Tobruk 1941

by Chester Wilmot

  Rommel threw in everything he had. Anticipating the British offensive, he had already brought part of the 5th Tank Regiment from Tobruk to support his other regiment, the 8th. Now he rushed up the balance of the 5th and concentrated all its tanks for a powerful thrust into Egypt south of the main British forces. He could afford to gamble; if he lost and had to retire, it would matter little. But Beresford Peirse could not risk all his tanks in attack. He had to keep some reserves for defence, because a deep advance by Rommel into Egypt would have serious political repercussions throughout the Middle East. He needed tank reserves also to support another diversion on the frontier, in case Rommel should attack Tobruk again.

  On the second day, June 16th, thrust and counter-thrust around Capuzzo ended in stalemate. The enemy still held Halfaya, and twenty miles south-west in a series of running skirmishes his 5th Tank Regiment, with superior numbers and fire-power, forced the 7th Armoured Brigade back across the frontier. Rommel mustered every tank he could to press home his advantage. One column, with 75 tanks of the 5th Regiment, carried its outflanking movement 20 miles into Egypt south of Halfaya. Simultaneously another column fought its way through nearer the coast towards Halfaya. Threatened by these two moves, the Anglo-Indian forces, which had held Capuzzo for nearly two days, had to withdraw, leaving on the battlefield a large number of disabled, but recoverable, British tanks.

  It had been a disastrous three days. Captured German documents (secret German military reports and not propaganda) allege that 143 British tanks were destroyed. This was a slight exaggeration, for the actual British losses were 123. However G.H.Q. admitted later that ‘two-thirds of the British armour was out of action’ after the battle, and it did not claim that the Germans had lost more than 50 tanks. The battle had been decided by two factors – a new German anti-tank weapon and Rommel’s bold handling of his armour. The weapon was the 88 mm A.A. gun, used for the first time (on the frontier at least) in an anti-tank role. Rommel had only 12 of these but, if German official documents are to be believed, they knocked out 79 British tanks – one for every 20 rounds they fired.

  At the two German frontier positions that held, eight of these guns destroyed 36 British tanks. The tanks, firing a 2-pounder with an effective range of 800 yards at most, were no match for the 88 mm with its 20-pound shell that could knock out an ‘I’ tank at a range of a mile. In these positions the 88 mm guns were dug in flush with the ground and so well camouflaged that the British tank crews did not even know what had hit them.

  On the critical first afternoon, Bardia was probably saved by one of these guns. German tanks had been driven back; mobile 88 mm guns had been kept quiet by British shell-fire which forced their crews to take cover; the British had taken Capuzzo and there was little between them and Bardia. But lying abandoned north of Capuzzo was a solitary 88 mm with a broken tractor. A scratch crew coupled it to a truck and got it into action. Before dark, the Germans claim, it had knocked out nine ‘I’ tanks and blocked every British attack. By next morning the Germans had rallied enough strength to stop any further break-through. But for these guns, the frontier defences would have been overwhelmed before Rommel could have moved his tanks to save them. He handled these well. By committing all he could – even at the risk of withdrawing nearly all his German tanks from Tobruk – he gained a three to one victory. The dramatic sweep by the 5th Tank Regiment round the southern flank clinched the battle, but the way for this was prepared by the 88 mm guns and Rommel’s shrewd tactics.

  He kept his tanks together in strong formations and did not use them in ‘penny packets’. He gave them close support with artillery – especially anti-tank guns, which he placed in cleverly concealed positions to ambush British tanks. West of Capuzzo he had a dummy camp in a depression and beyond it four 88 mm guns dug in behind the crest of a low rise. British cruisers shot up the camp without opposition, careered on over the rise and into point-blank fire, which knocked out 22 of them on the first day. North of Capuzzo on the second day, his tanks withdrew under pressure. The Germans pulled back through four well-concealed 88 mm guns which held their fire until the British were less than 500 yards away. Eleven ‘I’ tanks were lost.

