Tobruk 1941

by Chester Wilmot

  Early that afternoon, however, before the Eighth Army could consolidate along this line, German tanks and infantry attacked from the north. While the South Africans were fully occupied in holding off these, another seventy German tanks swept in from the south-west, scattering the Brigade’s supply vehicles and capturing its H.Q. The tanks drove on with guns blazing, right through the exposed infantry positions and back again. So long as ammunition lasted the South Africans kept up the fight, but before dark the survivors of this gallant brigade had become a column of prisoners. Its total casualties including captured and missing were nearly 4000.

  The 22nd Armoured Brigade had done its best to save them, but had been distracted by a well-timed Italian tank attack from the west. By nightfall the men of the Tobruk garrison must have regarded the campaign as already lost. They were still only half way out to Ed Duda and the armoured hand that had been stretched out to meet them had now been forced back. The gap between the 7th Armoured Division and Tobruk had widened in twenty-four hours from seven miles to about thirty-five. The nearest New Zealanders were still astride the Trigh Capuzzo, twenty miles from the Tobruk perimeter, but the balance of armoured strength, on which the garrison pinned its hopes, had now passed to the Germans.

  Rommel had succeeded thus far by remarkably bold and able handling of his tanks. He summed up the secret of his own success when he said to a captured British tank brigadier after the battle: ‘What difference does it make if you have two tanks to my one, when you spread them out and let me smash them in detail? You presented me with three brigades in succession.’ He had kept all his tanks together. Cunningham had deliberately divided his, and even when he knew that Rommel was attacking the 4th Brigade alone, he still did not send the others to its aid. Until more than a third of the 7th Armoured Division’s tanks had been destroyed, Rommel never had to engage its three brigades together.

  Added to the advantage Cunningham gave him, Rommel’s use of field and anti-tank guns in close support of his tanks made them more formidable. He repeated the trick, which he had used so well in the June battle, of withdrawing his tanks through a screen of 88 mm and 50 mm guns and luring British armour into their deadly fire. Greatest advantage of all was the superior quality of his tanks and guns. The 50 mm on the Mark IIIs fired a 4½-pound shell and was effective at 1400 yards; the 2-pounder on the British tanks was of little use beyond 800. Thus, while the British were too far away to open fire, the Germans could engage them from the steady platform of a stationary tank. If the Germans were forced to withdraw, they could get away comfortably under cover of their 88 mm guns, which were effective at 2000 yards and more. The British tried to use the 25-pounder in the same role. It was excellent in defence, but was of less value in attack because it had not the mobility or range of the 88 mm. The result was that after five days the German armour had gone very near to destroying the force that had set out to destroy it.

  This was a heavy set-back to the Army that had gone into battle with such high hopes and with these words of Mr Churchill ringing in their ears: ‘For the first time British and Empire troops will meet the Germans with ample equipment in modern weapons of all kinds.’ Many correspondents in the desert felt at the time that this had yet to be proved, but Eighth Army H.Q. and G.H.Q. Cairo had been confident of complete victory. Their optimism persisted even after the experience of the first five days.

  The basic reason for this was that no accurate system of checking enemy tank losses had been worked out. In the confusion of battles fought amid clouds of dust, tank crews could not easily tell how many tanks they had hit, and often the same victim must have been claimed by several crews. Further, there was a tendency to count disabled tanks as destroyed, even though the Germans were left in possession of the battlefield after most encounters and had an excellent recovery system – something the Eighth Army lacked.

  When the campaign began to go badly and it was clear that the early claims of German losses had been exaggerated, the Army tried to blame the optimistic over-statements on to war correspondents and the Prime Minister’s son, Major Randolph Churchill, who was then head of the Information and Propaganda section at G.H.Q. Acting as liaison between Eighth Army H.Q. and correspondents in the desert, however, he did little more than pass on what that H.Q. told him. Admittedly his enthusiasm modified the natural scepticism of the correspondents, but faulty information was still the main reason for the over-optimism, and when correspondents tried to warn the British people of the real position they were stopped by G.H.Q.

