As a prelude to the attack on El Adem, the 11th Indian Brigade was tasked with capturing Bir el Gubi. The attack began at 0700 on 4 December 1941, but the Italian troops made good use of artillery and anti-tank guns as well as armour to keep the Indians at bay. By the following day, all three battalions of the brigade had been committed to the attack – but to little effect. Not only did the Italians inflict considerable casualties, but they counter-attacked and dislodged the brigade from the positions it had captured. Two companies of the 2nd Mahrattas were completely overrun and the 2nd Camerons suffered heavily too. The next day, the brigade was reinforced by tanks. But it turned out that the Axis forces were thinning out from their positions.29
The Axis withdrawal was precipitated by Rommel’s over-extension. His push towards the Egypt frontier had been repulsed. What’s more, the New Zealand Division had linked up with the garrison in Tobruk. In consequence, Rommel made a few probes around Tobruk and on 4 December decided to pull back to its west. Three days later, he was told by Berlin and Rome not to expect any reinforcements. So Rommel withdrew to Ain el Gazala, around 50 miles west of Tobruk.
The Eighth Army quickly reorganized for pursuit. Since its supply chain was rather inadequate to support two corps, Ritchie decided that the 30th Corps should consolidate on the frontier, while the 13th Corps chased the Axis forces in Cyrenaica. The 13th Corps had under its command the 4th Indian Division, the 7th Armoured Division and the 5th New Zealand Brigade. The logistical constraints of the Eighth Army were replicated in the 4th Division. Hence the divisional commander, Major General Frank Messervy, decided to advance with only two brigades – the 5th and 7th – leaving behind the bulk of the third – 11th Brigade – at Tobruk. The division’s plan was to skirt from the south the Axis defences at Gazala, take a few strongholds behind them and push north towards Derna.
In the afternoon of 11 December, the 4th Division commenced its advance. Bypassing the defences at Gazala, however, proved difficult. Rommel’s forces were strung out in a long line of strongpoints and defensive localities stretching south-west from the coast. As long as these were held, there was no question of outflanking Gazala and moving to objectives behind it. So it was decided to force the line of defences with brigade-sized punches at two key points. The attacks by the 5th and 7th Brigades on 13 December met with stern resistance. Rommel also threw in a tank column supported by motorized infantry and artillery at the 4th Division’s artillery guns. Soon, waves of German Stukas droned above the battlefield and began dive-bombing.
The next afternoon, as the attack got bogged down, the division was reinforced by thirty assorted tanks. The 7th Armoured Division was also brought into the fray – tasked with moving south of the Axis line and supporting the 4th Division’s attacks. Co-ordination between armour and infantry continued to prove elusive; the leading brigade of the 7th Armoured Division reached its destination four hours behind schedule, leaving the 5th Indian Brigade with little choice but to attack with a handful of Matildas. They were easy meat for the defenders. Even where the Indian brigades managed to obtain a finger-hold, they were unable to stave off counter-attacks.30
The fate of the 1st Buffs of the 5th Brigade – overrun by a mobile all-arms Axis column – highlighted several shortcomings of the Eighth Army as a whole. For one thing, the battalion had not dug proper gun emplacements soon after capturing the enemy’s position. For another, the infantry and tanks were too widely dispersed to assist the field artillery against enemy attacks. Finally, the British tanks sought to engage the Axis tanks by firing from extreme ranges. As a result, by the time they closed in with the enemy, they were almost out of ammunition.31 Put simply, despite improvements in technology, the 4th Division suffered from flawed tactics and insufficient training for combined-arms warfare.
Having failed to pierce the Axis defences, the 4th Division fell back for reinforcements and prepared to resume its offensive on 17 December. That morning Messervy received a message from the Corps headquarters, informing him that the bulk of the Axis forces were pulling out of the Gazala defences and withdrawing to the west. Inside the hour, the division set out on pursuit. Messervy kept his units going at a good clip, exploiting opportunities to bypass lightly defended positions and moving by night. By 21 December, the division was well on its way to clearing the Jebel Akhdar. As the brigades entered populated areas evacuated by the Axis forces, they had to curb the local Arabs who went on a rampage against any remaining Italian settlers, so slowing down their advance. As the infantry battalions fanned out to the west, the Central India Horse with some armoured cars and anti-tank guns moved down the coast road, pressing hard on the retreating Italians.
