Desmond Young - Rommel, The Desert Fox

by Unknown

  Rommel, having flown back from Rome on November 16th, was busy elsewhere, giving the finishing touches to the mounting of his attack on Tobruk. In any case he would not have been caught in the “Prefettura,” the gloomy house amongst the cypresses. This was not his headquarters but the headquarters of his Q staff. His own headquarters was in the Casa Bianca at Ain Gazala, near Gambut. He came sometimes to Beda Littoria but never stayed the night there, though a house called “Rommel Haus” was reserved for him and other high-ranking visitors. John Haseldon's information was wrong; the Arabs had either seen Rommel there by day or had confused him with someone else. When the report of the raid reached him, Rommel ordered his chaplain, Rudolf Dalmrath, to drive back to Beda Littoria and give Christian burial to Keyes and to the four dead Germans. Dalmrath drove over rain-soaked roads and through floodedwadis , for there had been a cloud-burst, and was 36 hours on the way. He arrived ten minutes before the funeral, in time to preach a sermon and to consecrate the graves, that of Keyes being on the right. Wreaths were laid by an officer of the German General Staff, three salvoes were fired, crosses of cypress wood were erected and young cypress trees planted. After the war, an account of Geoffrey Keyes' death and of the ceremony, with photographs, was sent by Ernest Schilling, Commander of the German Headquarters in Beda Littoria, and by Dalmrath to his mother, Lady Keyes.

  II. “OPERATION CRUSADER”

  If we did not surprise Rommel in his headquarters, the opening of General Auchinleck's offensive took him and his troops completely by surprise. When our armoured brigades, with their armoured car screen far in front, swept across the frontier wire at dawn on November 18th, they drove through empty desert to their battle positions on the Trigh-el-Abd. “Operation Crusader” was the first battle of the Eighth Army. It opened with high hopes. Mr. Churchill even expected a victory comparable with Blenheim or Waterloo. Unfortunately, he said so. Because these hopes were not fully realised and were soon obscured in the fog of subsequent failure, few, outside the Eighth Army itself, ever knew how near it came to complete success. Because only final results count, fewer still can have taken the trouble to compare the figures with those of the battle of El Alamein. Of a total enemy strength of 100,000, 60,000, including 21,000 Germans, were killed, wounded or captured in Operation Crusader. The Eighth Army, 118,000 strong, lost 18,000 officers and men. At El Alamein, 150,000 of the Eighth Army faced 96,000 Germans and Italians and killed, wounded or captured 59,000 of them, including 34,000 Germans.*

  [* The German figures are 14,760 German and 21,700 Italian casualties in the winter battle of 1941-42 and 23,000 German casualties in the El Alamein offensive up to December 1st.]

  The Eighth Army losses were 13,500. In November, 1941, we went into action with 455 tanks against Rommel's 412. At El Alamein, General Montgomery had 1,114, against between 500 and 600, more than half Italian. Figures, however, do not tell the whole story. Of General Montgomery's 1,114 tanks, 128 were Grants and 267 Shermans, with 75 mm. guns in completely revolving turrets, all brand new. In November, 1941, we had not a tank that was fit to fight the German Mark III's and Mark IV's. Before our tanks, mechanically unreliable and armed with their pitiful 2-pounder gun, could even begin hitting the enemy tanks effectively, they had to close them by 800 yards. While they were doing so, they were all the time under fire of 50 mm. (4-pounders) and 75 mm., against which their armour was no defence. We had no effective anti-tank gun at all.

  Why, then, did General Auchinleck attack with one and a half armoured divisions instead of the three he himself considered necessary? First, so long as there were strong Axis forces in Cyrenaica there was a constant threat to Egypt and he could not hope to secure his northern flank against a possible German invasion through the Caucasus. Second, H.M. Government considered it essential to take the offensive in North Africa at the earliest possible moment. “Possible” is an elastic word, especially in London.

