Desmond Young - Rommel, The Desert Fox

by Unknown

  Such was the first appearance of Rommel on the desert stage. The speed with which he overran Cyrenaica was impressive, even to professionals. It impressed still more painfully the public, which measured gains by the map. Yet ground in the desert meant little. It should have been thought of in terms of sea and not of land battles. Once the enemy armour was out of action, the winning tank fleet could cruise across it as far and as fast as its petrol and tracks would allow. What was much more alarming was the vastly superior quality of the German armour. This superiority lasted until the arrival of the Sherman tank, before El Alamein. It was never appreciated either by our General Staff or by the Cabinet, who always thought that quantity could make up for deficiency in quality. In the desert, at least, this theory did not work. Rommel handled his tiny force with remarkable boldness and skill. His greater experience was, indeed, bound to tell. He had already led an armoured division in action and a week of war is worth six months of manoeuvres. He was opposed to inexperienced troops and to commanders who had never seen even manoeuvres on any sufficient scale, because of our lack of tanks. In a word, he knew more about the business. So did his tank crews. Nevertheless, “With better weapons they were bound to beat us.” “I do not believe that he could have been easily stopped,” says Brigadier Williams. “We had only 2-pounder anti-tank guns and a lot of worn-out tanks.” Even had they been new, they were not in the same class as the German panzers.

  In the field of strategy Rommel met his match in General Wavell. The decision to hold Tobruk was a bold one in the circumstances, but “the active defence of its garrison constituted a menace to the enemy's line of communications, which was likely to prevent his advance.” In fact, it did so-and probably saved Egypt. Rommel always spoke of Wavell to his son as a commander of the highest order, “a military genius.” In his library amongst many presentation volumes about North Africa by Frobenius and others, with uncut pages, I found a well-thumbed copy, in the German translation, of Wavell's pamphlet on the art of generalship,Der Feldherr, von General Sir A. Wavell (Zurich, 1942).

  It was because Rommel also appreciated the importance of Tobruk that he launched a full-dress attack against it on May 1st, as soon as he had been reinforced by 15th Panzer Division. According to Aldinger, although the Italians possessed the complete defence plans, which they had themselves prepared, they denied having them and did not hand them over.

  However that may be, 9th Australian Division was not to be overawed by Rommel or any one else. This sort of fighting, where what counted was the tenacity and initiative of sections and individuals, was what Australians were best at. Rommel got “a poke in the nose” and was severely repulsed, with heavy losses in men and tanks. The Army Command profited by the reverse to remind him that “possession of Cyrenaica, with or without Tobruk, Sollum and Bardia is the primary task of the Afrika Korps” and that a continuance of the advance into Egypt was of secondary importance.

  In the middle of May, before a consignment of new tanks from England could be unloaded, General Wavell thought he saw “a fleeting opportunity of attacking the enemy forward troops on the Egyptian border near Sollum in favourable circumstances.” In a limited operation by a small number of Cruiser and “I” tanks, Sollum and Capuzzo were captured. Next day Rommel brought up his own armour in force and compelled them to retire. On May 27th he pushed us off the Halfaya Pass, the only place, apart from Sollum itself, where tanks can climb the 200 ft. escarpment which runs for fifty miles southeast into the desert, east of the wire marking the Egyptian frontier.

  General Wavell was still bent on recovering Cyrenaica, at least as far as Tobruk. Moreover, he was “being urged to attack with the least possible delay,” and it is not hard to guess who was prodding him from London. He now had enough new tanks to re-equip 7th Armoured Division, which had been out of the line as a division since the victory over Graziani. The division had been so short of equipment that it had neither the tanks nor the wireless sets to continue its training. Some of the new tanks were of a pattern that had never been seen in the Middle East; many of them required overhaul; all of them had to have sand filters and desert camouflage. “The crews were as strange to each other as they were to their machines.”