As the division raced ahead, its logistical line stretched taut and thin. The motor transport of almost an entire brigade had to be withdrawn for repairs. The petrol allocation was considerably scaled down. By 23 December, it was evident that the Axis forces were preparing to evacuate Benghazi. The 4th Division and the 7th Armoured Division were tasked with preventing them from getting away intact. But the Indian division was practically at a standstill; Messervy managed to get just enough petrol to rush forward the CIH in support of the armoured division. By the time the regiment reached Benghazi on Christmas Eve, the town and the port had been evacuated by the Axis forces. Four days later, the division headquarters reached Benghazi. General Messervy, having been selected to command the 1st British Armoured Division, handed over to Major General Francis Tuker.
Meanwhile, the Axis forces had withdrawn initially to Agedabia and then to El Agheila, where they decided to make a final stand. The 4th Division’s long journey from Matruh had cost it 2,633 casualties, including 150 British officers and 28 Indian officers. The Eighth Army commander was generous in his assessment. ‘The 4th Division have really done the most magnificent work’, Ritchie wrote to Auchinleck. ‘No praise can be high enough for these achievements.’32 Holding on to these gains, however, turned out to be rather more difficult.
The Eighth Army could not secure its hold on Cyrenaica so long as the Axis forces held the area around El Agheila. Unless Rommel was forced to retreat further west back into Tripolitania, there was the danger of a counter-offensive. This, as earlier, would compel the British forces into a futile retreat all the way back to the Egyptian frontier. Auchinleck was aware of this all-or-nothing operational predicament. Yet, he also knew that El Agheila was a highly defensible locality and that currently he could himself barely support one corps in the forward area. A serious build-up of troops and materiel was imperative before taking on the Axis forces near El Agheila. Auchinleck erred, however, in thinking that he had until mid-February 1942 to complete his preparations. He believed that Rommel – with some 35,000 troops and 70 tanks – would not risk an offensive until he had received reinforcements.33
Very like Wavell, Auchinleck underestimated the sheer chutzpah of his adversary. Rommel launched his attack on 21 January 1942 – a month earlier than expected. The forward troops of the 1st Armoured Division were too weak and scattered, and after five days of combat, the division lost 100 tanks with nearly 1,000 troops taken prisoner. On 27 January, Rommel’s forces stood at Msus – a tactically important location from which they could advance on Mechili and render Jebel Akhdar untenable for British forces.
The 4th Indian Division was as unprepared for an attack as the 1st Armoured Division. Its forces were equally scattered: the brigades being located at Benghazi, Barce and Tobruk. Worse still, it was immobile. The division had initially been ordered to hold a position south of Benghazi both to prevent the Axis forces from moving north along the coastal road and to deny them east–west routes to Jebel Akhdar. But the Axis advance towards Msus had threatened to cut-off the division at Benghazi. This resulted in much confusion. The division was twice ordered to pull out of Benghazi – only to be then told to stand firm.34
On the morning of 26 January, a staff officer arrived from the Eighth Army headquarters with instructions from on high for Tuker. Auchinleck believed th
at Rommel’s advance was only a show of force and that an offensive defence would thwart his drive. Tuker was asked therefore to take the maximum risk and engage the Axis forces in his area with as many mobile columns as he could muster. Tuker thought otherwise. He disagreed with this assessment of Rommel’s intent. Nor did he regard the proposed plan as at all feasible. His division had only one brigade – the 7th – in fighting trim. The other two were tied down with duties elsewhere and lacked transportation besides. Above all, Benghazi was not a particularly defensible position. Accordingly Tuker urged the army commander to consider withdrawing the division back to Derna, whence a counter-offensive could be deliberately prepared and launched. Ritchie was convinced, however, that the 4th Division should take the fight to the enemy. Following a meeting in Benghazi on 27 January, he agreed to Tuker’s alternative suggestion for a co-ordinated attack on Msus by the 4th Indian Division and the remnants of the 1st Armoured Division.35
As the hour of attack neared, General Ritchie learnt the extent of the damage done to the armoured division. Realizing the seriousness of Rommel’s offensive, he asked the armoured units to pull back towards Mechili – the direction in which Rommel seemed to be heading. This was, in fact, a feint. As British tanks pulled away from the Msus area, Rommel’s forces swung west towards Benghazi. As Axis columns closed in on Benghazi, Tuker had no option but to request permission to evacuate. On the afternoon of 28 January, the divisional headquarters began pulling out of Benghazi after demolishing key installations and stores. The 7th Indian Brigade was to follow after dusk. However, a strong Axis column had looped across Benghazi and snipped the main road at one point. The brigade commander decided to split his forces into three columns – each of which would independently fight its way out of Benghazi towards the east. The plan did not work out smoothly, but the brigade did manage to regroup at Mechili with most of its troops and guns on 31 January 1942.
