ROMMEL AND THE DESERT CAMPAIGN

THE PUSH TO EGYPT

At this point, this book must go back in time - a manoeuvre that all writers tackling a subject as vast as the Second World War seem unable to avoid. We must return to North Africa, and to March 1941. General O'Connor and his two divisions, who had on December 9th 1940 set out on what was intended as a nine-day raid, had instead advanced 560 miles across the desert to Tobruk and Benghazi, destroying nine Italian divisions, capturing 130,000 men (including 22 Generals and an Admiral), and eliminating 845 guns and 380 tanks, all for the loss of 500 dead, 1,373 wounded and 56 missing. The Italians were humiliated, Hitler was angry, and Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel was summoned by Field Marshal Brauchitsch to take command of a new offensive.

Rommel arrived in Tripoli on February 12th, and presented himself to the Italian General Gariboldi, who had just taken over from Graziani. During the eighteen months from March 1941 to September 1942, Rommel was to prove himself one of the most able field commanders of military history; a man capable of leading an army from a major defeat at Tobruk to almost total victory at the gates of Alexandria; a man whose name and ability were respected on both sides of the battle he so nearly won. He was also to prove infuriatingly blinkered and single-minded to his army command colleagues, whose understanding and appreciation of the overall strategy of the war was usually greater than his, and who resented bitterly Rommel's purloining Luftwaffe resources intended for the capture of Malta and the relief of the fierce Allied campaign against Italian merchant ships in the Mediterranean. First Cavallero, then Kesselring became exasperated with Rommel's insistence on ever-greater support, and with Hitler's acceptance of his arguments.

The new German offensive was to be launched by the 15th Panzer Division and the 5th Light Division, and advance units were sent to Tripoli from Italy during February. It was expected that the whole 5th Light Division would be ready in North Africa by mid-April, and that the last of 15th Panzer would have arrived by the end of May. The first attack on Agedabia was therefore scheduled by the German High Command for May, and General Wavell, in command of the Allied force, knowing that extensive German forces and armour had perforce to be shipped to North Africa, believed that no counter attack was likely before then. Thus, there was not undue concern that many of O'Connor's hard pressed tanks had to be withdrawn from Tobruk for maintenance because the speed of O'Connor's unscheduled advance had left the maintenance facilities far behind.

Rommel, who had been awarded Benghazi as his spring campaign objective, was not pleased with the conservative approach of the High Command, and sensed that the Allies were less well prepared for a fight than their success against the Italians suggested. He resolved to test their strength, and at dawn on March 24th, the 5th Light Division attacked El Agheila. The British defenders fell back without a fight to stronger positions at Marsa Brega, with the Gulf of Sirte on one side, and a salt marsh that tanks could not cross on the other. Rommel's orders now required that he wait for the remainder of the 15th Panzer Division to arrive before exploiting his initial advantage, but he was unwilling to allow the Allies time to regroup and bring up more armour. So, on March 31st he attacked again, and, despite putting up a stiff fight, the British defenders were dislodged from what would have become an excellent defensive position.

By the end of April 2nd, Rommel and his German forces, backed by two Italian divisions, had occupied the Agedabia area almost two months sooner than the German High Command had envisaged. The Rommel legend was in the making. So also was trouble with the High Command. For not only did nobody know what Rommel was up to, but neither General von Rintelen nor Gariboldi was able to answer Mussolini's questions as to what he would do next. They soon found out. On the night of April 3rd/4th, as Gariboldi chased after Rommel to stop his impetuous habit of winning battles, the reconnaissance unit of the 5th Light Division took Benghazi, and swept on towards Mechili. Berlin, recognising that success was at hand, whether intended or not, applauded Rommel's adventures, and Gariboldi was obliged to retire and leave Germany's one-man success story to his desert Blitzkrieg .

The Allies sought to reorganise their command structure before it was too late, and Wavell decided to put O'Connor, whose own version of Blitzkrieg had rivalled Rommel's, in charge of a counter attack. But O'Connor had the ill-luck to be captured by a German patrol while driving with General Neame to a staff conference. The apocryphal story goes that, on arrival at Rommel's desert Headquarters, O'Connor barked "Anybody here speak English?". "I do, sir' replied a German officer, snapping to attention. "Well, get lost." retorted O'Connor. It was, regrettably, his last shot in North Africa.