  It was estimated that the Germans had 220 medium tanks and 70 light tanks against our total of approximately 200. The decision to attack was, therefore, a bold one, to say the least of it. Moreover, General Wavell had to try to combine two armoured brigades, one equipped with Cruiser tanks with a speed of 15-20 m.p.h. and a radius of action of 80-100 miles, the other with “I” tanks with a speed of 5 m.p.h. and a radius of action, without refuelling, of only 40 miles. It was like putting a man and a small boy, three-legged, into a hundred-yard sprint. On top of all this, the Germans had something up their sleeve. This was the 88 mm. dual-purpose gun.*

  [* See page 49. I have since heard from Major R. von Minden, who stopped our tank attack on May 21st, 1940, with the 88 mm. guns of his flak battery (A.A.Bde 1/61). I have also learnt that the gun was tried out against tanks during the civil war in Spain and that a report on it was sent to the British Ministry of Supply.]

  An anti-aircraft high-velocity gun which could be used in an anti-tank role with armour-piercing ammunition, it could go through all our tanks like butter. Rommel's record of the Ghost Division definitely states that it was used against British tanks near Arras. British information is equally definite that it was not and that we first ran up against it on June 16th, 1941, in the Western Desert. At any rate it was a most alarming weapon and remained a bogey to tank commanders and others until the end of the war.

  In any event, “Operation Battleaxe,” after some initial success, was a dismal failure, in which we lost just on a hundred tanks. At the time, some of us, without any tanks at all and with no air-cover, were being chased about Syria by the tanks and aircraft of the Vichy French. We were naturally resentful when we heard that six fighter squadrons, four bomber squadrons and two hundred tanks had been employed in what seemed a completely futile operation. It was interesting, therefore, to be told by General von Esebeck, by Gen- eral von Ravenstein and by Aldinger, independently, that our offensive was taken very seriously by Rommel, and regarded as highly dangerous. General von Ravenstein thinks we made a mistake in trying to attack “the one strong point,” Halfaya Pass, particularly with tanks, and that our turning-movement round the southern end of the escarpment should have been much wider. Had we known about the 88 mm. guns dug in there, we should probably have left Halfaya alone; it was the mixed nature of our tanks which made it necessary for the “I” tanks of 4th Armoured Brigade, with their limited range, to turn sharply north to Capuzzo, while the rest of 7th Armoured Division ranged further afield on their flank. At least it is satisfactory to know that “Battleaxe” caused the enemy some anxiety.

  From Aldinger I heard a queer story about this period. When we went into Syria it will be remembered that the French hotly denied that they were helping the Germans. They were resisting our advance, they said, merely because we were invading French territory. They would equally have resisted the Germans or any other invader. Having had my truck shot to pieces outside Mezze, near Damascus, I spent three days as a prisoner and heard this explanation given with great vigour and apparent sincerity by various staff officers at French headquarters. What the truth was, I never discovered. The French had, we were told, refuelled German aircraft on their way to Iraq to support Rashid Ali's rebellion: it did not appear at the time that there had ever been more than a few Germans in plain clothes in Damascus or Beirut. Aldinger's story was that, just before or just after “Battleaxe,” a French aircraft from Syria landed at Bardia, that the French officer pilot was brought immediately to Rommel, that he spent more than an hour with him and then took off again. If this is so, and Aldinger is positive, he presumably came from General Dentz, Commander of the Vichy French.

  The rest of the summer passed quietly, with both sides trying to build up. Here Rommel was at a disadvantage. The eyes of the German
High Command were fixed upon Russia and there was no interest in North Africa. Ultimately there might have to be an offensive against the Suez Canal and even against Iran. This, however, could wait until after the defeat of Russia. It would then be opened through Anatolia and the Caucasus. The German army in Libya would play only a supporting part and no new divisions need be expected. Meanwhile, since nothing could be done about his supplies without an operation against Malta, Rommel must restrict himself to planning the capture of Tobruk. If it fell, he was not to advance into Egypt but to stop at Sollum. If the attack failed, he must be prepared to retire to Gazala.

  Rommel has often been rated, both by British and by German experts, as a mere military opportunist, a tactician who was not qualified to have any opinions about strategy. That he was a master of “grand tactics” rather than of strategy is probably true. Yet if he were unable to comprehend the broad principles of strategy, it is surprising that he should have been employed as an instructor at Potsdam. It is still more surprising that he should have learnt nothing of them during the years he was there.

