The Air Force in the Middle East was subordinated to the military conceptions and requirements of the Commander-in-Chief. However, under Air Marshal Tedder there was no need for hard-and-fast precedents. The relations between the Air Command and the new generals were in every way agreeable. The Western Desert Air Force, under Air Marshal Coningham, had now attained a fighting strength of 550 aircraft. There were two other groups, in addition to the aircraft based on Malta, numbering 650 planes, whose task it was to harry enemy ports and supply routes across both the Mediterranean and the Desert. Together with a hundred United States fighters and medium bombers, our total strength amounted to about 1,200 serviceable aircraft.
Alexander told us in various telegrams that about October 24 had been chosen for “Lightfoot”, as the operation was to be called. “Since there is no open flank,” he said, “the battle must be so stage-managed that a hole is blown in the enemy’s front.” Through this the Xth Corps, comprising the main armour, which was to be the spearhead of our attack, would advance in daylight. This corps would not have all its weapons and equipment before October 1. It would then require nearly a month’s training for its rôle. “In my view it is essential that the initial break-in attack should be launched in the full moon period. This will be a major operation, which will take some time, and an adequate gap in the enemy’s lines must be made if our armoured forces are to have a whole day in which to make their operation decisive …”
The weeks passed, and the date drew near. The Air Force had already begun their battle, attacking enemy troops, airfields, and communications. Special attention was paid to their convoys. In September 30 per cent. of Axis shipping supplying North Africa was sunk, largely by air action. In October the figure rose to 40 per cent. The loss of petrol was 66 per cent. In the four autumn months over 200,000 tons of Axis shipping was destroyed. This was a severe injury to Rommel’s army. At last the word came. General Alexander telegraphed: “Zip!”
In the full moon of October 23 nearly a thousand guns opened upon the enemy batteries for twenty minutes, and then turned on to their infantry positions. Under this concentration of fire, deepened by bombing from the air, the XXXth (General Leese) and XIIIth Corps (General Horrocks) advanced. Attacking on a front of four divisions, the whole XXXth Corps sought to cut two corridors through the enemy’s fortifications. Behind them the two armoured divisions of the Xth Corps (General Lumsden) followed to exploit success. Strong advances were made under heavy fire, and by dawn deep inroads had been made. The engineers had cleared the mines behind the leading troops. But the minefield system had not been pierced in its depth, and there was no early prospect of our armour breaking through. Farther south the 1st South African Division fought their way forward to protect the southern flank of the bulge, and the 4th Indian Division launched raids from the Ruweisat Ridge, while the 7th Armoured and 44th Divisions of the XIIIth Corps broke into the enemy defences opposite to them. This achieved its object of inducing the enemy to retain his two armoured divisions for three days behind this part of the front while the main battle developed in the north.
So far however no hole had been blown in the enemy’s deep system of minefields and defences. In the small hours of the 25th Montgomery held a conference of his senior commanders, at which he ordered the armour to press forward again before dawn in accordance with his original instructions. During the day more ground was indeed gained, after hard fighting; but the feature known as Kidney Ridge became the focus of an intense struggle with the enemy’s 15th Panzer and Ariete armoured divisions, which made a series of violent counter-attacks. On the front of the XIIIth Corps our attack was pressed no farther, in order to keep the 7th Armoured Division intact for the climax.
There had been serious derangements in the enemy’s command. Rommel had gone to hospital in Germany at the end of September, and his place was taken by General Stumme. Within twenty-four hours of the start of the battle Stumme died of a heart attack. Rommel, at Hitler’s request, left hospital and resumed his command late on the 25th.
Hard fighting continued on October 26 all along the deep bulge so far forced into the enemy line, and especially again at Kidney Ridge. The enemy Air Force, which had been quiescent on the previous two days, now made its definite challenge to our air superiority. There were many combats, ending mostly in our favour. The efforts of the XIIIth Corps had delayed but could not prevent the movement of the German armour to what they now knew was the decisive sector of their front. This movement however was severely smitten by our Air Force.
