El Alamein Read online

  Each night from 25 August onwards – the start of the full moon period – the men of Eighth Army had been in a state of nervous expectation. On 29 August, Rifleman Reg Crimp of the 2nd Rifle Brigade wrote in his diary:

  At night each of us in the Signals section has a couple of hours listening-duty, sitting in the dark PU, with the set humming and the night-light glowing, hearing also the planes droning across overhead. Everyone now is on the ‘qui vive’; there’s a general sweat on. The moon is full and Jerry has been ‘more or less definitely’ expected to launch an attack during the last three nights, but so far nothing’s happened.33

  The next night, the wait was over.

  After sunset on 30 August the armoured divisions of the Afrika Korps and the Italian Divisioni ‘Ariete’ and ‘Littorio’ began their advance, screened by light reconnaissance units on the right and with 90. leichte-Afrika-Division on the left. Mellenthin recorded:

  To turn the Eighth Army front it was necessary to pierce a thick minebelt, which the British had laid almost as far as the Qattara Depression. Right from the start the offensive got into difficulties, for the minefields were far more elaborate than we imagined, and the British covering forces inflicted heavy losses on the mine-lifting parties. This threw our whole timetable out of gear.34

  Sergeant Fred Hunn commanded a Humber Mark II armoured car of B Squadron, 12th Lancers. The armoured cars operated in front of the rest of Eighth Army and occasionally behind enemy lines in a ‘light cavalry’ role. Now, at the southern end of the Alamein line minefields, they were to provide advanced warning of the Panzerarmee attack and track the advance.

  It was on the night of 30 August. I remember the night. So clear. It was beautiful. A full moon, and of course the sand and everything. It looked so good and still, everyone was very quiet and looking and listening to see if they could see or hear any sight or sound. I think round about midnight, No.3 Troop reported some movement in his area as if he could hear the German engineers clearing a gap through the minefield. A thousand yards or perhaps a bit more. In the moonlight, you could probably see a fair way but the sound was travelling more. This sound came and then slowly through the minefields came the tanks. We all sort of kept in line with them, observing, pulling back – it’d be pointless to stay where we were because we would have been cut off. We kept in touch and started reporting back.35

  The Lancers withdrew through gaps in the minefields, which were then shelled by the Axis artillery. This, in effect, broadcast the attack’s start to the rest of the Eighth Army. Brigadier Philip ‘Pip’ Roberts recounted:

  Shortly after midnight I was awakened by gunfire in the distance and it was quite clearly more than some little affair. I look outside and the sky is lit up by flashes, so I get up and stroll over to my ACV (Armoured Command Vehicle) to find that the staff have not, as yet, had any reports; I go out into the cool night air again. To the northwest the shelling seems to be dying down a bit, but in the southwest the noise continues. German Verey lights lob forward and an occasional tracer tears across the sky. I am called into the ACV and find that information has come through. It seems that there is a very determined attack against 7th Motor Brigade towards the south of the minefields and we are ordered to our defensive position.36

  Despite the efforts of Panzer-Pioniere-Bataillon 33 and 200 who set to with mine detectors to clear routes for the Panzers under cover of heavy artillery fire, the Afrika Korps was still passing through the minebelt at 0500hrs. The concentrated mass of tanks and vehicles was bombed repeatedly by Wellingtons from the Desert Air Force and attacked by 7th Motor Brigade. The targets were illuminated by parachute magnesium flares dropped by the ‘pathfinder’ Fairey Albacores of 821 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm. Reg Crimp wrote in his diary:

  Tonight, the relay of aircraft overhead is more concentrated than ever. They can be seen passing in two-way procession against the grey velvet sky, and the flares, some of which seem suspended even nearer than usual, give the desert a strident face, like a painted mask. Once, suddenly, a plane is heard diving, fairly near – a sinking, menacing, loudening roar. Instantly everyone’s awake, hearts in mouths. The roar reaches its nadir, and there’s a brief, surprisingly distant, explosion. And more surprising still, no fast, strong, exultant up-climb, but instead, a mile away, a brilliant blossoming of white fire, inset with vivid sperms of incandescence, ascending into a spire of smoke – and silence.37