Auchinleck wanted the Eighth Army to stabilize along a line running south from Jebel Akhdar to the desert, regroup, and go on the offensive. The line was little more than a series of positions overlooking the nodal points of the roads and tracks that scored the face of Cyrenaica. Over the next four days, the 4th Indian Division took up and abandoned ten such lines, hoping at each point to delay the Axis advance, eventually falling back on the line running from Gazala on the coast to Bir Hacheim in the desert.36
The Gazala–Bir Hacheim Line was intended to shield Tobruk, which in turn would act as a forward supply base for the resumption of the counter-offensive. When the Eighth Army reached Gazala, the line was more notional than real. Ritchie quickly set about erecting fortified strongpoints in the triangular area of Tobruk, Gazala and Bir Hacheim. The Gazala Line evolved not as a continuous chain of defences but as a series of more than half a dozen ‘boxes’ – all-round defensive perimeters shielded by a 40-mile-long minefield. The gaps between the boxes were patrolled by tanks; the latter would also assist any of the boxes that came under particularly heavy attack.
On 12 February, two brigades of the 4th Division stood at the Gazala Line while the third, 7th Brigade, was deployed on the Egyptian side of the frontier. In early April 1942, however, the division was dispersed widely: the 7th Brigade was sent to Cyprus, the 5th Brigade to Palestine for garrison duties, and the 11th Brigade to train for combined operations. The division’s artillery and anti-aircraft assets were also parcelled out. And the divisional armoured regiment, the CIH, was posted to an armoured formation for training. The division as a whole was replaced in the North African desert by the 5th Indian Division.37
Rommel halted his forces ahead of Gazala owing to the now familiar shortages of tanks and supplies. Over the next four months both sides prepared themselves to go on the offensive. By early May 1942, the Eighth Army held the Gazala Line with 100,000 men, 849 tanks and 604 aircraft. Rommel, on the other hand, had built up 90,000 troops with 561 tanks (half of which were inferior Italian machines) and 542 aircraft. At last, the British enjoyed qualitative as well as quantitative superiority. Many of their armoured regiments held American-made Grant tanks, which were more than a match for the Axis tanks. British forces had also begun to receive the new 6-pounder anti-tank guns. Furthermore, the British knew from Ultra intelligence that Rommel planned to attack the Gazala Line towards the end of May.38
Rommel’s attack came on 27 May – a week before Auchinleck’s own offensive was to have been launched. Among the points at which his forces fell on the Gazala Line was the ‘box’ near Bir Hacheim. Deployed 30 miles east of the box was the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade of the 5th Division. Closer still – just 4 miles south-east of Bir Hacheim – was the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade.
This brigade had held up Axis forces at Mechili just over a year previously, and had been decimated during that action. Not until early May 1942 was it fully reconstituted and trained. The training took place at a camp 20 miles north of Cairo and was focused on static and mobile defence as a box. The latter proved particularly tricky to master. After one practice manoeuvre at night that ended in utter confusion, the brigade commander prophetically remarked, ‘If this had happened during a move whilst in contact with the enemy the brigade would be wiped out in half an hour.’39
The brigade was initially moved to Mersa Matruh. On 22 May, it was ordered forward from Matruh. As the units drove along the coast road, they were strafed by the odd enemy aircraft. More serious were the duststorms that kicked up as the brigade turned inland. ‘Sand got into every nook and cranny of the body’, recalled an Indian artillery officer in the brigade. ‘It was everywhere, in the food, the eyes and ears and was the biggest nuisance to one’s ease and comfort.’40
The brigade was deployed in Bir Hacheim just in time for the Axis offensive. It had only thirty anti-tanks guns – less than half of what it was supposed to hold; no tanks; and only a fraction of its carriers. Nor did it have much time to emplace its guns. Shortcomings in materiel were matched by those of men. The veterans of 1941 had all been sent back to India as instructors in the new cavalry training centres. The reconstituted brigade, then, had little real experience of fighting in the theatre.