The Afrika Korps thrust onward, from Mechili to Derna and the Gulf of Bomba. Recognising the O'Connor tactic of Beda Fomm being performed in reverse, the Allies escaped the net and retreated to Tobruk. There it was decided by Wavell, Air Chief Marshal Longmore and Admiral Cunningham that the line would be held. To stop Rommel, the garrison consisted of the 9th Australian Division, a brigade of the 7th, an armoured regiment equipped with armoured cars and an anti aircraft brigade - some 36,000 men all told, commanded by the immensely tough and experienced General Leslie Morshead, who had commanded a battalion in the Great War at the age of 20.

The initial German attack on April 10th by a motorised detachment of the 15th Panzer Division was repulsed, with the loss of General von Prittwitz, who was killed by a shell. Three days later, a battalion of the 5th Light Division found its way through the minefield but was destroyed by the ferocious Australian defence. The Italians attacked, and were repulsed. But, while Tobruk was besieged, Rommel's units were re-taking other major positions - Halfaya, Sollum and Capuzzo - and were thus back on the Egyptian border.

Nonetheless, the continued success of the German campaign in North Africa depended on the capture of Tobruk, and General Halder and Field Marshal Brauchitsch at German Army High Command saw in the stalemate on the Tobruk perimeter complete justification for their distrust of Rommel and his methods. But Hitler remained convinced that Rommel could provide Germany with much needed victory, and, over the next two months, changed the command structure such that the North African command came under OKW (Armed Forces High Command) rather than OKH (Army High Command).

In mid-May, a beleaguered Allied convoy managed successfully to unload much needed aircraft and tanks for Wavell's army at Alexandria, and Wavell was ordered by the British War Cabinet to attack and relieve Tobruk. This was attempted as an encircling movement to Halfaya Pass, but went badly wrong, partly because the units of the 15th Panzer Division at Halfaya Pass fought exceptionally well, but also because the German 88mm gun was capable of knocking out the British tanks before they had the German armour within range of their 40mm guns. The defence at Halfaya gave Rommel the time to bring his full force to bear, and the battle developed by mid-June into an ugly and expensive stalemate.

A lesser General would have breathed a sigh of relief. Rommel saw the respite as an opportunity. He went on to the attack, and fought his way rapidly South, then East, attempting to encircle the main British force, which saw the threat and managed to escape. But to do so they had to retreat. Once more, Rommel had the initiative.

The British War Cabinet now attempted to improve matters by replacing Wavell with General Sir Claude Auchinleck, known as "The Auk". Auchinleck infuriated Churchill by demanding three months of preparation time and three or four extra divisions before he would be ready to launch his offensive, and a protracted argument developed, with Auchinleck summoned to London to explain himself to Churchill. Meanwhile, the battle lines in the desert were comparatively quiet as the battle around Malta raged in the Mediterranean, and the Russian campaign preoccupied the German High Command. Auchinleck's offensive was first put off until September, then, to Churchill's great displeasure, until November 1st. To satisfy Australian public opinion, the Australian 9th Division in Tobruk was relieved by sea, and replaced with the British 70th Division and the Polish 1st Carpathian Division. Finally, to cap all the other delays, the late arrival in Egypt of the 22nd Armoured Brigade caused the Allied attack to be postponed once again, to November 18th.

Rommel had plans too, and, like those of the Allies, his schemes were being postponed because of military priorities elsewhere. The considerable Allied successes against Italian convoys in the Mediterranean were preoccupying the Luftwaffe , and reducing the flow of supplies to the Afrika Korps to such an extent that Rommel's planned campaign to take Tobruk was put off again and again. Not until November 4th was he able to present his proposals to Marshal Cavallero in Rome, when he outlined his intention to attack when the moon was full, between November 20th and December 4th. He planned that, on the day before that set for the attack, the Italian Brescia Division would make a diversionary attack from the South-West, to lessen resistance to his own attack with the Afrika Korps and the Italian XXI Corps from the South-East. He and his staff officers took pains to emphasise to the Italians their "belief' that there was no imminent Allied attack planned, and no build-up of Allied strength, although it is now known (since Rommel's intelligence chief Major von Mellenthin's memoirs were published in 1955) that Rommel knew full well that Auchinleck was almost ready to strike. Clearly, his faith in his Italian allies was minimal.