  The prolonged fighting at the minefield gap was important for two reasons. Firstly, it considerably delayed the Panzerarmee advance. By 0800hrs, when Rommel and his staff had a clearer picture of the situation, his forces should have been twenty-five to thirty miles beyond their starting point. Instead, they had accomplished between eight and ten miles. The Italian armour was still largely hung up in the minefields. Equally important were the losses amongst senior commanders in this fighting. Generalmajor Georg von Bismarck, the experienced and energetic commander of 21. Panzer-Division, was killed whilst near the front of the advance. The Afrika Korps commander, Generalleutnant Walther Nehring, was severely wounded and several of his staff killed in an air attack. Generalmajor Ulrich Kleeman, 90. leichte-Afrika-Division’s commander, was also severely wounded. Oberst Fritz Bayerlein assumed temporary command of the Afrika Korps until Generalmajor Gustav von Vaerst of 15. Panzer-Division arrived to take over. There was inevitably a period of adjustment whilst replacement commanders were organized and moved to their units; Oberst Carl-Hans Lungerhausen, originally destined for 164. leichte-Afrika-Division, took over from Bismarck temporarily and Oberst Eduard Crasemann became acting commander of 15. Panzer-Division. Mellenthin recorded:

  THE BATTLE OF ALAM HALFA

  Rommel was half-minded to call off the attack but decided to continue when the Afrika Korps, under Bayerlein’s resolute leadership, got through the minefields and made a substantial advance to the east. A heavy sandstorm blew up during the day, and although this added to the difficulties of the march it did give considerable protection from the British bombers.38

  Probably influenced by fuel shortages rather than a captured ‘going’ map which supposedly showed terrain suitable for tanks but which was, in fact, a piece of deception produced by Middle East General Headquarters intelligence staff, Rommel adjusted his force’s ‘wheel’ to approach the more westerly half of the Alam Halfa Ridge, instead of the eastern.39 The attack would now fall exactly where Gott and, subsequently, Horrocks, had hoped it would.

  The enforced command changes, together with refuelling, wireless communication problems and a sandstorm, further delayed the German forces. However, there were also problems for the units shadowing and harassing the advance. Fred Hunn remembered:

  We got a call where 2 and 3 Troops were running out of petrol. Of course, we couldn’t send a lorry up that area because it was under fire. I got a jeep and I put in the back a load of jerry cans. I took enough petrol to give them about nine gallons each – two jerry cans each I suppose – and drove up behind each armoured car and said ‘Here you are. Petrol’ and threw it up on the back for them and drove back as quick as I could. That would see them through for the day, certainly the speed they were going back.40

  Manoeuvres and the difficult terrain were using up a lot of fuel on both sides.

  The problems for 7th Motor Brigade were in disengaging from contact with the advancing Afrika Korps – something which Major-General Callum Renton, commanding 7th Armoured Division, agreed to but which infuriated Horrocks, who had expected the brigade to stand and fight for longer. Having accomplished this, however, the chief concern was to provoke the Germans into attempting an attack on 22nd Armoured Brigade. ‘Pip’ Roberts described the situation from the viewpoint of the latter:

  Now I can see the enemy myself through my glasses. They are coming straight up the line of the telegraph posts which lead in front of our position. On they come, a most impressive array. And now they are swinging east and look like passing us about 1,200 yards from our forward positions. I had given strict inst
ructions that we would not open fire until the enemy tanks were at under 1,000 yards range. Here was something of a dilemma… General Gatehouse is with General Horrocks on Alam Halfa itself and a bit further east than we are; it seems that he can see this mass of enemy tanks about to pass our position … at that moment he speaks to me … ‘I don’t want you to think that we are in a blue funk here or anything like that, but if these fellows continue on as they are doing you will have to come out and hit them in the flank’.41

  But, then, the advance halted, before turning to advance on Roberts’ brigade:

  It is fascinating to watch them, as one might watch a snake curl up ready to strike. But there is something unusual too; some of the leading tanks are Mark IVs, and Mark IVs have, in the past, always had short-barrelled 75mm guns used for close-support work and firing HE only, consequently they are not usually in front. But these Mark IVs have a very long gun on them; in fact it looks the devil of a gun. This must be the long-barrelled stepped-up 75mm the Intelligence people have been talking about.42

  This was the first encounter with the PzKpfw Mark IV ‘Special’ whose new weaponry brought about a change in German tank tactics and which soon established a fearsome reputation.