  The decision accepted, no fault can be found with the general plan. The idea of basing the main force on Girabub, the oasis in the open desert to the south, striking across the desert via Gialo and then turning north to cut Rommel's communications was rightly turned down. The administrative difficulties would have been enormous. Moreover, the flank of the force would have been exposed, during its advance, to incessant air attacks from the coastal airfields in the north. These could have been “stepped up” at will, by reinforcements of the Luftwaffe flying in from Greece and Crete. Our own forces, including the R.A.F., would have had to be split. It would have been necessary to leave a strong covering force to hold the frontier. Otherwise Rommel would have turned the tables on us by coming down the escarpment and making direct for Alexandria. That was, in fact, precisely what he intended to do, had we attacked from the south. The thrust by a brigade group at Gialo was, therefore, merely a deception. It was effective; General Bayerlein told me that that was where they thought the main attack would come.

  The plan adopted was to thrust towards Tobruk, while feinting from the centre and the south. The first object was the destruction of Rommel's armoured forces. The two Panzer divisions, 15th and 21st, were the backbone of the enemy's army. What was likely to bring them to battle on ground of our choosing? Clearly, reasoned General Auchinleck, an obvious move to raise the siege of Tobruk. (The relief of Tobruk was, in fact, incidental to the wider object of driving Rommel out of Cyrenaica and, in the next phase, out of Tripolitania. By this plan, the garrison would itself be able to take part in the action.) Since our tanks were inferior to his, we must try to attack his armour with superior numbers. In no case must our single armoured division be caught by the two panzer divisions together. Surprise as to time and the direction of the thrust was essential.

  In brief, the main attack was to be delivered by 3oth Corps under Lieutenant-General Willoughby Norrie. Including most of the armour (7th Armoured Division and 4th Armoured Brigade Group), with two brigades of the 1st South African (Infantry) Division and the 22nd Guards (Motor) Brigade, it was to concentrate round Gabr Saleh and strike north-east or north-west. When it had defeated the enemy armour, it was to relieve Tobruk. The garrison of Tobruk (70th Infantry Division, an Army Tank Brigade and a Polish Brigade Group, the Australians having been relieved, was to make a sortie when General Norrie considered that the time was ripe.

  Meanwhile 13th Corps, under Lieutenant-General Godwin-Austen, comprising the New Zealand Division, 4th Indian Division and 1st Army Tank Brigade, was to pin down and cut off the enemy troops holding the frontier defences. It was then to advance westwards on Tobruk to help 30th Corps. Fourth Armoured Brigade of 30th Corps was to protect its left flank. Eleventh Indian Infantry Brigade, below the Sollum escarpment, and 5th Indian Infantry Brigade, above it, were to contain the enemy frontally and cover our base and railhead.

  Rommel's force was one-third German and two-thirds Italian. It consisted of three armoured, two motorised and five infantry divisions. The two German panzer divisions, 15th and 21st, and the 90th Light (Infantry) Division, formed the Panzer Group, Afrika. Twenty-first Panzer Division was twelve miles south of Gambut, across the Trigh Capuzzo. Fifteenth Panzer Division, with 90th Light, was concentrated round El Adem, El Duda and Sidi Rezegh. Twenty-first Corps, consisting of four Italian infantry divisions, stiffened by three German infantry battalions, was besieging Tobruk. The Italian armoured division (Ariete) was at El Gubi, with its guns dug in. The motorised division (Trieste) was at Bir Hacheim. The frontier defences at Halfaya, Sollum and Capuzzo were manned by German infantry battalions. Sidi and Libyan Omar were held by the Savona Division, with some German guns. Bardia had a mixed garrison of Germans and Italians.

  The preparations for the offensive were elaborate. The railway line was pushed forward 75 miles west of Matruh. A pipeline was built from Alexandria and a water-point opened ten miles behind the railhead. Nearly 30,000 tons of munitions, fuel and supplies were stored in the forward area before the battle opened. (This was sufficient to cover the difference between the daily rates of deli
very and consumption for one week at most!) The Royal Navy and the R.A.F. for many weeks continually attacked the enemy's supply lines by sea and air. Thanks to the R.A.F. and the Long Range Desert Group, General Cunningham, commanding Eighth Army, under General Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief, Middle East Forces, had almost exact information about the enemy's dispositions and order of battle. Thanks to the R.A.F. and to first-class administration, camouflage and “security,” the enemy knew nothing of ours. The essential surprise was achieved.