  In many cases the exaggerated dispatches of the first week came not so much from the desert as from Cairo, where the newspaper ‘string-men’ – known as the ‘2nd Eleven’ – had to rely on the communiqués and the embellishments of the ‘Military Spokesman’. He was probably the greatest optimist of all, and he was not Randolph Churchill, as was suggested in the House of Commons. Following this Cairo lead, London editors, bent on feeding victory-hungry readers, added another layer of optimism and after the first few days their headlines shouted complete victory. When the truth seeped through and searching questions were asked in the House about the Cairo Military Spokesman, the officer in question left his deputy to carry on. The deputy immediately warned correspondents that what he said might be used but not quoted as coming from any Military Spokesman.

  This drew from an American correspondent, Sam Brewer, the drawled inquiry: ‘Well, colonel, that maybe O.K. for you, but our papers won’t take it on our say-so. We’ve got to quote some source. What would you rather be – a “Military Spokesman” or an “authoritative circle”?’

  Although not as severe as Cairo had claimed, Rommel’s tank losses had been heavy, and his reserves were not as great as those of the Eighth Army. At this stage he probably did not have many more than a hundred German and seventy-five Italian tanks fit for action, though a number of others were being repaired. The 7th Armoured Division had less than a hundred tanks, but fifty more were on their way from the railhead and another fifty en route from Alexandria. In addition there were still about sixty infantry tanks in Tobruk and with 13th Corps. In June these had proved too slow for effective use in an open tank battle, but they still had to be reckoned with.

  Evidently realizing this, Rommel decided to make a bold throw. On the morning of November 24th he sent General von Ravenstein3 on a diversionary raid with thirty to forty tanks, plus a battalion of lorried infantry and several batteries of field and anti-tank artillery. Rommel ordered this column to move south from Sidi Rezegh to the Trigh El Abd and then east to the frontier near Sidi Omar, where the British had over-run part of the defended locality two days earlier, and on into Egypt to link up with the Halfaya garrison.

  Shooting up everything in sight, the column outflanked the 7th Armoured Division, scattered its transport and over-ran its supply dumps; put 30th Corps H.Q. to flight and generally herded across the frontier all the administrative and supply vehicles on which the forward troops depended. On the way it was severely bombed and strafed by the R.A.F., which hindered but could not stop its advance. On the afternoon of the 24th thousands of British vehicles were streaming eastwards across the frontier as hard as they could go. A ‘flap’ was on and once a flap starts in the desert it is difficult to stop, but fortunately the boundary fence provided a place at which to rally the disorganized troops. Even so the German use of many captured British and South African trucks made reorganization difficult. No one could tell friend from foe, as Damien Parer and I found that afternoon, when we drove our truck straight towards a column, which we did not realize was German until an anti-tank gun opened fire on us. We got away in time, in spite of Parer’s immediate reaction which was to stall the truck, switch off the engine and step furiously on the starter. Suddenly the truck roared into action again and shot off across the desert spurred on by several shells which were no match for Parer’s speed.

  All the night Eighth Army H.Q. was ready for a sudden move, and R.A.F. fighters were withdrawn from some of the advanced dromes.
Next morning, however, the German raiders were again heavily attacked from the air and were finally halted ten miles east of the frontier by a few tanks and guns. When another armoured column attacked from the south, von Ravenstein, having lost eighteen tanks, turned north and escaped through the frontier defences, which the Axis still held southwest of Halfaya. The raid had spread great confusion, but had failed in its main objective which was to force the 7th Armoured Division to withdraw from the area between Sidi Rezegh and Gabr Saleh, where it was re-organizing.

  By this time, however, Cunningham was convinced that there was no chance of relieving Tobruk. Ele recommended to Achinleck that the Eighth Army should withdraw to its former positions in Egypt, re-group and refit. Auchinleck would not hear of this. He flew at once to Cunningham’s H.Q., bringing with him a new Army Commander, Major-General N. M. Ritchie. Auchinleck had to have a commander who believed that the battle could be won, but his appointment of Ritchie was a complete surprise. As Deputy Chief of Staff at G.H.Q., Ritchie had gained a reputation as an administrator, but he had little command experience and, at the age of forty-four, was young by British Army standards for so important a command. He was still, however, to be little more than a chief of staff, for Auchinleck stayed in the desert to direct the battle himself.

