15 Even former convicts, released early in return for active service. They were given the new 5.5-inch heavy gun, the biggest field howitzer ever to reach Eighth Army. At seven and a half tons, they were as heavy as the 3.7 anti-aircraft gun, but this weight did not prevent the regiment training as a mobile formation, with an equally impressively sized gun tower known as a Matador. Harold, now a sergeant and in charge of his own gun, was still at Mena when the change of command took place, and still far from happy. ‘We were very dispirited,’ he says, ‘no doubt about it.’
But other units, such as the 2nd Rifle Brigade, were still more or less intact. Albert Martin may have been frustrated by the army’s retreat, but that was not the same as suffering from low morale. Similarly, while Bill Eadie might have recognized that new commanders were needed, he had been fairly cheerful of late. Certainly neither was particularly excited by the change of command. On the day that Monty took over, Bill Eadie was having a quiet day and although he was aware that Churchill and other ‘big wigs’ had been in town, nothing had been mentioned of their visit. A number of the men were suffering from dysentery – ‘gyppo guts, we call it’ – while those who were fit were carrying out raids in order to capture prisoners for questioning. The previous night they’d taken some Indian soldiers by mistake. Albert Martin was also aware that Churchill was around, ‘but no VIP ever visited my slit-trench’. He had little time for the PM, the man who’d ordered half the Eighth Army’s troops to Greece the previous year. As far as Albert was concerned, they would have wrapped up the desert campaign there and then had Churchill left those troops where they were.
Since then, there had been so many changes of command that this latest seemed little different. New commanders had to be sized up; respect had to be earned, not given automatically. He’d heard of Alexander, who was known and respected, but he and his mates were all wondering who Montgomery was and were sorry that Gott had been killed. Maybe Monty would turn out all right, but Albert was certainly not going to get too excited just yet; as far as he was concerned, the new army commander’s pep talks were a source of irritation more than anything else.
Frustration rather than loss of morale was also the principal gripe of the 4th Indian Division. ‘All they wanted,’ noted their commander, General Francis Tuker, ‘was to be given an opportunity and the order to stand and fight.’16 Well, they would soon have that chance. Even before Monty had arrived, Tuker’s HQ had been recalled to Cairo and orders had been given for the gradual reassembly of his division at long last. Tuker was also less impressed than most by Monty’s initial pronouncements. Since his arrival in the Middle East the previous December, Tuker had been dismayed at the ‘gross incompetence, military ignorance and lack of any sort of grasp’ by the army commanders. What Monty was saying about bellyaching and the need for training went without saying as far as he was concerned, and, like Albert Martin, he wanted to see how the new command shaped up before he passed judgement.
Tuker was quite right. As Alex was the first to admit, the changes they were introducing were largely common sense. That they had not been established before proved only how low command of Eighth Army had sunk. First and foremost, it was perfectly obvious that brigade groups as an operational unit were not working, and it was equally obvious that armour and infantry were not working well together. The Auk had even begun to realize this and by the end of July had been planning a complete reorganization of his armoured forces. He wanted to do away with the distinction between armoured and infantry divisions, terming them ‘mobile’ instead, and made up from one armoured and two infantry brigades. This was all well and good, but making such drastic changes in the middle of a campaign was well nigh impossible – complete retraining was required.
The Auk’s expert on armoured forces, Major-General Dick McCreery, had strongly disagreed with the Auk and found himself out of a job as a result. When Alex arrived, McCreery was waiting for a passage home. He had been Alex’s chief staff officer when he’d commanded 1st Division and he rated him highly as a staff officer and field commander, and so promptly made him his Chief of Staff. Another to survive the cull was Major-General John Harding, the Auk’s Director of Military Training (DMT). Harding had been summoned to see ‘the C-in-C’ on 12 August and had hurried to the Auk’s office only to discover Monty sitting behind his desk and Alex sitting on it, drumming his heels against it. He’d had no idea they would be taking over, nor who was doing which job. Monty wanted to form a corps d’elite – or corps de chasse as he called it – which he intended should be both highly mobile and strongly armoured and which he envisaged would act as a spearhead. He had supposed that Rommel’s Afrika Korps was such a force. He was partly mistaken – the DAK was supposed to be used for any role given to it, although in reality Rommel did generally use it as the spearhead of his attacks. At any rate, having grilled Harding about the make-up of Eighth Army, he turned to him and said, ‘From all this muckage, can you organize for me two desert-trained armoured divisions and a mobile infantry division?’ This was exactly the plan Tuker had suggested to the Auk the previous December. Harding said he thought he could, and returned later that evening with his plans for doing so. The most recent addition to Eighth Army, X Corps, would form the basis of this new strike force.17
There was absolutely nothing of tactical genius about this, nor was there anything startlingly original in Monty’s plan to meet Rommel’s new offensive. Since the July fighting, Eighth Army could no longer rely on the natural barrier of the Qattara Depression; the line had shrunk by fifteen miles. It was Gott who had predicted that Rommel would make a thrust around the south of the line, as he had done at Gazala, and so had drawn up plans to meet this attack by placing a series of defensive positions along the Alam Halfa Ridge. As Alex pointed out, ‘It was obvious to any well-trained military mind that with the area between Ruweisat and the sea strongly held, an enemy advance could only be attempted between Alam Halfa and the Depression; any such advance could not be sustained without extreme peril while the defending forces on and below the ridge remained intact.’