Meanwhile, Auckinleck had created the Eighth Army by combining the reinforcements he had received with the battle hardened troops that remaining from Wavell's campaign. This was under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Alan Cunningham, brother of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham who commanded the fleet giving support from the seaward side of Tobruk. Because the C-in-C of the Royal Air Force in the desert was, coincidentally, Air Vice Marshal H. Coningham, the troops referred to their commanders as "Cunningham, Cunningham and Coningham". All told, the Allies had six divisions.

In August, Rommel had been elevated to the command of Panzegruppe Afrika, of which his Afrika Korp was but one corps, now under the command of General Cruewell. The 5th Light Division, reinforced with new armour, became the 15th Panzer Division, and there were other units of German armour. The Italian XX and XXI Corps completed Axis forces totalling ten divisions on paper, although the worsening supplies position and manpower shortage in the Italian formations meant that the Axis forces were actually appreciably less powerful than the figures suggest.

The Allies attacked on November 18th, expecting that their appearance in strength would draw Rommel's forces out to fight at Gabr Saleh. Instead, Rommel, who was preparing his own attack, decided that the Allied effort was no more than a large scale reconnaissance, and stayed put in his defensive position near the coast at Gambut. This first failure of British planning was compounded by the German capture on the 19th of the Eighth Army's operational orders, and by the failure of the 22nd Armoured Brigade to take Bir-el-Gubi. The problems mounted for the Allies as the British XXX Corps was defeated at Sidi Rezegh on November 22nd, with massive tank losses, and the 5th South African brigade was similarly devastated on the 23rd. It looked as if the Axis would annihilate XXX Corps entirely, as would certainly have happened if the initial success had been pressed home. Instead, Rommel showed his skill as a tactician by using the confusion created as an opportunity to take personal command of the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions, and to set out across the desert to the Mediterranean via Sidi Omar to attack the already vulnerable Allied troops from the rear.

Auchinleck refused to be rattled, although Cunningham was clearly pessimistic about the situation. In a lightning move which restored morale and stiffened British resolve, Auchinleck replaced Cunningham on November 24th with Major-General Neil Methuen Ritchie, and moved himself firmly into the driving seat. By November 27th, the New Zealand division had made contact with the Tobruk garrison, which had broken out at El Duda, and Rommel, now back at Panzer Group headquarters, was failing still to take Tobruk despite frequent attacks. On December 5th, realising that his supplies were desperately stretched with little potential for new arrivals of ammunition, food and fuel before the second half of December, Rommel began his withdrawal from Tobruk, pursued by the Allied forces under Ritchie, who reached Benghazi on Christmas Day.

The pursuit continued, but Rommel's retreat was as skilful as his advance and the British armour did not succeed in engaging the Axis formations before they reached their planned defensive position at El Agheila, 340 tanks down on the strength they had enjoyed when the Allied attack began on November 18th. On January 17th came the final act of Auchinleck's successful "Operation Crusader", when the Italian Savona Division, left behind by the retreating Rommel with the thankless task of defending the Bardia/Sollum/Halfaya area, surrendered to the 2nd South African Division. In two months, the Eighth Army had taken 32,000 prisoners, for the loss of 18,000 men, variously killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

It seemed on the face of it that the Allies could now launch their long awaited Operation "Acrobat" to advance to Morocco and Algeria. But events at sea in the Mediterranean had been going disastrously wrong for the Allies at the end of 1941 and at the turn of the year, and the balance of power at sea changed dramatically the extent to which Germany was able to re-equip and resupply Rommel's forces for their next offensive. On November 13th, the Ark Royal, Britain's finest aircraft carrier, had been sunk by U-81. This was rapidly followed by the loss of the battleship Barham and the light cruiser Galatea. Force K, based on Malta, and the greatest hazard of all to the Axis convoys, was virtually annihilated. Hitler saw his advantage developing, and both reinforced the Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean theatre by withdrawing II Fliegerkorps from the Eastern Front, and also changed the command structure by instituting a "Supreme Commander South" in the person of the likeable, yet ruthlessly effective Field-Marshal Kesselring, once an artilleryman, now one of the architects of the Luftwaffe (and, incidentally, an accomplished pilot and aerial photographer.)

At the same time, reinforcements that had been earmarked for Auchinleck and "Operation Acrobat", the planned 8th Army push to the frontier of Tunisia, and four squadrons of Hurricanes intended for Air Chief Marshal Tedder's Middle East Air Force were diverted to Singapore and to the new war against Japan. As the Allied position weakened, so Rommel's was greatly enhanced by the arrival of large numbers of new tanks and vehicles, huge quantities of fuel and new guns of improved performance. In mid-January he decided to counter-attack, telling neither the German High Command nor the Italians of his intentions until the attack had begun on the grounds that `the Italian Headquarters cannot keep things to themselves.' As a result, the Axis forces achieved almost total surprise.