  And now they all turn left and face us and begin to advance slowly. The greatest concentration seems to be opposite the CLY [4th County of London Yeomanry] and the A/T [anti-tank] guns of the Rifle Brigade. (Eighty-seven German tanks were counted at this time opposite this part of the front.) I warn all units over the air not to fire until the enemy are within 1,000 yards; it can’t be long now and then in a few seconds the tanks of the CLY open fire and the battle is on.43

  The Mark III tanks came forward to engage the Grants of 4th CLY, offering tempting targets for the 6-pounders. Douglas Waller viewed the scene:

  We were dug in these positions at Alam Halfa and we saw an armoured car come whizzing back. ‘Tanks are coming!’ We sat there and waited. We could see them then. About 70 of them. The first tank started moving forward and the first commander’s tank came up and, very obligingly, almost stopped on top of this petrol tin that we’d put out. I said to Bill: ‘That one’s ours’. Nothing had been fired then so we fired and he was a goner because he was side-on. Once we fired of course other tanks started firing at us. One came up and two of the crew bailed out of this one to get on the back of this other tank. We fired at it. On the front it just bounced off so we fired at the turret and the track but it still kept going and it started backing away and the machine guns opened up on us which went through the front shield and deflected off the curved shield behind. Also went through and knocked the sights out of our gun. But nobody was hit. If it hadn’t been for the shield we’d have all been goners.44

  Doctor Alfons Selmayr in his Arztpanzer – one of a few PzKpfw II light tanks still in use by the Panzer units – was with Panzer-Regiment 5:

  We were received by raging tank, anti-tank gun and anti-aircraft gun fire. By the time we looked around, several of our tanks had already been finished. I received a call for help from the 8th Company and was in the process of moving around the 7th Company when my left track was shot off. Since everyone was pulling back and only the adjutant and the battalion commander were ahead of me, I had to dismount and abandon the tank. My tunic over my shoulder, the two medical bags in my hands, I walked back, covered by a withdrawing tank.45

  To the watching Brigadier Roberts, the success of the anti-tank gunners was balanced by his tank losses:

  It seems only a few minutes before nearly all the tanks of the Grant squadron of the County of London Yeomanry were on fire. The new German 75mm is taking a heavy toll. The enemy tanks have halted and they have had their own casualties, but the situation is serious; there is a complete hole in our defence. I hurriedly warn the Greys that they must move at all speed from their defensive positions and plug the gap. Meanwhile the enemy tanks are edging forward again and they have got close to the Rifle Brigade’s anti-tank guns, who have held their fire marvellously to a few hundred yards. When they open up they inflict heavy casualties on the enemy, but through sheer weight of numbers some guns are overrun. The SOS artillery fire is called for; it comes down almost at once right on top of the enemy tanks. This, together with the casualties they have received, checks them. But where are the Greys? ‘Come on the Greys!’ I shout over the wireless ‘Get out your whips!’ But there is no sign of them at the moment coming over the ridge and there is at least another half hour’s daylight left.46

  Much damage was due to the new German tank – the Mark IV Special, whose long-barrelled 75mm gun, even at relatively long range, was able to penetrate the frontal armour of the Grants. In the midst of the action was Laurie Phillips:

  Luckily the one nearest to us (about 10 yards) although hit, with two of the crew killed, did not brew up, or we would have had a very warm time. We did not fire a shot from our gun, as nothing came within our arc of fire, and we were defiladed from the front by a bit of a bump in the ground. I would have been less scared if I had been busy firing back than just lying there with the earth erupting all around. But the company was said to have knocked out nineteen tanks in all, including five credited to an old friend of mine from Farnham days, Lance Corporal Norman Griffiths.47