At this moment a new and fruitful thrust was made by the 9th Australian Division, under General Morshead. They struck northwards from the bulge towards the sea. Montgomery was prompt to exploit this notable success. He held back the New Zealanders from their westward drive and ordered the Australians to continue their advance towards the north. This threatened the retreat of part of the German infantry division on the northern flank. At the same time he now felt that the momentum of his main attack was beginning to falter in the midst of the minefields and strongly posted anti-tank guns. He therefore regathered his forces and reserves for a renewed and revived assault.
All through the 27th and the 28th a fierce conflict raged for Kidney Ridge against the repeated attacks of the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions, now arrived from the southern sector. General Alexander has described the struggle in these words:*
On October 27 came a big armoured counter-attack in the old style. Five times they attacked with all available tanks, both German and Italian, but gained no ground and suffered heavy and, worse still, disproportionate casualties, for our tanks, fighting on the defensive, suffered but lightly. On October 28 [the enemy] came again, [after] prolonged and careful reconnaissance all the morning, to find the weak spots and locate our anti-tank guns, followed by a smashing concentrated attack in the afternoon with the setting sun behind him. The reconnaissance was less successful than in the old days, since both our tanks and anti-tank guns could engage him with longer range. When the enemy attempted to concentrate for the final attack the R.A.F. once more intervened on a devastating scale. In two and a half hours bomber sorties dropped eighty tons of bombs in his concentration area, measuring three miles by two, and the enemy’s attack was defeated before he could even complete his forming up. This was the last occasion on which the enemy attempted to take the initiative.
In these days of October 26 and 28 three enemy tankers of vital importance were sunk by air attack, thus rewarding the long series of air operations which were an integral part of the land battle.
Montgomery now made his plans and dispositions for the decisive break-through (Operation “Supercharge”). He took out of the line the 2nd New Zealand and the 1st British Armoured Divisions, the latter being in special need of reorganisation after its notable share in the repulse of the German armour at Kidney Ridge. The British 7th Armoured and 51st Divisions and a brigade of the 44th were brought together and the whole welded into a new reserve. The break-through was to be led by the New Zealanders, the 151st and 152nd British Infantry Brigades, and the 9th British Armoured Brigade.
The magnificent forward drive of the Australians, achieved by ceaseless bitter fighting, had swung the whole battle in our favour. At 1 a.m. on November 2 “Supercharge” began. Under a barrage of 300 guns the British brigades attached to the New Zealand Division broke through the defended zone, and the 9th Armoured drove on ahead. They found however that a new line of defence strong in anti-tank weapons was facing them along the Rahman track. In a long engagement the brigade suffered severely, but the corridor behind was held open and the 1st British Armoured Division moved forward through it. Then came the last clash of armour in the battle. All the remaining enemy tanks attacked our salient on each flank, and were repulsed. Here was the final decision; but even next day, the 3rd, when our air reports indicated that the enemy’s retirement had begun, his covering rearguard on the Rahman track still held the main body of our armour at bay. An order came from Hitler forbidding
any retreat, but the issue was no longer in German hands. Only one more hole had to be punched. Very early on November 4, five miles south of Tel el Aggagir, the 5th Indian Brigade launched a quickly mounted attack which was completely successful. The battle was now won, and the way finally cleared for our armour to pursue across the open Desert.
Rommel was in full retreat, but there was transport and petrol for only a part of his force, and the Germans, though they had fought valiantly, gave themselves priority in vehicles. Many thousands of men from six Italian divisions were left stranded in the Desert, with little food or water, and no future but to be rounded up into prison camps. The battlefield was strewn with masses of destroyed or useless tanks, guns, and vehicles. According to their own records, the German armoured divisions, which had started the battle with 240 serviceable tanks, on November 5 mustered only thirty-eight. The German Air Force had given up the hopeless task of combating our superior Air, which now operated almost unhindered, attacking with all its resources the great columns of men and vehicles struggling westward. Rommel has himself paid notable tribute to the great part played by the Royal Air Force.* His army had been decisively beaten; his lieutenant, General von Thoma, was in our hands, with nine Italian generals.