Rommel's Lightning Advance

Moving against the British 1st Armoured Division, which was new to Africa and had a mere 150 tanks, the advance of the Italian Mobile Corps on the coast and the Afrika Korps inland was made easier by the splitting of the British Division into three separate forces, each of which was too small to be self-supporting. To make matters worse for the Allies, the experienced 4th Indian Division was stuck at Benghazi, and the 7th Armoured Division had been sent back to Tobruk. Within two days, Rommel was at Agedabia, and on the 27th January almost succeeded in cutting off the 4th Indian Division in Benghazi. Mussolini had issued orders personally to Rommel that he was to retreat back to his former positions. Rommel simply ignored the Duce. By February 3rd, the Afrika Korps had skirted around Derna, reached the Gulf of Bomba and ground to a halt at the British positions at Gazala. This was Blitzkrieg in the grand manner, and General Ritchie, having lost almost 1,400 men, 72 tanks and 80 guns was not in a strong position. Rommel had pushed 375 miles back towards Egypt in defiance of his orders, yet, despite his insubordination, was rewarded with a promotion to Colonel-General.

The effects of the Axis advance reached well beyond North Africa. The island of Malta was still being defended against ever increasing German and Italian air attacks, and needed desperately the air support that the mainland Middle East Air Force could provide from Benghazi and Derna. With those forward positions lost, air support became impossible because Malta was out of range from Tobruk. Add to that the ability of Rommel's forces to harass the Malta convoys from Cyrenaica, and it can be seen that Admiral Cunningham's problems in attempting to supply Malta were made much greater. Only endless disputes throughout the spring of 1942 between the German and Italian High Commands, and between the individual members of those commands prevented "Operation Hercules" to take Malta and Gozo being mounted. Kesselring believed that, if "Hercules" had gone ahead, it would have succeeded. That belief was based on the positions of the 8th Army and the Afrika Korps after Rommel's advance.

Meanwhile, Auchinleck's failure to go on to the offensive against the Axis forces was galling Winston Churchill. Since February he had been demanding action, but Auchinleck and Tedder agreed that no offensive launched before June could succeed. Attempts to persuade them otherwise by sending Lieutenant-General Nye and Sir Stafford Cripps to Cairo resulted in the visitors being converted to Auchinleck's viewpoint. By mid-May there was still no British offensive, but a Churchill ultimatum to Auckinleck finally secured action and planning. By then it was too late. Rommel was ready, and attacked first. Once more the Eighth Army had been caught on the wrong foot, albeit for the best of reasons. Current British tanks, aircraft and anti-tank guns available in North Africa were all outclassed by their Axis equivalents. Auchinleck was right to judge that trouble lay ahead.

The Axis forces attacked in two principal groups; on the one hand the Italian XXI and X Corps plus some German reinforcement were to launch, under General Cruewell, a frontal assault on the Eighth Army to "keep them busy" and prevent them manoeuvring for advantage. On the other, Rommel himself took command of the mobile and armoured units - the Italian XX Corps and the divisions that made up the Afrika Korps, the 15th and 21st Panzer plus the 90th Light Division. In the evening of May 26th, Rommel moved from the positions he had held for so long to outflank his enemy by passing both North and South of Bir Hakeim, thereby putting his tanks to the rear of the Eighth Army. Thus, on May 27th, the British forces found themselves attacked on both sides, yet, after a confused battle in which both sides could claim some success, the Allies had not fared badly. The two Italian divisions of the XX Corps, the "Trieste" and the "Ariete", were virtually routed, and lost many tanks. Although the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions did great damage to the 4th Indian and 7th Armoured Divisions, their armour was somewhat dented, and many German tanks were badly damaged. By the end of the 27th, the Eighth Army's communications remained intact, and the Axis forces were already short of fuel - Rommel's perennial problem. Two days later, General Cruewell was captured after a forced landing behind the British lines.