The main difference between Gott’s plan and Monty’s was that Monty gave the strictest orders that the armour was not to be let loose against the Axis armour, as they had in the past. They were to fire from hull-down positions and hold their ground. There would no more heroic cavalry charges. From now on, Eighth Army would play it Monty’s way, not Rommel’s.
On 19 August, Churchill paid another visit to the front, having stopped over in Egypt on his return from Moscow. As he drove with Alex along the desert road he saw troops and equipment heading forward, and was cheered by all that his new C-in-C told him about the changes that had already been made. The Prime Minister, always impatient for offensive action, had chastised the Auk countless times for his refusal to bow to his demands. This was not why Churchill had sacked him, but it was a contributing factor. But as they motored west, Alex told him that the new offensive would not be ready until the end of September, and that was without taking into account the effect of the blow they could imminently expect from Rommel. Even this news was absorbed by the PM with equanimity.
The party was to stay the night at Burg el Arab, where Eighth Army and the Desert Air Force now both had their HQs. Churchill was delighted to be taken down to the sea for a ‘delicious’ bathe; a few hundred yards down the coast, many more troops were also splashing about in the cool turquoise water. Later, in Monty’s map wagon, the army commander gave his now well-rehearsed seminar on the changes he’d made and how he was going to beat Rommel, and this cheered the PM even more.
Nearly three thousand miles away, however, the ill-fated Dieppe Raid was finally taking place, and was every bit the fiasco both Monty and Brooke had feared. The attack never got off the beaches, over half the force of 6,000 were killed or taken prisoner, and 106 RAF aircraft were shot down. Thirteen US Rangers were also lost. Nothing had been achieved except to underline the great difficulty of making a successful seaborne landing, especially when carried out without sufficient firepower and against a determined and well dug-in opposition.
The following day, 20 August, Churchill was given a tour of the next battlefield. Everything seemed to be in order. All the troops he saw greeted him with cheers and smiling faces. ‘Everybody said what a change there was since Montgomery had taken command,’ he wrote. ‘I could feel the truth of this with joy and comfort.’18
Lieutenant-General Eisenhower had never been particularly keen on the TORCH plan in the first place but felt that orders were orders and he was determined to carry them out to the very best of his ability. But he felt as though he were taking one step forward and two back. Recent reports increasingly suggested that a large number of the Vichy French would fight and fight hard. The Combined Chiefs were still determined that the landings should take place by 10 October, but Ike felt strongly that this rigid time frame was seriously jeopardizing the whole operation. Nonetheless, it was now suggested that the landing at Casablanca should definitely be scrapped, partly because the two US divisions required would not be ready until November, partly because of the ongoing concern about the Atlantic swell, and partly because of the old problem of shipping.
On 23 August he submitted another appraisal of the current situation and prospects of success to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, warning that, as things stood, he did not have the forces to carry out the job. ‘As an expression of personal opinion,’ he wrote, ‘I believe that if the two governments could find the naval, air and ground forces, with the shipping, to carry out, simultaneously with the attack planned inside the Mediterranean, a strong assault at Casablanca, the chances for success would be greatly increased.’ This, he believed, would reduce the potential risk of a Spanish or French hostile reaction and would enable them to establish a firmer footing with greater port facilities in North Africa. But, he warned them, such an attack could not be carried out before 7 November, a month later than the Combined Chiefs had desired.
In the northern section of the Alamein Line, Joe Madeley and his mates watched as a German plane swept over dropping leaflets. Slowly they floated to the ground and the Australians all tried to grab them for souvenirs. ‘Diggers!’ it was written on some, ‘You are defending the Alamein Box! What about Port Darwin?’ On others it said, ‘Aussies! The Yankees are having a jolly good time in your country. And you?’ They were hardly the most effective morale breakers. ‘We thought them a great joke,’ says Joe. Much more damaging was the increased shelling. By the last week in August, the amount of ordnance whistling over their positions was increasing daily. ‘Jerry attack expected,’ noted Joe in his diary.
Elsewhere, there were tell-tale signs that the Panzer Army was about to launch an attack. One morning towards the end of August, Maiki and his section were waiting for their breakfast to come up and were talking to an anti-tank gun crew sitting in a hollow below them. From across the desert ahead of them, an American Dodge truck hove into view, so one of the officers went forward down to the fence line of their minefield to show them where the entrance gate was.
‘Christ!’ he shouted. ‘They’re Germans!’ Then swinging up his Tommy gun, he shot one of the Germans who’d been standing on the running board. The truck immediately swung away and the Pakeha – white – officer fired another burst that killed two more in the back. ‘Christ, he saved us,’ says Maiki. ‘Those two jokers in the back had a Spandau.’ As the truck careered off back towards enemy lines, the machine-gun battalion behind the Maori opened fire. ‘There were tracers going over it and under it, but they never hit,’ says Maiki.