By the evening of 26 May, the brigade had taken up position in a defensive box facing west, with two regiments ahead, the third covering the flanks and rear, and the artillery regiment in the centre. A little later, the men were served a hot meal and the officers went to the field mess for a drink and dinner. ‘Every one was in good spirits that at long last we had made it to the front line of confrontation with the enemy.’41 That night an advance column of the Axis forces tried to skirt the Bir Hacheim box and ran into the 3rd Motor Brigade. At first light, the brigade opened up with its artillery and targeted the soft-skinned vehicles of the Axis troops. By 0730 the Panzers counter-attacked and overran the brigade in thirty minutes. The commander refused to surrender and ordered all his troops to fight their way out to a rallying point 4 miles to the east. In attempting this, the brigade paid heavily: 41 officers, including 3 commanding officers, were killed or wounded, and about 600 soldiers were taken prisoner.42
The British fared little better in the other battles. Although the Axis forces were bogged down by the dense minefields, Ritchie was unable to think ahead of the fluid battle and squandered the opportunity to defeat Rommel. By the time he decided to hurl the 7th Armoured Division and the 5th Indian Division (less one brigade) on the Axis bridgehead, it was too late. The counter-offensive was an unleavened disaster. The usual problem of infantry–tank co-operation was exacerbated in this instance by the fact that the armoured division was under the command of 13th Corps while the infantry was under the 30th Corps. The two-pronged attack by the infantry and armour converged at the wrong place. The Axis counter-attack was savagely effective: fifty of the seventy British tanks were knocked out. The Axis tanks then took the infantry in their cross-hairs and pinned an entire brigade down by fire. The limited gains made by the other infantry brigade were swiftly liquidated by the enemy’s counter-attacks.
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bsp; With the fall of Bir Hacheim on 8 June, the wind was in Rommel’s sails. Auchinleck reluctantly decided to pull back the Eighth Army from the Gazala Line and concentrate on the defence of Tobruk. Among the formations allocated for this was the 11th Indian Infantry Brigade of the 4th Indian Division. From 6 June onwards, the brigade set about repairing the defences of Tobruk and training on anti-tank guns and mortars. The withdrawal of other formations, including the 20th Indian Brigade, through Tobruk undoubtedly hit the morale of the men.43 Over the following days, the brigade was reinforced by a battalion of the 29th Indian Brigade, which trickled in after the fall of El Adem. All along, the 11th Brigade kept up an active routine of patrolling every night.
The attack on Tobruk began on the morning of 20 June. The 11th Brigade took the brunt of the first thrusts. The 2/5th Mahrattas gave a good account of themselves for nearly three hours before being overrun by the German tanks. The 2/7th Gurkhas were isolated in one pocket of the garrison, but refused to surrender: they had to be rooted out platoon by platoon. By the afternoon the brigade headquarters also caved in. The 22,000-strong garrison surrendered early the next morning.
The fall of Tobruk sent shockwaves rippling far out of North Africa. It came as a heavy blow to Churchill, who was then in Washington. The troops in the theatre were also badly shaken. Lieutenant Basu was with his unit some 50 miles from Tobruk when he heard the news of the surrender on the radio:
The fall of Tobruk shook us. That complacent feeling that all was going well with our army was gone. More than that, it had taken our confidence away. Worse still, many got panicky and rumours that Germans had been seen near the camp were whispered with all seriousness and awe even by responsible officers. We were always ready for any eventuality. The trucks were kept ready to move out at half an hour’s notice. And then one night we were told to move back to Sollum box.44
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