There seemed good hopes of turning the enemy’s disaster into annihilation. The New Zealand Division was directed on Fuka, but when they reached it on November 5 the enemy had already passed. There was still a chance that they might be cut off at Mersa Matruh, upon which the 1st and 7th British Armoured Divisions had been thrust. By nightfall on the 6th they were nearing their objective, while the enemy were still trying to escape from the closing trap. But then rain came and forward petrol was scarce. Throughout the 7th our pursuit was halted. The twenty-four-hour respite prevented complete encirclement. Nevertheless four German divisions and eight Italian divisions had ceased to exist as fighting formations. Thirty thousand prisoners were taken, with enormous masses of material of all kinds. Rommel has left on record his opinion of the part played by our gunners in his defeat: “The British artillery demonstrated once again its well-known excellence. Especially noteworthy was its great mobility and speed of reaction to the requirements of the assault troops.”*
The Battle of Alamein differed from all previous fighting in the Desert. The front was limited, heavily fortified, and held in strength. There was no flank to turn. A break-through must be made by whoever was the stronger and wished to take the offensive. In this way we are led back to the battles of the First World War on the Western Front. We see repeated here in Egypt the same kind of trial of strength as was presented at Cambrai at the end of 1917, and in many of the battles of 1918, namely, short and good communications for the assailants, the use of artillery in its heaviest concentration, the “drumfire barrage”, and the forward inrush of tanks.
In all this General Montgomery and his chief, Alexander, were deeply versed by experience, study, and thought. Montgomery was a great artillerist. He believed, as Bernard Shaw said of Napoleon, that cannons kill men. Always we shall see him trying to bring three or four hundred guns into action under one concerted command, instead of the skirmishing of batteries which was the inevitable accompaniment of swoops of armour in wide Desert spaces. Of course everything was on a far smaller scale than in France and Flanders. We lost more than 13,500 men at Alamein in twelve days, but nearly 60,000 on the first day of the Somme. On the other hand, the fire-power of the defensive had fearfully increased since the previous war, and in those days it was always considered that a concentration of two or three to one was required, not only in artillery but men, to pierce and break a carefully fortified line. We had nothing like this superiority at Alamein. The enemy’s front consisted not only of successive lines of strongpoints and machine-gun posts, but of a whole deep area of such a defensive system. And in front of all there lay the tremendous shield of minefields of a quality and density never known before. For these reasons the Battle of Alamein will ever make a glorious page in British military annals.
There is another reason why it will survive. It marked in fact the turning of “the Hinge of Fate”. It may almost be said, “Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.”
CHAPTER XIX
THE TORCH IS LIT
THE President’s prejudices against General de Gaulle, the contacts he possessed through Admiral Leahy with Vichy, and our memories of the leakage about Dakar two years before led to a decision to withhold all information about “Torch” from the Free French. I did not contest these resolves. I was none the less conscious of our British relationships with de Gaulle, and of the gravity of the affront which he would have to suffer by being deliberately excluded from all share in the design. I planned to tell him just before the blow fell. As some means of softening this slight to him and his Movement, I arranged to confide the trusteeship of Madagascar to his hands. All the facts before us in the months of preparation and everything we have learnt since justify the view that bringing de Gaulle into the business would have been deeply injurious to French reactions in North Africa.
But the need to find some outstanding French figure was obvious, and to British and American eyes none seemed more appropriate than General Giraud, the fighting General of high rank whose dramatic, audacious escape from his prison in Germany was a famous tale. I have mentioned my meeting with Giraud at Metz in 1937,* when I visited the Maginot Line, of which he commanded the principal sector. He told me about his adventures in the First World War as an escaped prisoner behind the German lines. As fellow escapees this gave us something in common. Now he had as an Army Commander repeated his youthful exploits in an even more sensational fashion. The Americans entered into secret parleys with the General, and plans were made to bring him from the Riviera to Gibraltar at the decisive moment. Many hopes were based on “King-pin”, as he was called in our code, and not without danger from the sea Giraud and his two sons were safely transported.