The enemy returned that night. ‘One of our blokes was out having a crap,’ says Maiki, ‘when he heard this clink, clink. So he crawled back to the company and told them there were Jerries lifting mines.’ The company was immediately told to stand to and then flares were sent up. It was the first time Maiki had ever seen star shells – the desert was lit up like day and as the flares gently floated down on their parachutes, the Maori opened fire. ‘I skittled three of them,’ says Maiki. It was also the first time he’d ever killed anyone. It wasn’t a good feeling.
Increased enemy reconnaissance activity in the south further suggested that Rommel was intending to send his attack that way. In the mess at RAF HQ, they were laying bets as to when it would come. ‘Last night,’ wrote Tommy Elmhirst on 26 August, ‘the betting was 6–4 on that it started that night. No attack came and Mary lost a bob.’19 In fact Mary had sneakily been trying to cheat. ULTRA (to which he was privy) had warned that an Axis attack was likely that day. During the past week or so, Tommy had been working hard bringing their squadrons up to maximum strength in readiness for the attack, while Mary had wound down aerial activity considerably. Two South African bomber wing commanders had visited air HQ asking for more work to do, but Mary had been adamant. ‘I will give them and their squadron plenty to do when the time comes,’ he explained to Tommy. ‘But at the moment there aren’t enough targets showing and I am not going to have them wasting their engines and bombs, and possibly the odd crew when there is nothing worthwhile to hit.’20
But every effort was still being made to attack Rommel’s supply lines. As ULTRA had been revealing, the Panzer Army and Axis air forces were still desperately short of supplies, especially fuel. Rommel had gambled on taking Egypt during the first week of July. Now he was about to stake everything on one last effort to achieve his goal. If this failed there would be no more opportunities; with Eighth Army’s shorter supply lines and the vast amounts of men, fuel, and equipment arriving daily, he realized he was fast running out of time. As Mary Coningham had wisely told Cecil Beaton back in May, the war in the desert was ultimately about who had the better lines of supply.
The major problem for Rommel was that his Panzer Army needed around 100,000 tons of supplies every month if it were to function to capacity, but there was simply not the means of getting it to him. The principal ports under his control along the North African coast were Tripoli (around 1300 miles from Alamein), Benghazi (around 800 miles), Tobruk (300 miles), and Mersa Matruh (109 miles). Between May and August, Axis shipping was able to reach Tripoli and Benghazi almost unscathed because these routes were too far away to be affected by Allied air attacks from the Middle East and because Malta had virtually ceased to operate as an offensive platform after the terrible aerial blitz it had received during the first four months of the year, while efforts to resupply the island with fuel, especially, had largely failed.
Before Rommel had continued his advance to Egypt in June, Rome had assured him ‘several times’ that so long as the ports of Tobruk and Mersa Matruh were in Axis hands, adequate supplies could be guaranteed.21 These assurances had proved false, however.
First, Tobruk and Mersa Matruh were well within range of the Allied air forces in the Middle East and were attacked almost continuously. Again, the actual numbers of ships that were sunk in port were not great, but the level of disruption and damage caused to two already heavily damaged ports was considerable. Rommel liked to blame the Italians for much of his woes and complained that the unloading of shipping in Tobruk, where little more than 600 tons a day were ever successfully disembarked, was ‘a terribly leisurely affair’ made worse by ‘lack of initiative and a total absence of any sort of technical ingenuity’. But this was unfair. If Charles Coles could easily damage his propellers navigating at the entrance to Tobruk harbour in his shallow-bottomed MTB, then the hazards for incoming supply ships were clearly far, far worse. Furthermore, frequent aerial attacks brought more damage to the port as well as time delays: whilst bombs were being dropped, all work stopped, and then, once the bombers disappeared, more time had to be spent clearing up the rubble and wreckage. This was now even the case with Benghazi, which was frequently attacked at night and by American long-range bombers during the day. The 20,000 tons a month Tobruk was handling was, in fact, quite an achievement.
Certainly, Rommel did not have direct control over the logisticians in Italy. Supplying the Panzer Army was principally the job of the Italian High Command, the Commando Supremo. So it was that in July – despite Rommel’s angry protestations – the Italians insisted on sending nearly all their monthly supplies through Tripoli and Benghazi. Only 5 per cent of shipping was lost and 91,000 tons were successfully docked, but at such huge distances from the front this was of little use to the Panzer Army. Half the precious fuel landed was used just getting it across the huge distances to the front. It took a week, for example, just to bring supplies from Benghazi. In August, Rommel put his foot down and insisted the Italians dock at Tobruk and Mersa Matruh. The result was that, although the route to the front shortened dramatically, losses rose and only half the required monthly supplies ever made it onto dry land.
But the second reason why the Italians failed to deliver at Tobruk and Mersa was the size and scale of Axis shipping. While shipping remained adequate to supply North Africa in terms of tonnage, the number of large vessels had dropped dramatically.* Consequently, greater numbers of ships were required, which took longer to load and unload and a bottleneck ensued. More significantly, despite the damage inflicted, five ships from a fourteen-ship Allied convoy managed to reach Malta by 15 August, including the tanker Ohio, and with these arrivals, Malta’s capabilities as an offensive platform rose considerably. Working in conjunction with the Allied air forces of the Middle East, Malta made Rommel’s urgent need for fuel one of his biggest nightmares of the entire campaign in North Africa.
