El Alamein Read online

  This was a revelation and of great importance for the coming battle. Crews adopted their new tanks, naming them and adding other personal markings, like those produced by Trooper Arthur Reddish of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry:

  Before the Sherman faced its baptism of fire, our commander prevailed on me to paint the ‘Eye of Horus’ on its side. I used a toothbrush and a mixture of sump oil and boot polish. The sign was said to be lucky. But years later, I learned the Ancient Egyptians put the ‘Eye’ on coffins to allow the soul of the departed to peer through!56

  About 100 Crusader Mark IIIs equipped with 6-pounder guns in place of the 2-pounders on earlier marks were also available. This provided the less heavily armoured tanks with more firepower. However, the tank proved mechanically temperamental, perpetuating the poor reputation of British tanks amongst the units equipped with them. The first few Churchill Mark III ‘Infantry’ tanks – intended eventually to replace the Valentine – had also arrived in August 1942. In the same month it had been decided to create a separate organization for the vital work of tank and vehicle maintenance, repair and recovery; the creation of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers on 1 October was timely and the nature of the change was not disruptive to preparations.

  Other new armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) also appeared but these were for service with the Royal Artillery. The ‘105mm Self Propelled Gun, Priest’ with its pulpit-like machine-gun position was the most important. The ninety available presented a logistical problem because their 105mm gun required ammunition not in use elsewhere in Eighth Army. Approximately eighty British-made ‘Ordnance QF 25-pdr on Carrier Valentine 25-pdr Mk 1’, universally known as the ‘Bishop’, were also available. The ‘Bishop’ was disliked because of its high-profile silhouette, but both weapons, significantly, offered mobile firepower to support armoured operations.

  By October 1942, the Royal Artillery was better equipped for its many roles on the battlefield than at any point since 1940. There were 849 6-pounder anti-tank guns, and 554 2-pounders, in service. The Anti-Tank Regiments, with sixty-four 6-pounders in armoured formations and forty-eight in infantry formations, offered a strong, primarily defensive, capability. The fact that each motorized infantry battalion also had sixteen of the new guns increased the all-arms armoured division’s options in the attack.57

  What was more important for the attack against prepared positions was the availability of the BL 5.5-inch Medium Gun to supplement the 4.5-inch gun already in service. Although present only in small numbers, both Medium guns (like the 6-pounder anti-tank gun), freed the 25-pounders from tasks for which they were ill-suited. They excelled in counter-battery work beyond the range of the 25-pounders. Aware that the Eighth Army’s few Medium Regiments could not deal with all the hostile batteries, twenty-five such Italian and German formations were prioritized as targets.58 The 25-pounders would focus on firing the creeping barrage and concentrations on strongpoints, etc.

  Under Kirkman, Eighth Army’s artillery had also worked to develop its Defensive Fire (DF) techniques still further with the onomatopoeic ‘stonk’ – a reinvention of the Great War ‘Zone Call’. Howard Kippenberger recorded:

  The practice had developed of having defensive fire tasks prepared, code-named, and issued to gunners, infantry, and armour, before any operations. With that system the infantry could get a ‘stonk’ wherever it was wanted within three or four minutes of asking for ‘Napier’ or ‘Nelson’ or whatever the appropriate code word might be. The quickest I remember was two and a half minutes.59

  As the battle’s start drew near, the close co-operation of the Desert Air Force grew in importance. A superficially impressive 736 aircraft, of which 420 were fighters, had few aircraft capable of matching the Messerschmitt Bf-109Fs and Gs with which the Luftwaffe in Egypt was equipped. This sometimes required fighter squadron leaders to make the best use of available equipment by combining tactical changes with half-truths, as did Lieutenant-Colonel (Squadron Leader) Cyril Gardner of 40 Squadron, South African Air Force:

  During the first ten days of September we worked at re-equipping and revitalising the Squadron. I arranged to be supplied with new Hurricane IIs, not the clapped-out Tomahawks and Kittyhawks that had been provisionally allocated. We set about training the pilots in the tactics to use when ‘bounced’ by enemy fighters. I also introduced as a firm policy a ‘Pairs, line abreast’ system of doing tactical reconnaissance, as opposed to the rather pointless ‘Line astern’. We also suggested to our trainees that the German fighter pilots were just as nervous at the thought of combat with the Hurricanes and their machine-guns, and were unlikely to press home an attack if our pair kept a good look-out, and looked alert and aggressive. As the 109s invariably flew higher, and were undoubtedly faster, in level flight, and in the dive, this advice was received with a certain amount of scepticism. But the tactical training and demonstrations were, quite clearly, a morale-booster.60