  It was probably inevitable that, in their first major clash with the much more experienced Germans, the British armoured forces should be worsted. Without the schooling of this preliminary defeat the November offensive might not have succeeded. Unfortunately, however, many of the costly mistakes of June were repeated in November. The British Command was slow to learn and slow to act on what it did learn. Senior staff officers refused to believe that the Germans were using 88 mm guns in an anti-tank role. G.H.Q., and even Western Desert Force H.Q., which became Eighth Army H.Q., ridiculed the suggestion. Both insisted that the 50 mm gun and the German choke-bore anti-tank rifle had caused the June losses. An Australian officer, who was captured by the Germans and escaped, told Eighth Army Intelligence in December 1941 that he had travelled on a truck carrying 88 mm anti-tank ammunition and had been told by a gun crew that 88 mms were ‘very good against tanks’. He was informed that the Germans were kidding him.

  At last, in that same month, a British tank regiment, in taking a strongpoint at Sidi Omar, lost 48 out of its 52 ‘I’ tanks. The 88 mm guns, which had done most of the damage, were captured. The Cairo Military Spokesman, reflecting G.H.Q.’s continued scepticism, explained that it was only when the 88 mms were dug-in in defensive positions that they were used against tanks. It took the severe losses of June in the following year to induce Cairo to admit that Rommel used his 88 mm as a mobile anti-tank gun.

  Six months before this, correspondents in Cairo – voicing the opinion of tank crews in the field – tried to warn the British people of the alarming superiority of German tanks, anti-tank guns and general tactics. They were blocked by serried ranks of blue pencils and a red-tabbed Military Spokesman who sought to subdue them with the plea – ‘Gentlemen, please, let there be no criticism.’

  Whether Cairo admitted it or not, the appearance of the 50 mm and 88 mm anti-tank guns in Libya in the middle of 1941 prolonged the siege of Tobruk for nearly six months. There was no lack of courage or offensive spirit on the British side, but after the June failure it was clear that we could not attack again until we had considerably more tanks than Rommel to make up for the superior performance of his tanks and anti-tank guns. Unfortunately, it was still not realized how much superior these were.

  Although the attempts to relieve Tobruk in May and June had failed, they had an important influence on Rommel’s policy during the next six months. He was still determined to attack again as soon as his Supreme Command gave him sufficient forces and equipment, but the experience of May and June had evidently led him to three conclusions:

  1. That he could not advance far into Egypt until he had subdued Tobruk, because of the danger that the garrison would break out and strike at his forces from the rear.

  2. That taking Tobruk would not be a snap victory that could be won before the British forces from the frontier could intervene, unless he amassed much greater strength outside Tobruk and gave better protection to his frontier ‘flank’.

  3. That if the warfare of thrust and counter-thrust on the frontier went on he would never be able to assemble sufficient strength to attack Tobruk. The fighting on the frontier would have to be stabilized by building far stronger defences.

  These new defences ran from Halfaya Pass south-west to Sidi Omar – twenty-five miles inland on the frontier. They were a series of four ‘strong-boxes’, covering a deep and continuous minefield. These strong-boxes were so well defended by 88 mm and other anti-tank guns that any direct assault on them would be even more costly than the June attacks on Halfaya.

  Behind this line – in the coastal wadis between Bardia and Tobruk – Rommel proceeded to build up dumps and workshops, and to gather artillery for an all-out attack on Tobruk. The frontier defences gave his forces some freedom from British raiding columns, and saved his tanks from the wear and tear
of fluid warfare. He reasoned that if the British attempted to attack, they would have to make a wide detour round the Halfaya–Sidi Omar defences and reveal their intention so early that he could dispose his forces to meet them.

  Thus, from June onward, the character of the desert war changed. On the Tobruk and Halfaya fronts, there was stalemate, as both sides concentrated on winning the supply race – the race for the initiative. Rommel had evidently gained permission from his Supreme Command to attack Tobruk when he felt he was strong enough, but with the R.A.F. and the Royal Navy pounding his supply lines and with Britain’s newly formed Eighth Army in the Western Desert growing daily stronger, it was hard for him to retain his superiority in striking power.