‘Unless I get 2,000 cubic metres of fuel, 500 tons of ammunition by the 25th [August] and a further 2,000 cubic metres of fuel by the 27th and 2,000 tons of ammunition by the 30th, I cannot proceed,’ he told General von Rintelen, the German military attaché in Rome.22 The Commando Supremo hurriedly put together a plan to send more fuel-carrying ships. Nine vessels were to leave Italy over a period of six days, starting on 28 August. Rommel had to pray that they would all arrive safely, for, as Kesselring pointed out, ‘Petrol was already scarce, and the loss of a 4,000–6,000-ton tanker meant an almost irreparable gap.’23
This supply headache did not affect Alexander to anything like the same degree. Just 60 miles from Alex and only 150 miles from the Suez Canal, Britain was unloading around 100,000 tonnes of fuel a month. Britain would not be defeated because of lack of supplies.
Ike tended to dine or lunch with the Prime Minister in London at least once a week, and on 25 August he and General Clark were summoned to dinner at Number 10. The PM had recently returned from his trip to the Middle East and Russia and was in good form – his talks with Stalin had gone well and he was pleased with the new team in place in the desert. But he was insistent that TORCH should go ahead, despite Ike’s concerns and the impasse over plans during the previous week. If necessary, he told Ike, he would hop on a plane and go to Washington to discuss the issue with the President.
It was impossible to leave the Prime Minister until well past midnight. Knowing this, Ike had told Butch that he would ‘sleep in’ the following morning. As usual, though, he was up at seven and, along with Clark, was telling Harry Butcher some good anecdotes about the PM. At one point Churchill had knocked a tall glass off a side table, but carried on talking as though it had never happened. He also suddenly asked for a change of socks and, without any hint of embarrassment, took his old pair off and put the new ones on. Later, the PM stood up and started scratching his back against the edge of a door. ‘Guess I picked ’em up in Egypt,’ was his explanation.24
However amusing this may have been to the two American generals, Butch was conscious of the heavy weight bearing down on his boss’s shoulders. ‘The harassed Ike,’ noted Butch, ‘mulling over his troubles as Allied Commander dealing with America and Britain, not to mention the land, sea and air services of each, nor the variety of high political problems involved with Spain and France, has always to consider not only the purely military matters, but international politics and personalities.’
This was all too true. Furthermore, living in central London, there were few opportunities for light relief from the gruelling pace required of him. Ike would occasionally insist on stepping out for an hour, and one Sunday they had even taken a long, leisurely drive into the country and had then stopped to watch a game of cricket – ‘but couldn’t get very excited about it’.25 But such trips did little to recharge the batteries. What was needed, as Ike had suggested soon after their arrival, was a cottage out of town – a ‘hide-out to escape the four forbidding walls of the Dorchester’.26 Butch eventually found what he thought was just the place at the end of August. ‘It is called Telegraph Cottage,’ he noted. ‘Small, unpretentious, remotely situated on a ten-acre wooded tract, with a lawn at the back and a rose garden.’ Even better, it also sat between two golf courses. Butch took it on the spot.
General Tuker’s dream of having his entire 4th Indian Division back together again and ready for action was not to be entirely realized. In the third week of August, the 7th Indian Brigade was released from Cyprus, but one of his field artillery regiments remained on the island. Tuker was a particular student of artillery, and had spent much time in Cyprus training his infantry to work alongside his gunners; so it was extremely galling for him to now find these two halves separated. Furthermore, another of his field regiments was still in Amariya, a camp on the Delta, while his 11th Infantry Brigade had been entirely lost at Tobruk. No wonder he felt frustrated. However, l/2nd Gurkhas, the battalion he had originally joined as a young lieutenant, was now in fine shape. They had been training intensively – not just with artillery, but also practising night-time attacks and how to disable anti-tank screens. ‘Frankly,’ wrote Tuker, ‘I built the infantry of the division round that battalion for it had been mine and I had put into it the whole of my knowledge of training and war.’27 When they were finally given a chance to fight, he had high hopes his Indians would show the rest of Eighth Army what they could achieve.
Rifleman Nainabahadur Pun reached Egypt with the rest of 1/2nd Gurkha Rifles on 25 August, but three days later tragedy struck. A number of mines accidentally exploded in the midst of a large number of men during an instruction course. Out of 153 casualties, 68 were killed, ripping out the heart of HQ Company. Many of those killed were among the best trained in the battalion. ‘It can never be the same again,’ wrote Tuker, who must have been wondering when his fortunes would finally take a turn for the better. It was also a great blow to Nainabahadur Pun. ‘I lost a lot of my new friends,’ he says.