  In the hands of experienced pilots like Billy Drake, however, even the Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk could give a good account of itself against the best Axis aircraft. The aircraft was used in a variety of roles including ‘air superiority’ fighter (fundamental to Air Vice-Marshal Coningham’s doctrine of tactical air power), bomber escort and fighter bomber. Drake’s principal reputation was as a fighter ‘ace’. Many of his victims were Junkers 87 ‘Stukas’ crews:

  In each case they would be against formations of about 20 Stukas with a number of ‘109s’ guarding them. They were, particularly for the leader, fairly easy targets. One just got behind them, fired, and then waited for them to either explode or catch fire or something and then gently ease away from that attack – as against the few occasions in France and the Battle of Britain where life was so hectic that one just shot at something and then moved away because someone was shooting at you. You did your best to do [the rear gunner] in at the same time as the aeroplane itself. I wouldn’t have been a Stuka rear gunner for all the tea in China.61

  In the lead-up to the offensive Drake’s squadron of Kittyhawks operated in all three roles.

  Quite a few of our trips were in that role of fighter escort. It was a brand new role so we weren’t quite certain how to do it. So my first thoughts were not to do what the Germans did in the Battle of Britain – formate closely with the bomber forces – but to be in the area. That was our method of protecting the light bombers agreed by their commanders as well. As a floating air cover.62

  This flexibility on the part of the ‘fighters’ was matched by the efficiency of the medium bombers in their regular formations which attacked airfields and landing grounds by day and night to keep the Luftwaffe and Regio Aeronautica under pressure. Nightly medium and heavy bomber raids by aircraft from the Desert Air Force and United States Army Air Force against Tobruk and Benghazi were also undertaken. Air operations followed Coningham’s model for tactical air power. Hurricanes of Nos 6 and 7 Squadrons, South African Air Force, were also now equipped with 40mm ‘cannon’ to act as ‘tankbusters’. However, the need for surprise meant that a more aggressive approach had to be tempered until land operations commenced.

  A remarkable amount of work in planning and delivering Montgomery’s attack was expended on the deception plan – Operation Bertram (actually consisting of many sub-plans). Its intention was to convince the Panzerarmee that the main effort would come in the southern sector of the line, as it often had done in previous attacks, as well as disguising preparations by X Corps for the northern attack. This work was co-ordinated by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Richardson, GSO1 (Plans) at Eighth Army. Thus, supply dumps were camouflaged or buried, and dummy supply centres were mocked up in the southern sector. Guns and tanks were concealed in assembly and battle positions using ‘sunshields’ or ‘cannibals’ which made them appear as ‘soft-skinned’ i.e. unarmoured vehicles. According to Brigadier George Davy:

  The real armoured divisions were withdrawn from their forward positions behind the right of the line and dummies were skilfully erected app
roximately in the same area, where the armour was to be concentrated for the eventual offensive. The actual armour was placed for training some 80 miles behind the front. It was hoped that the Germans would get used to the sight of both lots of armour so that when, a few days before the offensive, the tanks and the dummies began to change places, no difference would be noticed and no suspicions be aroused of the impending attack.63

  Large unit concentrations were ostentatiously formed behind XIII Corps in the south by the real move of tanks and vehicles from 10th Armoured Division. More dummy vehicles were constructed from canvas and steel when these units moved again to their real assembly positions.

  Deception had been a crucial part of successful operations such as the Battle of Amiens in August 1918 and, consequently, Montgomery was well aware of its potential value. Wireless deception, also a feature of Amiens, was used to suggest that 8th Armoured Division – already disbanded and its units dispersed to other formations – was fully functioning and preparing an attack. Meanwhile, in an important but often forgotten parallel strand, Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Clarke was responsible for the deliberate passing of false information concerning Allied intentions to the Italians and Germans by controlled and captured agents.64

  The extent to which this massive undertaking genuinely deceived the Panzerarmee’s senior commanders is difficult to assess. Evidence suggests that some measures did succeed. Certainly Heinz Werner Schmidt remembers that:

  He deceived us by starting to lay a new pipe line, complete with pumping stations, away in the south. Its completion was deliberately prolonged, and it began to look as though some time must pass before the Eighth Army could mount what seemed to be obviously an offensive planned in the southern sector of the El Alamein line. Air reconnaissance could not reveal that the pipe line was a dummy constructed out of old petrol tins.65

  However, in the weeks prior to the battle, there was no significant redeployment of Panzerarmee units in response to these efforts. The German–Italian forces were already committed to a defensive plan prepared in outline by Rommel before he departed on sick leave to Germany on 22 September. His replacement, General der Kavallerie Georg Stumme, and his senior German subordinate commander, General der Panzertruppen Wilhelm von Thoma, both understood and adhered to this plan.