  Meantime, through the sweltering Libyan summer some of his crack Afrika Korps became disgruntled. They had been picked and trained for offensive warfare. Many of them had been fattened on the quick victories and easy loot of the European campaigns. They disliked a defensive role; still more distasteful was the task of digging holes in the unfriendly Libyan plateau, working in sandstorm and in heat that often rose to 110 degrees.

  The commander of one of the German battalions holding the Tobruk Salient complained in a report written in June: ‘Our people know nothing about the construction of defences. We have scarcely any exercise in this phase of warfare in our peacetime training. The junior commander does not realize that positional infantry warfare is 60 per cent with the spade, 30 per cent with the field glasses, and only 10 per cent with the gun.’

  German diaries reveal the discontent of the rank and file and the dislocation of Rommel’s supply system. ‘What is there for a soldier to do when there is no fighting and nothing to eat?’ wrote a young tank officer in May. ‘This morning the bit of cheese was not even enough to go round for breakfast. The men want to attack, want to get into Tobruk. There, there’s loot to be had. Replacements from Germany do not arrive. We are going to send a further indent for them in eight weeks. What rot. Oh, if only Goering knew!’

  Four months later we find the same strain in the diary of a tank battalion adjutant: ‘There is a shortage of everything – of material, of reserve manpower. Our vehicles are on their bare rims. Poor rations have made more than 80 per cent of the regiment unfit to be sent forward. . . . Breakfast – carbolic-flavoured coffee and mouldy bacon with old Dauerbrot.’ The men inside beleaguered Tobruk were better off than that.

  Extracts like these, published from time to time in Tobruk Truth, made good reading for the garrison. After the failure of the June attempt to relieve them, a wave of pessimism swept over the defenders. Hopes had been so high that the disappointment that followed was acute. But this evidence of enemy difficulties made the troops more determined than ever to hang on. Their spirit carried them through all danger, hardship and disappointment. Typical of that spirit was their reply to the leaflets that German planes scattered over Tobruk on June 24th – a week after the failure of the second attempt at relief. The leaflets read:

  AUSSIES

  After Crete disaster Anzac troops are now being ruthlessly sacrificed by England in Tobruk and Syria. Turkey has concluded pact of friendship with Germany. England will shortly be driven out of the Mediterranean. Offensive from Egypt to relieve you totally smashed.

  YOU CANNOT ESCAPE

  Our dive bombers are waiting to sink your transports. Think of your future and your people at home. Come forward. Show white flags and you will be out of danger!

  SURRENDER!

  Tobruk’s reply was simple. A Digger took a copy of the leaflet, nailed it to the flag-pole in the main square, and underneath it wrote the garrison’s answer – ‘Come and get it!’

  _____________

  1 See Chapter 14.

  2 By ‘mobile striking power’ I mean, as indicated earlier, the combined power of tanks, mobile anti-tank guns, and field guns operating together. An armoured division is not so much a force of tanks as a force of mobile guns – some mounted in tanks, some hitched behind gun tractors.

  CHAPTER 13

  WOULDN’T IT?

  THE German makes a very good soldier but a very poor psychologist. In this war, as in the last, his most costly errors have sprung from an inability to appreciate the character of the men he is fighting. When the Germans pushed the Tommies and the Diggers back to Tobruk, they little realized that they were packing in dynamite and that the harder they thrust the more explosive it became.

  Berlin Radio made a fatal mistake in trying to gibe and scare the Australian soldier into surrender. The longer the odds Lord Haw Haw offered against the Digger’s chance of getting out, the more heavily the Digger backed himself. He and his father before him had gambled on the outcome of a drought or a strike. They had defied the bullying of man and nature and had gambled with their livelihood. It was a small step from this to gamble now with their lives. The odds were long; the fight would be hard, but they knew what was at stake.