But a number of new units were already at the front, including the 44th Infantry Division, which had recently arrived and was now holding Alam Halfa Ridge itself. Also back in the front line was gunner Harold Harper, whose new battery was going into action for the first time. He was already keenly aware of the changes in equipment now taking place within Eighth Army. Not only was he firing a huge new gun, but after a couple of days spent digging themselves in as best as they could, a bulldozer had arrived and scooped out four gun pits in what seemed like no time at all. ‘We’d never seen one of those before,’ says Harold, ‘we thought we’d reached Mecca.’28
There was an air of tense expectation hanging over the British lines. Harold was supporting the Australians, still holding the northernmost part of the line. With the increase in enemy shelling, Joe Madeley and his mates had even been ordered to dig crawl trenches between their dugouts. A few miles to the south, Bill Eadie and the men of the 2nd South African Brigade were also coming under greater enemy bombardment. On the 27th, a shell landed just behind him, but miraculously did not explode. ‘We are just waiting, waiting,’ he wrote two days later. So too was the Prime Minister. Alex had agreed with him that he would signal the word ‘Zip’ when Rommel’s attack began. ‘What do you think of the probabilities of “Zip” coming this moon?’ asked Churchill on 28 August. ‘Zip now equal money every day,’ Alex replied.29
In England, Harry Butcher discovered that their new home, Telegraph Cottage, lay only half a mile from an important decoy for enemy aircraft. But as August drew to a close and September began, Eisenhower was only to grateful for this bolt-hole away from the rigours of preparing TORCH. There was still no firm decision on the form Operation TORCH should take. General Kenneth Anderson had been appointed commander of the British Task Force in the absence of Alexander and then Montgomery and, after a lengthy briefing with Clark on 27 August, had added his two penn’orth by expressing his doubts about the feasibility of forestalling an Axis occupation of Tunisia, regardless of the date. Clark told Anderson that the operation was still definitely on ‘and that ways and means to make it successful would have to be found’.
On 29 August, Roosevelt stepped into the ring and suggested that all British land forces be dropped from the calculations and that landings be made only at Casablanca and Oran, making it an entirely American operation except for supporting naval forces and shipping. The President felt certain that an all-American operation was far less likely to be resisted by the French, and that once the French did lay down their arms Algiers would quickly follow anyway. The British appeared to be warming to this idea, but were still insisting that Algiers should be included in the landings.
Whatever final form TORCH took, Eisenhower still believed they were undertaking ‘something of a quite desperate nature’. He felt rather as he imagined Napoleon must have done on his return from Elba. ‘If the guess as to the psychological reaction is correct, we may gain a tremendous advantage in this war; if the guess is wrong, it would be almost as certain that we will gain nothing and will lose a lot.’30
The Battle of Alam Halfa opened on the night of 30 August. The first three Axis tankers that had set sail from Italy two days before had already been sunk by a combination of Malta-based aircraft and submarines and Wellington bombers from the Middle East; but despite this blow, Rommel had decided to go ahead with his attack as planned, trusting that the next tanker due in, the San Andreas, would successfully reach Tobruk with her cargo of over 3,000 tons of fuel. By the time the Axis barrage opened, however, the San Andreas was already at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Once more, the Malta Beauforts and Beaufighters had hit their mark.
As shells rained down on the British positions, Joe Madeley and the men of the Australian 20th Brigade sat crouched in their dugouts with their rifles and Tommy guns, listening to the barrage screeching over and around them. After two hours the shelling stopped and at three in the morning the men of the German 164th Light Division advanced towards the Australian wire. As had so often happened during the trench warfare of the previous war, the defenders were ready and waiting and, as Joe noted, they ‘gave them hell’. But it made for an extremely uncomfortable few hours, all the same. ‘Lord there was some stuff flying about,’ he admitted. The fighting continued until daylight. This was the most hard-pressed attack along the northern half of the front, but the barrage was followed by attacks all along this stretch of the line. Bill Eadie also sat tight while the barrage fell about him, but the South Africans, having stood to just after two in the morning, were every bit as ready for the attackers as their Australian neighbours.
Nonetheless, this was not the main attack and deceived no one. In addition to information from ULTRA, Mary Coningham’s reconnaissance squadrons had been working hard during the previous ten days and immediately picked up the Axis concentrations of armour on the move in the south. In a carbon copy of his attack on the Gazala Line, Rommel had sent in holding attacks in the north while the Afrika Korps and the bulk of the Panzer Army’s armour thrust through the minefields to the south and then turned north. This had been tactically suspect at Gazala and so it was again now, because without a simultaneous punch through the British line further north, the Panzer Army would once again find itself looping behind enemy lines without an easy means of resupply. Had he gone for a two-punch strategy, it would have been easier for him to encircle and cut off part of the British line and draw the rest of Eighth Army away from its prepared defensive positions.
Through British ineptitude Rommel had got away with it at Gazala, but to assume that Monty was cut from the same cloth was an error. This time there were no crossed wires between the British C-in-C and army commander, no disputed orders, and no surprises.