  In this case, he showed a clearer appreciation than most of the professional strategists. The plan which he put forward officially in July, 1941, for the capture of the Suez Canal has already been mentioned. General von Ravenstein tells me that his ideas in fact went very much further. This advance was to be only the prelude to a further advance to Basra, with the object of stopping the flow of American supplies to Russia through the Persian Gulf. Rommel's own supplies, after the first phase, were to be assured through Syria, though he thought that Turkey might be induced to come in on the German side if all went well both in Russia and North Africa. Alternatively, she might be attacked and collapse.

  Before any one dismisses such a scheme as fantastic, as did the German Army Command, who had only seen the first part of it, he should read General Auchinleck's dispatch (38177), covering events in the Middle East from November 1st, 1941 to August 15th, 1942. He will then see how much we had with which to hold Syria, after the Vichy French had capitulated; how much we had in Iraq and Iran; how easily Cyprus could have been captured by airborne troops at any time before the late summer of 1942 and what a constant pre-occupation to him was his northern flank. His fear was, admittedly, an attack through the Caucasus. But, whichever way the attack came, we were too thin on the ground to meet it, had it been made in force. It is also relevant to remember the figures of American supplies which actually reached Russia through the Persian Gulf.

  As for Malta, Rommel continually told his staff (and, later, his family) that he could not understand what on earth the High Command were about not to take it. This, he thought, could easily have been done at any time during the summer of 1941 with smoke and airborne troops. Since 35 per cent of his supplies and reinforcement were sunk in August and 63 per cent in October, he had a personal interest in the matter. Yet it was not until the end of 1941, when sinkings had risen to something like 75 per cent, that the High Command woke up to the importance of Malta for the command of the Mediterranean. They then sent U-boats and light surface craft and reinforced the Luftwaffe in Sicily. The result was that, by early 1942, when Rommel had planned to launch his offensive, they virtually controlled the Central Mediterranean. (A share of the credit is also due to the young Italians who made their way into the harbour of Alexandria and sank the only two British battle-ships,Queen Elizabeth andValiant , at their moorings.)

  By that time they had left it too late to reinforce Rommel with the extra German divisions for which he had asked. Nor, indeed, do they appear ever to have had any idea of doing so. And although they had neutralized Malta and, as Kesselring thought, “eliminated it as a naval base,” they had made no attempt to capture it. It was not until the end of April, 1942, under pressure from Admiral Raeder and after a discussion with Mussolini, that Hitler gave permission for a surprise attack on the island with German and Italian paratroops at the beginning of June (“Operation Hercules”). “Even though the postponement of the Malta operation is not a welcome move,” wrote the German naval representative at the meeting, “nevertheless I am glad to see the increased interest displayed by the F�hrer in this important area.... The whole business is now assuming importance after having been regarded hitherto as a subsidiary matter in which victories were looked upon as gifts from Heaven but in which nobody bothered to do anything seriously for 'the Italian theatre of war.'”

  The attack was twice put off. At the beginning of July, the last minute of the eleventh hour, Hitler finally postponed Operation Hercules until after the conquest of Egypt. He did not consult either the Italians or his own naval command. It is possible that he consulted Keitel and Jodl.

  Even in the early summer of 1941, the senior officers of the Afrika Korps, fresh from their first victory, felt that North Africa was regarded by the High Command as a side-show, no more than “picking the chestnuts out of the fire for the Italians.” There was, for example, the matter of air support. Why could they not have a few extra fighter squadrons? “I remember Field-Marshal Milch of the Luftwaffe coming over to inspect in May, 1941,” said General von Esebeck. “We all prayed that the R.A.F. would favour us with a good heavy raid while he was there. Fortunately the R.A.F. obliged. General Milch was wearing a beautiful white uniform. I could not have been more delighted than when I saw him dive into a slit trench. When he came out, I was even more pleased to see that it was the trench into which the servants had thrown the refuse from the kitchen.”

  With or without encouragement from the Army Command Rommel was determined to attack. The first objective was clearly Tobruk. “Our freedom from embarrassment in the frontier area for four and a half months,” wrote General Auchinleck, “is to be ascribed largely to the defenders of Tobruk. Behaving, not as a hardly pressed garrison, but as a spirited force ready at any moment to launch an attack, they pontained an enemy force twice their strength. By keeping the enemy continually in a high state of tension, they held back four Italian divisions and three German battalions from the frontier area from April until November.” General Wavell's decision, made in the confusion of a swift and losing battle, had paid off. There could be no advance into Egypt so long as Tobruk held out.