  The Mark IVs could stand off and shell their opponents with little concern about being hit. Meanwhile the attacking PzKpfw IIIs rallied to come again against the anti-tank gunners, only to suffer more losses, as Sergeant Stephen Kennedy of 1st/6th RTR, observed:

  I don’t think the Germans were expecting that they would be dug in so near to them. They really created havoc. They brought on some more Mark III tanks around and, with our help, firing from further back and mainly the infantry with their anti-tank guns, they destroyed them. There was a great area of destroyed German equipment – which was a great boost to our morale and the Germans started to withdraw. Instead of coming round the south of us, they went back and formed a straight line back against the reinforcements that they’d got.48

  The use of SOS artillery fire and the timely appearance of tanks of the Royal Scots Greys clinched matters. Laurie Phillips remembered:

  The German tanks were gradually edging closer, from a direction in which we could not fire at them, and I was anxiously calculating how long it would be before the sun went down, and how near the tanks would be by then, when there was a rumble, and over the ridge behind us roared the Grant squadrons of the Royal Scots Greys. It was a marvellous sight to see 30 Grants come roaring down and open fire simultaneously – one of them stopped only a few yards behind us, and the blast deafened us; when we made our presence known, the tank commander said ‘Good God, I didn’t know anyone was still alive down there’.49

  The attackers now withdrew but were granted no respite as the bombers of the Desert Air Force once again appeared in strength. Alfons Selmayr recalled:

  They constantly flew past us in air-show formation and dropped their loads wherever there were even just a few vehicles close together. Directly in front of me, the tank of a company commander was hit right on the turret. The commander and the loader were badly wounded; both of them died later. The gunner and the radio operator had critical wounds. Other than a few field dressings, I no longer had any dressing material… The dressing I had in the bags had already been used in the morning and last night for smaller injuries and wounds. I set the wounds with shovels and camouflage material and sent the people to the rear.50

  The bombing continued through the night and into the next day. The Allied air effort (now including United States Army Air Force B-25 Mitchell day bombers) and the strength of the defences his forces encountered were two of three critical factors Rommel identified in forcing him to withdraw his forces. Third in importance was the fuel shortages the Afrika Korps now had – primarily as a result of the quantities used in traversing the minefields and difficult terrain.

  On 1 September, only Crasemann’s 15. Panzer-Division was able to make any attempt at attacking again, but these attempts we
re unavailing and the attacking tanks were again mauled by the Royal Artillery and what Rommel described as ‘Part Rally’ formations of bombers – a reference to the perfect formations of fly-pasts at Nazi ‘celebrations’.51 According to Bayerlein:

  All day the ceaseless attacks of the British bomber formations continued on the battlefield. Enemy artillery fired immense quantities of ammunition into our positions. Movement on the battlefield was impossible. Again and again our outnumbered fighter aircraft threw themselves against the British bomber formations. But seldom did they succeed in getting close to the British bombers, since they were always engaged in aerial battles with extraordinarily strong fighter formations of the RAF which were assigned to protect the seemingly endless flight of the bomber squadrons.52

  Yet this was the day on which the fighter ace Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Marseille of Jagdgeschwader 27 – ‘Der Stern von Afrika’* – enjoyed the most successful day of his career in claiming seven victories, four of which could definitely be identified – a feat for which, on landing that evening, he was personally congratulated by Kesselring. All of his victims were fighters. On 1 September, not one Allied bomber was shot down by fighters; such losses as there were (three day bombers) resulted from anti-aircraft fire.53 The large numbers of aircraft engaged in unglamorous bomber escort duties were proving effective in pursuit of Air Vice-Marshal Arthur Coningham’s concept of tactical air power in which securing air superiority was the necessary precursor to interdicting enemy supplies and reinforcements, as well as the means of permitting direct air co-operation with ground forces in the land battle. The following day, Marseille claimed five more victories against fighters, bringing his ‘score’ to 126. Yet, crucially, the effects of these losses on both the ground operations and the efforts of the Desert Air Force were practically nil.