As at Gazala, Rommel had underestimated how long it would take to achieve his goals. His armour reached the first of the minefields at around two in the morning, right opposite the positions of the 2nd Rifle Brigade, who were once again operating in the south with the rest of the 7th Motor Brigade. Immediately, the Riflemen opened fire with their 6-pounders, making the most of the easy targets that were slowly making their way through the mines. By dawn, though, it was clear they could hold on no longer and so at first light were ordered back through their own minefields with the intention of retreating back past the British armour dug in and lying in wait at the base of Alam Halfa Ridge. But they had done the task asked of them: held up the advancing Panzer Army and given the impression that the southern sector was more heavily garrisoned than it really was. On the signal to retreat, Albert and his five other gun-crew members jumped into their truck and set off, but soon found themselves isolated from the rest of their company. However, this had been agreed, for when they had finally left there had been no time to form up and leave in an orderly column. Rather, it was a case of each crew and section being left to its own devices and making the most of the open desert to create as small a target as possible.
The Panzer Army had also come under attack from Wellington night-bombers, which left thirty fires burning in the desert by the time the Axis armour was emerging through the minefields and beginning its wide sweep north. General Nehring, the commander of the Afrika Korps, was wounded during one of these attacks. It had not been the ideal start for Rommel, who had expected his armour to be ready to attack together by 6 a.m. along a wide front. At 9 a.m., three hours behind schedule, he even considered calling off the entire attack. After some discussion with his commanders, he decided they would try at noon instead. The capricious desert winds then began to swirl and while the dust storms that followed undoubtedly saved the Panzer Army from further attacks by the RAF, it also caused problems as they tried to form up and meant that different units set off at different times, most well after one o’clock. When they did finally get going, 15th then 21st Panzer came under heavy attack, the latter eventually lured onto the British armour of 22nd Armoured Brigade.
A fierce armoured battle followed, with the County of London Yeomanry and 1st Rifle Brigade (2 RB’s sister battalion) taking the brunt of the Panzers, but heroically resisting. When at dusk, the Panzers were forced to retire to leaguer for the night, Alam Halfa was still barring their route north.
No sooner had darkness fallen and the dust settled than the RAF returned in strength. The Axis leaguers were lit up by flares as wave after wave of night-bombers caused havoc. By morning, a pall of smoke hung over their positions from numerous burning vehicles. These attacks had also affected the Panzers’ efforts to resupply. Through lack of petrol, 21st Panzer could not move at all, but 15th Panzer got going and soon created problems for the newly arrived 8th Armoured Brigade as it tried to close the gap between its positions at the eastern foot of Alam Halfa and 22nd Armoured, five miles to its west on Bare Ridge.
This was the first battle for the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry. They had been eagerly waiting their chance since the previous evening, with Colonel ‘Flash’ Kellett ‘longing to get at the enemy’.31 Their attack finally began around 11 o’clock in the morning and demonstrated just how pitifully ill-prepared they were. The Sherwood Rangers had no idea of the enemy strength, nor had they formulated any kind of plan with the regiment supporting them on the left, the equally inexperienced Staffordshire Yeomanry; and although the artillery fired a fifteen-minute barrage beforehand, there was only one battery and they had not had time to register any targets and so were firing blind. The Sherwood Rangers’ first sight of enemy tanks was from 2000 yards – mere black dots on the horizon. Although the Rangers opened fire, there was no reply so they surged forward and in a long line cruised to within 150 yards of the enemy positions, at which point the enemy anti-tank guns opened fire. ‘The enemy had cunningly held his fire until we were right on top of him.’32 Hardly very sporting, although this was not a mistake the Rangers would make again in a hurry.
Seven tanks were soon blazing, four more were disabled, and the Rangers’ attack stalled. They were hopelessly underprepared against the slick professionalism of the Germans. The whole culture of the regiment was to treat the war as little more than a glorious adventure, or a kind of highly dangerous extreme sport. Nearly every aspect of their existence was given some kind of sporting reference. This even went as far as their radio communication, and was hardly the most taxing code in the world to break, even to non-cricket-playing Germans and Italians. ‘The Yeomanry found the official [code] vocabulary unenterprising and a nuisance to learn,’ noted Keith Douglas, an officer who was to rejoin the regiment in October, ‘and supplemented it with “veiled talk” of their own.’ The two main sources of allusion they used were horses and cricket:
‘Uncle Tom, what’s the going like over this next bit? Can we bring the, er, unshod horses over it?’ ‘Uncle Tom, I’m just going over Beecher’s myself, you want to hold ’em in a bit and go carefully, but after that it’s good going for the whole field.’ ‘King 2 Ack,’ says someone who has broken a track. ‘I shall need the farrier, I’ve cast a shoe.’ Someone else is ‘having trouble with my horse’s insides. Could I have the Vet?’ Metaphor changes … ‘King 2, now that that chap has retired to the pavilion, how many short of a full team are you?’33
With their horses rapidly losing shoes, and with too many already having been put down, they were ordered to return to the paddock under cover of smoke bombs fired over their heads. Fortunately for them, 15th Panzer did not follow up their success – they too had run short of fuel. But when, the following day, Colonel Kellett went to inspect the battlefield, he saw that all but one of the Rangers’ burnt-out tanks had been completely shattered. The turret of one had even been blown some thirty yards by the explosion. This engagement was the Sherwood Rangers’ first major step on their journey from part-time amateurs to becoming battle-hardened professionals. But they had some way to go yet.