  The very scorn Lord Haw Haw heaped upon them made clear the importance of their job. It would have been better for the Axis if Goebbels had ignored the Tobruk garrison altogether. But he put them in the middle of the field, and they responded as a football team does to the hoots of its opponents’ barrackers and the cheers of its own. Evidence of this was contained in a report which the British Field Censor made in October 1941. He then wrote: ‘The tone of the troops’ mail from Tobruk is somewhat higher than that from other parts of the Western Desert, as the men realize that such a large amount of attention is focused on the Fortress.’

  When the siege began, Morshead was little more than a name to most of the Diggers and to all the Tommies. But Goebbels helped to make him a commanding figure, round whom the garrison could rally – not as men from Britain, Australia or India, but first and foremost as men of Tobruk.

  Through the long months of stalemate after the Battle of the Salient and the failure of the June offensive, the spirit of the Tobruk garrison was fully tested. As well as fighting the Axis divisions outside, they had to battle against dangers within – hardship, sickness and boredom.

  Climatically Tobruk was healthy enough, as battle-zones go, once the Italian filth had been cleared away. The weather between March and November was not particularly bad, apart from the dust. In June and July it was often fiercely hot by day, but the heat was dry and the nights were cool. The duststorms, however, were a severe trial. They were far worse at Tobruk than in the open desert beyond. Within the perimeter thousands of wheels had churned the baked crust of the earth into a fine powder, and every wind whipped it into a choking cloud. The men breathed dust, and ate dust. Every few days the wind raised a storm that blotted out everything. But regardless of this the troops had to man their posts and guns; drive their vehicles without windscreens; unload ships or lay mines.

  Next to the dust, Tobruk’s greatest plagues were the flies and fleas, which the Italians left behind as a persistent fifth column. Strangely enough a few other creatures survived in this scarred wasteland – little brown mice in the open desert; big grey rats in the caves that the troops converted into dug-outs; dozens of starved Libyan dogs, many of which were adopted as unit mascots; even a few cats, jackals and gazelles, a couple of goats and one ancient sheep. This animal, known as ‘Larry the Lamb’, was the jealously guarded mascot of a British ack-ack battery. Every night his masters placed a sentry to protect him from predatory Australians.

  Fortunately one dangerous creature – the mosquito – was absent. There was no lying water and so there was no malaria. The most troublesome illness was dysentery. So long as the troops drank only chlorinated water and sanitary regulations were strictly observed, this was kept in check; but several times carelessness was followed by bad outbreaks. One week in June, 226 men went down with dysentery – three times as many as became casualties in battle. After this, stricter control reduced it, and there was remarkably little other sickness, until deficiencies in rations began to tell.

  In the first three months there were no fresh, and little tinned,
vegetables or fruit. Except for two interruptions by bombing, the bakeries produced reasonably good bread six days a week and this and bully-beef were always the principal rations. Bully was a great leveller. Whether you ate it in the General’s mess or a front line post, you got bully at least twice a day in one or other of the many disguises that ingenious cooks devised. It was varied a little by M. & V. (ready-made meat and vegetable stew, a direct descendant of the last war’s ‘MacConachie’s’), tinned bacon and tinned herrings. In these months there was a fair supply of margarine, but sugar and jam were strictly rationed. As on Gallipoli, men usually had sufficient to keep them going but not enough for proper nourishment.

  To make up for the lack of fresh vegetables and fruit they were given concentrates of vitamin C in the form of little white ascorbic tablets. After several months of this limited diet the troops began to break out in ‘desert sores’, and little scratches took weeks to heal. The men worked hard and lived hard and when they eventually reached Palestine the infantry battalions found the average loss of weight was nearly two stone per man in five or six months.

  By mid-July, however, the food position improved so much that the daily ration of ascorbic tablets was cut from two to one. There were reasonable supplies of tinned fruit and vegetables. A little fresh fruit and vegetables appeared in the rations about once a week, and once a month troops in reserve positions had real meat. There was more marmite, lime juice, sugar and jam. About once a fortnight from June onwards – luxury of luxuries – the canteens had a bottle of whisky or gin per officer. There was still no beer for the men, but front line troops in the Salient and those going out on patrol were given a tot of rum to keep out the cold.