  The battle that ensued was desperately fought by both sides. On ours there was an exhilaration, a will to victory that I had not seen equalled since the final battles at the end of the first war. “Give me another------tank,” I remember a wounded Scottish sergeant shouting as he leaned out and pointed to his gun, the muzzle drooping like a stick of chewed celery from a direct hit. “Mon, we're doing all right up there; we're giving the b------s hell!” This a hundred yards from the truck of General Willoughby Norrie, commanding 30th Corps, who had just mislaid the whole of his Main Headquarters but remarked that there was a lot to be said for fighting a battle with only an A.D.C.: it saved so much paper. (About the same time, the entire headquarters of the Afrika Korps had been captured by the New Zealanders.)

  It was a real soldier's battle, a “proper dog-fight,” like those great aerial mix-ups which we used to watch over the lines in 1918. It was fought at such speed, with such swiftly-changing fortune, under such a cloud of smoke from bursting shell and burning tanks, such columns of dust from careering transport, in such confusion of conflicting reports, that no one knew what was happening a mile away. Even to-day it is hard to follow from maps which show the situation, hour by hour. Occasionally, out of the murk, would emerge some heroic figure like “Jock” Campbell, leading his tanks at Sidi Rezegh in an open car, winning his V.C. half a dozen times over.

  There were hundreds more whose exploits were unrecorded. How many have ever heard how Major-General Denys Reid, commanding the Indian Brigade Group from Girabub, took Gialo by walking into the fort and holding up with his pistol sixty Italian officers at dinner?

  The heart of the battle was Sidi Rezegh, the key to Tobruk. Here was the hardest fighting of all, tank against tank, man against man. The “high-spot” was, however, Rommel's dramatic counter-attack with his armour across the frontier wire at Bir Sheferzen on the afternoon of November 24th. Alan Moorehead has vividly described, inA Year of Battles , this raid on our back areas and the resulting stampede of thousands of soft-skinned vehicles over the desert, like a shoal of mackerel before a shark.

  Why did Rommel suddenly abandon the main battle and rush eastward with his armour? Had he any plan or was he merely “stirring up the pot”? Was his move a master-stroke or a desperate gamble? Major-General Fuller and Lieutenant-General Sir Giffard Martel, amongst others, have argued the question and reached opposite conclusions. The answer is essential to any appraisement of Rommel as a commander. Again, why, when they passed within a mile or two of them, did his tanks not pause to set fire to our two main supply dumps, F.S.D. 63, fifteen miles south-east of El Gubi and F.S.D. 65, fifteen miles south-east of Gabr Saleh? Without them, the New Zealand Division could not have been maintained. Without them, 30th Corps would have had to retire from Sidi Rezegh. There was only the Guards Brigade to protect them.

  The second question can be answered first because the answer is easy. Though the dumps were each six miles square, the Germans did not know that they were there. “God in Heaven!” said General Bayerlein, “you don't mean to tell me that?” General von Ravenstein was equally shaken. “And to think,” he said, “that I saw and identified the Guards Brigade and never bothered to wonder what they were doing there! I don't think I even fired on them.” Both of them returned to the subject, in the same words. “If we had known about those dumps, we could have won the battle.” They could, indeed, and whoever was responsible for the concealment and camouflage of those huge quantities of petrol, water and stores can take some belated credit to himself.*

  [* I have recently heard that it was Major Jasper Maskelyne. If so, those famous illusionists, Maskelyne and Devant, never did a better job.]

  So can the R.A.F., for keeping the German reconnaissance aircraft away from the area.

  As to the larger question, General Bayerlein knew exactly what Rommel had in mind. He still meant to take Tobruk but he could not do so while he was himself being attacked. If he turned on 70th Division, it would merely withdraw into the perimeter. The advance of the New Zealand Division along the Trigh Capuzzo had come as an unpleasant surprise to him. If he concentrated all his force against it, he could doubtless destroy it and open up the road to his frontier positions again. But that would give time to what was left of 7th Armoured Division to refit. Meanwhile there was 70th Division on his flank. If he turned on 7th Armoured Division, south-east of Sidi Rezegh (as General Martel thinks he should have done), then the New Zealand Division would join up with 70th Division. If he played safe and retired to Gazala, it would mean abandoning the frontier garrisons, the stores there and his own dumps along the coast. His strength lay in his two panzer divisions. Was there any way in which he could use them, not merely to get himself out of an awkward situation or to pursue a ding-dong battle, but to recover the initiative and turn defeat into victory at one stroke? Yes, he decided-to thrust suddenly eastwards into our back areas and so disrupt our communications that General Cunningham would be glad to call the battle off and withdraw from whence he came. He would then deal with Tobruk, a few days later than he had intended.