Meanwhile, throughout 1 September, the RAF poured bombs and cannonfire on the hapless Axis forces, now caught in the wide, open expanse of the desert that lay to the south of the long ridges of Alam Halfa and Alam Nayil. The bombers tended to fly over in formations of eighteen aircraft – the ‘Eighteen Imperturbables’ gave great pleasure and comfort to the British soldiers below. Cobber Weinronk missed the first stooge of the day, but flew later along with three American Mitchell bombers and their crews. The flak was heavy and Cobber saw one of the Bostons lose its tail while one of the Mitchells had a wing shot off. ‘Initially, they rose above the squadron and it looked as though they collided overhead,’ he noted, but he was later told they hadn’t and that some from the crews had managed to bale out safely.34 But in this bare and featureless country, the bomb-bursts from the Allied bombers were made even more vicious by spraying out jagged shards of rock. Seven German officers were killed at Afrika Korps HQ that day.
There were victories to be had in the air, too. Having already flown two missions that morning, Billy Drake was scrambled at 2 o’clock and ordered to lead the entire wing of three squadrons, which included a number of Americans from Duke Ellington’s 57th Fighter Group. When the wing spotted six Me 109s, an American, Captain Saville, shot one of them down. Billy Drake’s fighters then spotted a large formation of around fifty Stukas and thirty Me 109s. Turning towards them, they swooped straight into the dive-bombers, forcing them to jettison their bombs. Stukas may still have brought fear to the bravest of men on the ground, but to the British fighters they were meat and drink, all menace gone. Billy sent two plummeting to the ground, whilst among the rest of the wing another thirteen enemy aircraft were claimed. The entire wing then made it safely back to their landing ground.
That night, 1/2 September, the Wellingtons returned once more, pasting the Panzer Army until dawn. Fires from these raids were still burning when, shortly after first light, the day-bombers took over. By this time, Rommel had already had enough and gave the order to go onto the defensive, his dream of taking Egypt smashed for good. That morning, the Axis commander drove through the area still occupied by the Afrika Korps. Between ten and twelve o’clock, they came under attack six times. At one point he had a very narrow escape himself – he only just had time to fling himself into a slit-trench before the bombs began falling around him. A spade lying next to the trench was pierced by a red-hot shard of shrapnel that then landed beside him. ‘Swarms of low-flying fighter-bombers were coming back to the attack again and again,’ he wrote, ‘and my troops suffered tremendous casualties. Vast numbers of vehicles stood burning in the desert.’35 Cobber Weinronk flew four separate raids that day: at 7 a.m., then again at ten. The third was at one o’clock and the last at four in the afternoon. ‘The target was armoured vehicles,’ he noted, ‘and there was so much of it that one could not miss.’36 These attacks continued all day and on into the night. A steady succession of parachute flares swamped the desert with light. Magnesium incendiaries, impossible to extinguish, crackled on the ground, flooding the vicinity in a bright glow. With their targets lit up like a floodlit sports ground, the bombers droned over, pouring fragmentation and high-explosive bombs onto the men and vehicles below.
Meanwhile, rather than leave all his infantry brigades static in the north, Monty began bringing troops down and ordering up some of his reserves to shore up the defensive line along the two ridges. The 2nd South African Brigade was one of the units moved south. At sunset on 1 September, they moved onto the Ruweisat Ridge, a sensible precaution that gave Eighth Army added defence in depth. Bill Eadie was with the column of trucks taking the brigade to their new positions, and they soon found themselves under air attack. The enemy hit several vehicles, but fortunately not Bill’s. The following day he went to Amariya, some forty miles up the coast towards Alexandria, to pick up some replacement trucks and on the way saw plenty of air activity, witnessing several planes being shot down. But the rumours were all good: ‘We have smashed about 90 enemy tanks,’ he noted, then added, ‘This is a preliminary to the big battle for Egypt.’ This was exactly what Monty had told his men before the battle on a flier handed out to all the troops. Unlike previous desert generals, Monty wanted to keep his men informed, from the top to the bottom; Monty’s different command style was reaching everyone in Eighth Army.
By this stage in the battle, there was clearly a great opportunity to take the attack to the Panzer Army, the bulk of which now lay shell-shocked and crippled by lack of fuel in the desert south of Alam Halfa. But Monty refused to be drawn. He had only been in the desert a fortnight, and was conscious that many in the front line were still green, with little experience of the desert. His aim had been to stop Rommel’s offensive; this had been achieved, and however tempting the situation appeared, the risk of suffering at the hands of a German counter-attack did not strike him as one worth taking.
Nonetheless, he did allow the Australians to carry out a long-prepared attack in the north, to the west of Tell el Eisa, on 1 September. A bridgehead was made but not maintained. Joe Madeley was not directly involved in the raid, but during the day his company fired 36,000 rounds as the enemy tried to press home a counter-attack. Monty also ordered one staged offensive operation, the aim being to close the minefield gaps through which the Panzer Army had crossed on the opening night of the battle. This was planned for the night of 3 September and involved both New Zealand brigades and the 132nd Infantry Brigade, plus two squadrons of ‘I’ tanks. On the right, silent raids by the 6th New Zealanders were to create a diversion but were also intended to secure the right flank of the attack through which the 132nd Brigade would then pass. Unfortunately, these raids merely stirred up a hornets’ nest. In time-honoured fashion, the operation failed to be properly co-ordinated and so 132nd Brigade were an hour late getting going. When they eventually came into contact with the enemy, they walked straight into a wall of machine-gun and mortar fire.