Meanwhile our great armadas were approaching the scene. Most of the convoys which sailed from British ports had to cross the Bay of Biscay, traversing all the U-boat routes. Heavy escorts were needed and we had somehow to conceal not only the concentration of shipping which from the beginning of October began to crowd the Clyde and other western ports, but also the actual sailing of the convoys. We were completely successful. The Germans were led by their own Intelligence to believe that Dakar was again our aim. By the end of the month about forty German and Italian U-boats were stationed to the south and east of the Azores. They mauled severely a large convoy homeward bound for Sierra Leone, and sank thirteen ships. In the circumstances this could be borne. The first of the “Torch” convoys left the Clyde on October 22. By the 26th all the fast troopships were under way and American forces were sailing for Casablanca direct from the United States. The whole expedition of about 650 ships was now launched upon the enterprise. They traversed the Bay of Biscay or the Atlantic unseen by the U-boats or by the Luftwaffe.
21*
THE NORTH COAST OF AFRICA
All our resources were at full strain. Far to the north our cruisers watched the Denmark Strait and the exits from the North Sea to guard against intervention by enemy surface ships. Others covered the American approach near the Azores, and Anglo-American bombers attacked the U-boat bases along the French Atlantic seaboard. The leading ships began to enter the Mediterranean on the night of November 5th-6th still undetected. It was not until the 7th, when the Algiers convoy was less than twenty-four hours from its destination, that it was sighted, and even then only one ship was attacked.
On November 5 Eisenhower by a hazardous flight reached Gibraltar. I had placed the fortress within his command as the temporary headquarters of the leader of this first large-scale American and British enterprise. Here the great concentration of aircraft for “Torch” was made. The whole isthmus was crowded with machines, and fourteen squadrons of fighters were assembled for zero hour. All this activity necessarily took place in full view of Germa
n observers, and we could only hope they would think it was for the reinforcement of Malta. We did all we could to make them think so. Apparently they did.
General Eisenhower, in his memoirs, has given a vivid account of his anxious experiences during the night of November 7-8, and all through the next few days. He was always very good at bearing stresses of this kind. The immensity of the stake that was being played, the uncertainty of the weather, by which all might be wrecked, the fragmentary news which arrived, the extraordinary complications of the French attitude, the danger from Spain—all, apart from the actual fighting, must have made this a very hard trial to the Commander, whose responsibilities were enormous and direct.
Upon all this there descended General Giraud. He had come with the idea that he would be appointed Supreme Commander in North Africa, and that the American and British armies, of whose strength he had no prior knowledge, would be placed under his authority. He himself strongly urged a landing in France instead of or in addition to Africa, and for some time seemed to imagine that this picture possessed reality. Argument, protracted over forty-eight hours, proceeded between him and General Eisenhower before this brave Frenchman could be convinced of the proportion of affairs. We had all counted overmuch upon “King-pin”, but no one was to be more undeceived than he about the influence he had with the French governors, generals, and indeed the Officer Corps, in North Africa.
A curious but in the upshot highly fortunate complication now occurred. Admiral Darlan, having completed his tour of inspection in North Africa, returned to France. His son was stricken by infantile paralysis and taken into hospital at Algiers. The news of his dangerous condition led the Admiral to fly back on November 5. He thus happened to be in Algiers on the eve of the Anglo-American descent. This was an odd and formidable coincidence. Mr. Robert Murphy, the American political representative in North Africa, hoped he would depart before the assault struck the shores. But Darlan, absorbed in his son’s illness, tarried for a day, staying in the villa of a French official, Admiral Fénard.
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