  He knew that it would be disastrous, politically and militarily, if the campaign, which had been launched with such high hopes, were now to be abandoned. If the pressure from the frontier were not maintained, Rommel might turn against Tobruk and overwhelm it before the Eighth Army could strike back.

  Auchinleck’s order to all ranks was ‘Attack and Pursue’, and he instructed the New Zealanders to press on at once to the relief of Tobruk, regardless of what was happening behind them. Rommel himself had helped to clear the way for this advance by sending von Ravenstein to the frontier and another tank column to attack the 7th Armoured Division. By doing this he had withdrawn from the Sidi Rezegh area most of the tanks with which he had captured and held it. He had thus opened the way for fresh attacks by the New Zealanders and the Tobruk garrison.

  During November 23rd and 24th, the infantry fighting their way out from Tobruk had made little headway, for their tanks had been forced to withdraw for maintenance. But on the 25th the tanks came back, and Fortress H.Q. was warned that the New Zealanders would make an all-out attempt to reach Sidi Rezegh the following day. The garrison must get to Ed Duda by then. Early on the 26th, British infantry captured ‘Wolf’, the last stronghold covering their objective, but there was no sign of the relieving forces. Throughout that morning the garrison’s observers eagerly scanned the crest of the El Adem escarpment with their field glasses, but they looked in vain. About one o’clock several small specks appeared upon the skyline. They were tanks. Ours or theirs? German reinforcements for Ed Duda or British relieving forces? From one of the tanks three red flares went up; a pause; and then three more. That was the Eighth Army’s signal – relief was at last in sight.

  With fresh verve the British swept on to Ed Duda and by four o’clock men of the Essex Regiment and the Northumberland Fusiliers had driven the last German from the ridge. Tobruk had done its part, but there was still a 2-mile gap to Sidi Rezegh and the New Zealanders were not yet there. Soon after dark, however, they fought their way through to both Sidi Rezegh and Bel Hamed, an important rise two miles east of Ed Duda. By one o’clock next morning the 19th New Zealand Battalion, with a squadron of British ‘I’ tanks, reached Ed Duda itself. At last Tobruk and the Eighth Army were linked, but it was too early to say that the garrison was relieved – in fact the general feeling was well expressed in the famous comment by the G.O.C., 13th Corps, when his H.Q. followed the New Zealanders inside the perimeter: ‘Tobruk may be relieved, but it’s not nearly as relieved as I am.’ Already Rommel was mustering his armoured forces around Gambut for another major blow.

  The 7th Armoured Division was also refitting near Gabr Saleh, and in the meantime the battle became fluid. There was no organized fighting and small mobile columns from both sides roamed at large in the area between Tobruk and the frontier. The British have a special aptitude for fighting of this kind and ‘Jock’ columns and small tank formations destroyed a number of German tanks in impromptu skirmishes. The battle was so fluid that while British supply columns were moving north to Tobruk, Axis convoys were moving east across this route in an attempt to reach the beleaguered forces on the frontier and at Bardia. It was more like naval than land warfare. Convoys were slipping through and ‘destroyers’ were worrying them, while the main ‘battle-fleets’ prepared for another action. Nominally, the Germans around Gambut were cut off from their troops on the frontier and from those at El Adem, but the Eighth Army’s line of communication with the head of the corridor the garrison had made through the defences screening Tobruk was little more secure than a convoy route across the Atlantic.

  By November 29th Rommel felt strong enough to make a thorough-going attack on the Sidi Rezegh–Bel Hamed–Ed Duda triangle, which was the head of the Tobruk corridor. Sending in the 15th Armoured Division from the west and the 21st, plus some Italians, to attack from the east, he planned to chop off the head of the corridor with two concerted blows. The Eighth Army intercepted a radio message giving these orders. At once fifty British tanks moved north to intervene while ‘Jock’ columns were sent to harass the rear and flanks of both the German armoured forces.