Meanwhile, on the left flank of the attack were the 5th New Zealanders, which included the Maori. Maiki Parkinson, in ‘C’ Company, was among the leading troops along the battalion’s front. Setting off at 10.30 p.m. as planned, they walked a couple of miles before the darkness was suddenly ripped apart by machine-gun tracer. Shortly after, the RAF, which had once again arrived to bomb enemy positions, started dropping flares, bathing the battlefield in bright light. Although this caught the Maori in the open, it also showed them where the enemy positions were. With bayonets fixed and yelling their war cries, they charged down upon the Germans. ‘Kamerad!’ one terrified German cried. ‘Kamerad be buggered,’ yelled a Maori in return and killed him.37 As a platoon from ‘D’ Company charged a machine-gun nest, one man had his arm blown off by a burst of fire. As he hit the ground, he was so worked up that he picked up his arm and in his fury threw it at the machine-gun post. Another Maori from ‘A’ Company single-handedly charged an 88-mm gun, killing all the crew.
Confusion reigned. Maiki watched his section leader, Lance-Corporal ‘Nugget’ Tukaki, shoot one of their own men. ‘The joker somehow got in front of us,’ says Maiki, ‘then the dunes were lit up and there was this figure and Nugget went bang with the Bren. When we got to him … well, Christ, we saw it was one of our blokes. That was the first of our blokes I saw killed in action.’ It would not be the last. As they surged forward, Maiki and a party of ‘C’ Company found themselves fighting alongside some men from ‘A’ Company. They had reached a depression where there were a large number of parked vehicles, and so immediately opened fire, killing the drivers and shooting up every truck and wagon they could. ‘It broke your heart,’ says Maiki, ‘because they were mostly our captured trucks.’
As first light began to creep over the desert, word reached the Maori that 132nd Brigade had been shot to pieces. Moreover because the battalion had gone beyond its objectives they were now dangerously stranded and in danger of being encircled and annihilated. Digging themselves into the soft sand, the Maori soon came under heavy shellfire, although fortunately the sandy ground lessened the effect of each explosion. During the morning a lull occurred and then a lone figure appeared with a white flag. This turned out to be a soldier from the Buffs, captured during the night and sent over to ask them to surrender. The Maori refused, which was just as well because rescue was at hand. Smoke shells were fired over them and runners came out to recall them. The isolated Maori, Maiki included, then hurried back to safety as the smoke drifted across their positions.
Despite the success of the Maori, the attack had failed. The sappers had been unable to close the minefield gaps and the 132nd Brigade – in its first battle – had lost 697 killed, missing and wounded, while the New Zealanders suffered 275 casualties. Monty’s decision not to launch a major counter-attack in force had been vindicated.
The battle was now all but over, and during the next few days Rommel withdrew his forces back through the minefields. The RAF continued to harass the enemy, but with less intensity than during the previous days – sandstorms and their own losses saw to that. Albert Martin, having now rejoined the rest of ‘S’ Company, was also involved with 7th Motor Brigade’s ‘usual harassing tactics’.
The Panzer Army had unquestionably suffered from its desperate shortage of fuel. Of the nine tankers sent from Italy during this period, only four made it to Tobruk, and one of those was no help at all: the fuel it carried had been contaminated and was useless. The architects of the British victory, however, had been the gunners, and even more so the RAF, who had been almost entirely responsible for the British offensive operations in the battle. The Desert Air Force had begun the battle with slightly fewer aircraft than the Axis but with much more fuel and so had been able to maintain almost total air superiority. As Rommel himself admitted, ‘non-stop and very heavy air attacks by the RAF, whose command of the air had been virtually complete, had pinned my army to the ground and rendered any smooth deployment or any advance by time-schedule completely impossible’.38
At RAF HQ, Mary Coningham had reason to be pleased. Sixty-eight aircraft had been lost, but it had been a great victory. Once again, their efforts had helped the army to an incalculable degree. Mary, Tommy, and the other senior air staff had taken to dining with the army commander every night, but on 4 September, before wandering over for supper, Mary brought out a bottle of champagne, which he had been keeping for a special occasion. Raising his glass, Mary gave a toast: ‘To the further confusion of the Hun!’39
Bill Eadie also sensed that a significant victory had been achieved. ‘Today is the third anniversary of war’s declaration,’ he recorded on 3 September, ‘a day of prayer in Great Britain. I hope it is going to be a turning point in the vicious war that has resulted. Somehow I think it is and we are going to move victoriously from now on.’ His hunches had so far proved right.
Monty and Alex could also pat themselves on the back. Their brief tenure had so far followed the path they had prescribed, and Eighth Army was once more buoyant. Both men had warned there could be no more retreat. Nor would there be, for by the end of the Battle of Alam Halfa, the Middle East had been saved.