  “You have the chance of ending this campaign to-night!” he told General von Ravenstein, who was to lead the attack with 21st Panzer Division, when he gave him his orders. They were to push straight through to the frontier wire and beyond, “looking neither to right nor left” and then turn up north to the sea by Sollum. Meanwhile a “combat group” of one motorised battalion with one company of tanks was to attack General Cunningham's headquarters at Maddalena. Another combat group from 15th Panzer Division was to follow up, go down the escarpment and capture the railhead at Bir Habata, where there were large stocks of petrol. If, as Rommel rightly suspected, there was nothing much between the escarpment and Alexandria, then 21st Panzer Division should join it and make at least a rapid raid into Egypt. By that time such alarm and confusion ought to have been caused that Eighth Army would be coming helter-skelter back to its original positions.

  (There was, in fact, one brigade of the 4th Indian Division behind a large minefield at the foot of the escarpment. After that, there was nothing but the barely trained and badly-equipped 2nd South African Division, which had not yet seen a shot fired. Its nearest brigades were at Mersa Matruh.)

  No one can say that his was not a bold plan to have concocted in the middle of a hard-fought battle. Why, then, did it fail? The answer is that it succeeded only too well, up to a point. On November 23rd, General Cunningham already wished to break off the battle. He would undoubtedly have done so next evening had not General Auchinleck flown up from Cairo and forbidden him. In a letter written at Advanced Eighth Army Headquarters on the night of November 24th, General Auchinleck said, after examining the dangers of going on with it: “The second course is to continue to press our offensive with every means in our power. There is no possible doubt that the second is the right and only course. The risks involved in it must be accepted. You will, therefore, continue to attack the enemy relentlessly, using all your resources, even to the last tank....” General Fuller rightly calls it “an outstanding example of the influence of generalship on operations.”

  Rommel, on the contrary, had to be restrained by a junior officer. As usual, he was up in the forward area. About noon on November 25th General Ravenstein, lying behind Halfaya with some twenty or thirty tanks left out of his original sixty, received orders from Rommel to be ready to attack Egypt. At 2 P.M. came a wireless message: “All orders given to you hitherto are cancelled. 21st Panzer Division is to break through the Indian l
ines in the direction of Bardia.” After his two unsuccessful and, it would seem, rather unnecessary attacks in the morning and afternoon on 7th Indian Brigade (and 4th Indian Division H.Q.) behind their minefields in Sidi Omar, he was doubtful about being able to get through. However, he sent an officer with a column of heavy trucks, which he hoped would be mistaken in the darkness for tanks, to “make a hole” between Sollum and Capuzzo and drove through after them. Next morning, the 26th, he was in Bardia. There he found Rommel sitting up, sound asleep, in his truck. “General,” said von Ravenstein, “I am happy to tell you that I am here with my division!” Rommel exploded, “What do you mean, you are here?” he demanded. “What are you doing here? Did I not give you an order to be ready to attack from Halfaya in the direction of Egypt?” Von Ravenstein produced his copy of the countermanding wireless message. Rommel exploded again. “A fake!” he shouted. “This is an order from the British; they must have our code!”

  The message in fact came from Lieutenant-Colonel Westphal, later a Lieutenant-General and Chief-of-Staff to Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, but then no more than a G1 (Ops.) left behind in charge of the rear headquarters near Tobruk. He had seen all the air reports, recognised that Rommel's plan of attacking Egypt was impossible to carry out and cancelled the order on his own responsibility. Rommel was a big enough man to congratulate him afterwards. “You did right,” he said. “I am very grateful to you.” So, it appears, was von Ravenstein.