  Early in the afternoon the attack was launched. The New Zealanders on Bel Hamed and Sidi Rezegh held their ground, but the 1st Battalion of the Essex Regiment, which was holding the western slope of Ed Duda, was driven back by German infantry supported by more than fifty tanks. At dark the enemy was strongly established on the western end of the Ed Duda ridge, and, if the rest of it were to be lost, the corridor wall would collapse and the garrison would have to withdraw inside the perimeter. Already the Tobruk commander, General Scobie, had eight of his fourteen infantry battalions holding the corridor and those inside were dangerously spread out. But Eighth Army H.Q. had sent this most urgent warning – ‘At all costs the corridor must be held.’

  The task of regaining the lost ground on Ed Duda was given to the only Australians still in Tobruk – the 2/13th Battalion. They had moved out to a reserve position on the northern slope of the rise the night before, and all through November 29th had been heavily shelled. Late that afternoon the artillery fire increased as the Germans attacked and before dark the Essex had been driven back and the Australians knew that they would have the crucial task of counter-attacking that night. They welcomed the chance, realizing that on their success or failure the relief of Tobruk might depend. They knew that Scobie had told their C.O. (Lieutenant-Colonel Burrows), ‘Whatever happens we must hold Ed Duda.’

  In bright moonlight shortly after ten o’clock Burrows led his two attacking companies up the northern slopes of Ed Duda towards their start-line. As they went a stray shell landed in the middle of one platoon. Seven men were killed and ten wounded, but the other platoons marched steadily on. Their start-line was the crest of a fold on the slope of the ridge; but when they reached it Burrows saw that twenty-four enemy tanks were sitting on the positions the Germans had captured that afternoon. He told his men to lie down behind the crest while he went back for tanks. He returned with six; they attacked but the Germans held their ground. He called for artillery support and down came a heavy barrage. It was not long before two enemy tanks were blazing and the others were in retreat.

  By this time more British tanks had arrived and they engaged the last of the retreating German tanks. With these clear of the position, Burrows unleashed his two companies, Captain O. M. Walsoe’s on the right and Captain H. T. Graham’s on the left, about 160 men in all. Walsoe described this afterwards:

  Suddenly we were away. I remember calling out ‘Come on Aussies’ and seeing the long line of steadily advancing men on either side of me. Up the slope we went and as we neared the top we heard the jabber of a foreign tongue in which we could soon distinguish ‘
Englander kommen’. I fired a green very light and with a wild roar our chaps charged down upon them. The sight and sound of us must have been too much for the Germans. A few desultory bursts of fire and then they cracked. Some broke and ran; some, cowering in their weapon pits, held up their hands. We swept over them, across the by-pass road, which ran along the back of Ed Duda, and on for several hundred yards until we’d gone right through their infantry positions. A few odd pockets held on, but they were soon cleared out with the bayonet. Our tally of prisoners was 167 – more than our total attacking force. It was hard to stop the men from keeping up the pursuit, but we had to consolidate on the ground we’d recovered.

  What the 2/13th gained it held, and Ed Duda was held too, in spite of persistent enemy shelling. Two nights later the 2/13th was withdrawn to a reserve position in which it suffered heavy casualties from enemy artillery fire. After two days there, it moved back inside the perimeter. ‘Never did we think,’ wrote one of them later, ‘during all those months in Tobruk, that we would ever want to return to it, but this night we were glad to.’

  Thwarted at Ed Duda, the Germans on November 30th turned their main strength against the other two points of the vital triangle – Bel Hamed and Sidi Rezegh. All day on the 30th the 6th New Zealand Brigade and the 1st South African Brigade were heavily attacked from both east and west by enemy tanks and infantry. Before dark Sidi Rezegh was again in German hands, and the following morning a similar pincer attack against Bel Hamed drove the New Zealanders from there as well. The garrison still held Ed Duda, but Tobruk was again isolated.