Rommel was, however, not to be daunted by a few reverses. Having sent advance parties to improve communications with the Italians, and clear a narrow path through the minefield that lay between his forces and the British XIII Corps, he attacked the strongpoint at Got el Oualeb, while the Italian 10th Corps attacked from the West. By June 2nd he had a victory. The British 150th Infantry Brigade and the 1st Army Tank Brigade surrendered, and 3,000 men, 124 guns and 101 armoured vehicles of all descriptions fell into Axis hands. Now Rommel was able to move reunited Axis forces through the minefield and close in around Bir Hakeim. British communications were as bad as those of the Axis forces were good. Probably because of this, General Ritchie failed to exploit any of the opportunities for counter-offensive with which the overstretched Axis forces provided him, and by the time XIII and XXX Corps attacked the German forces, the Germans had laid effective minefield defences. The Axis assault now centred on the battlefield known as "Knightsbridge" - little more, in fact, than a convergence of sand tracks across the desert which led to Sidi Muftah, Gazala and Bir Hakeim. As the two British corps, which were too thinly spread across the desert with poor communications and control, fell back before the German attack, 4,000 more prisoners fell into German hands, and the 32nd Tank Brigade lost more than half its tanks.

Now Bir Hakeim was surrounded, with no hope of relief. General Koenig, commanding the 1st Free French Brigade, politely declined to surrender, and held on valiantly for eight days, falling back to the British lines only when directly ordered to do so on June 10th. By the 13th, Ritchie was in danger of being encircled and attempted to fall back to Tobruk, but his greatly depleted tank force was outflanked and cut off. The way was now open for Rommel to attack Tobruk.

Thus, at dawn on June 20th, the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions and the Italian XX Corps made their final assault from the South-East, supported by Ju87 "Stuka' dive bombers. Progress was rapid. By 8am, the anti-tank ditch was breached; by nightfall the forts at Solaro and Pilastrino had fallen. The next morning, June 21st, Major-General Klopper surrendered the garrison to General Navarrini. Another 33,000 men fell into Axis hands, but the greatest windfall for Rommel was the huge quantity of gasoline and supplies that he had captured - some 2,200,000 gallons of fuel for which the German armour was desperate.

Now Rommel was set for the advance to Egypt, but the agreement between the German and Italian High Commands to embark upon "Operation Hercules", the attack on Malta, stood in the way. Substantial sections of his Panzerarmee were due to be withdrawn for the assault on Malta, and Rommel knew he could not hope to advance further in North Africa without them. He appealed to Hitler to abandon "Hercules" in favour of an advance to Egypt, and the Fuehrer, probably seeing the potential for a link-up of Axis forces in the Middle East following a successful summer offensive in Russia, agreed. The assault on Malta was abandoned, and Rommel, who had just been promoted Field-Marshal on the strength of his successes, was given the authority to proceed. As always, he had not waited for permission, and was already beyond Sidi Barrani and heading for Mersa Matruh, where General Ritchie was preparing for a last ditch stand.

At this crucial point, Auchinleck took over command on the spot from Ritchie and saw the acute danger that X Corps might be trapped at Mersa Matruh. Auchinleck's speedy response to the situation enabled the Corps, and in particular Major-General Freyberg's New Zealand Division to retreat back to defensible positions at El Alamein, between the Mediterranean and the Qattara Depression, an impassable area of salt marshes. There they were joined by the 9th Australian Division brought in from Syria, and the 4th Indian Division from Cyprus.

Having advanced 644 kilometres - over 400 miles - in 36 days, Rommel was badly overstretched. His total forces facing the British positions on July 1st amounted only to 6,400 men, 41 tanks and 71 guns. He should have stopped, dug in, held his line and waited for reinforcements in strength. But an almost Messianic belief in the invincibility of speed and thrust drove him on to attack immediately. The assault, to become known as the First Battle of El Alamein, was a disaster, and by July 17th, despite having been reinforced during the preceding two weeks to a nominal strength of 30 battalions, his four armoured divisions were reduced to having only 58 tanks between them, and he could call on fewer than 5,000 infantry. Now, in a fit of depression, Rommel contemplated retreat, but, once his customary verve was restored, he recognised the situation for what it was and prepared defensive positions to await supplies, further reinforcements and developments. Meanwhile the Axis powers, anticipating that the halt in Rommel's advance represented only a temporary lull, promised Egypt, whose borders were almost in sight of Rommel's army, complete independence and national sovereignty.

There we leave North Africa and turn to the war at sea. But we shall return in Chapter 19 to the Desert and to the Allies' triumphant reversal of their position.