  Permission to attack even Tobruk was not, however, easily obtained. Rommel wanted to reduce it in October or November. Hitler, Jodl and Keitel were against his making the attempt until January, 1942. They did not want to stir up any- thing in North Africa while their hands were full in Russia. The Italians, whose Intelligence, from their agents in Cairo and Alexandria, was better than that of the Germans, knew of General Auchinleck's coming offensive. They, too, opposed any move by Rommel, nominally under their command. The Luftwaffe produced aerial photographs of the railway which was being pushed forward west of Matruh. General von Ra- venstein was present when Rommel threw them on the ground. “I will not look at them,” he exclaimed petulantly.

  Then came a report from Admiral Canaris. A British soldier in hospital in Jerusalem had told the nursing sister, a German agent, that the British were soon going to launch a big attack upon Rommel. On the strength of this, Hitler and Jodl told Rommel that he had better keep quiet, leave Tobruk alone and get ready to meet Auchinleck's attack. (It does not seem to have occurred to them that it would be twice as hard to counter if Tobruk remained in British hands.)

  Rommel was determined to take Tobruk. He would not accept the order and flew off with von Ravenstein to Rome to dispute it. Von Ravenstein was in the office of von Rintelen, the German liaison officer with the Italians, when Rommel “blew his top.” Having called the unfortunate von Rintelen “a friend of the Italians,” he seized the telephone and got on to Jodl himself. “I hear that you wish me to give up the attack on Tobruk,” he said. “I am completely disgusted.” Jodl mentioned the British offensive. Rommel said that he would put 21st Panzer Division, whose commander he had with him in the office, to hold it off while the attack on Tobruk was in progress. Jodl played for safety. “Can you guarantee,” Rommel rep
orted him as saying, “that there is no danger?” “I will give you my personal guarantee!” shouted Rommel. Thereupon Jodl, having covered himself, gave in.

  The attack was fixed for November 23rd. Everything was already “laid on” for it and as Countess von Ravenstein and Frau Rommel had joined them, Rommel decided to remain in Rome for his birthday, November 15th. The ladies went sightseeing. Von Ravenstein remembers that they came back to the Hotel Eden for luncheon, full of the wonders of St. Peter's. Rommel listened for some time in silence. Then he joined in the conversation. “You know, von Ravenstein,” he said, “I have been thinking again about what we ought to do with those infantry battalions....”

  Rommel saw none of the sights of Rome. He did, however, by invitation of the Italian command, see, on his birthday, the filmOn from Benghazi , which depicted the advance of the previous April. It showed the victorious Italians attacking with the bayonet; it showed some very scruffy British officers, played by Italian “bit players,” running in panic before them; it did not show a single German soldier in action. “Very interesting and instructive,” said Rommel to his hosts, “I often wondered what happened in that battle.”

  The story has been told how it was only Rommel's absence from his headquarters at Beda Littoria, near Cyrene, which saved him from death or capture. In brief, a British commando party under Major Geoffrey Keyes was landed from a submarine. It was met and guided by a very gallant officer, John Haseldon, afterwards killed. Disguised as an Arab, he had been living behind the enemy lines. “The first building on the right as you enter the village from Cirene,” says Major Kennedy-Shaw inLong-Range Desert Group , “is a grain silo, then comes a row of bungalows, then, standing back from the road amongst the cypresses, a larger, two-storied building, dark and rather gloomy. In this house, in 1941, lived Rommel.... At midnight, Keyes and the two men with him, Campbell and Terry, were at the front door, loudly demanding admission in German. The sentry opened to them but when they were inside, showed fight and was overpowered. At the noise, two officers appeared on the stairs and were shot down. All the lights in the house were then extinguished and silence fell. Keyes started to search the ground floor rooms first. The first was empty but from the darkness of the second came a burst of fire and Keyes fell, mortally wounded. Campbell was also hit and taken prisoner but Terry got away. Major Keyes (who was awarded a posthumous V.C.) is buried at Beda Littoria on a hill a mile south of the village, with four Germans.”