  The defensive preparations were not completed until 20 October. Under them, the Panzerarmee weakened and deepened its advanced defensive positions – concentrating on deployment around company strongpoints – and deployed Italian and German infantry together in front of extensive minefield ‘boxes’ which were designed to confine an attacking force until counter-attacked by Axis armour. In the north, a further line of defence was formed by large numbers of anti-tank guns near the Rahman Track.

  The British characterized the mixed deployment as ‘corsetting’. It was, in fact, unnecessary in the case of Divisione Paracadutisti ‘Folgore’ and the Bersaglieri units, whilst the armoured formations were grouped together as mobile reserves to increase their power in the counterattack: 15. Panzer-Division and Divisione ‘Littorio’ in the north, 21. Panzer-Division and Divisione ‘Ariete’ in the south. Its disadvantage was in its effects on the Italian formations’ command and control structures since, on many occasions, they received no direct orders or information and were obliged to conform to sudden movements by their German ‘partners’.

  Stumme, like Rommel, had hoped to hit the British hard before they could launch an offensive but, in the absence of any such opportunity arising before Eighth Army attacked, he (like Rommel) placed much faith in the Teufelsgarten and hoped the attack’s defeat might, in turn, lead to a successful advance on Alexandria.66

  Gradually, details of the plan were made known through the ranks of Eighth Army: brigadiers, corps and divisional Royal Engineers commanders – 29 September; colonels and majors – 10 October; captains and subalterns – 17 October; NCOs and ‘other ranks’ – 21–22 October. Montgomery gave a final address to his regimental commanders at the Amariya Cinema on 19 October. He repeated it the next day. Its effect on those present was unforgettable, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Cecil Lucas Phillips of 102nd (Northumberland Hussars) Anti-Tank Regiment:

  To many it was a day of revelation. It was the day Montgomery finally and firmly impressed upon the Army not only his professional personality but also the inevitability of victory. In a rapt silence the gatherings of officers – sunburnt, experienced, not easily impressionable, most of them already proved leaders, many of them bearing upon their persons or their clothing the scars and emblems of hard service – listened to that incisive, rather metallic, completely matter-of-fact voice telling them in professional form exactly what was going to happen. It was no mere pep-talk, no homily on heroics.67

  By spelling out how ‘crumbling operations’, the ‘dog-fight’ and constant pressure would in a battle lasting twelve days achieve ultimate victory, he overcame scepticism and generated a feeling of utter conviction of victory. He also forged the bond with many that day that survived every kind of adversity and hardship the war offered and which remained unbroken till the end of their lives.

  With definite confirmation of imminent combat, men reacted in a variety of ways: eager anticipation, trepidation, anxiety, fear. There was more than disappointment amongst many chosen to be ‘LOB’, as Stuart Hamilton recalled:

  We had a new CO of whom we weren’t quite sure because he didn’t seem to be a fighting soldier, rather more an administrative type bloke. He called me into his tent one day, 21st October, and said, ‘Ham I have got some news for you which you won’t like but it’s an order so you will just have to listen and take it.’ He then went on to say that the forthcoming battle was going to be a very tough one indeed as a result of which heavy casualties were expected and as I was the senior Captain in the Regiment and probably one of the most experienced tank commanders, being one of the old originals left, that I was going to be ‘LOB’ (Left Out of Battle). I was absolutely furious but he said it was no good being furious about it as this was being done to all Regiments. I could see the sense and reasoning for this but I was very upset and extremely downcast when I said goodbye to the Squadron and my fellow officers.68

  The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir Alan Brooke, knew the details and probable date on 14 October, but did not tell Churchill:

  As I had no confidence in Winston’s ability to keep anything secret I decided not to tell him about this plan. I knew, however, that I should have difficulties as Winston was continually fretting to advance the date and asking me why we were not being informed of the proposed date of attack. I had to judge between the relative importance of maintaining complete secrecy and on the other hand of stopping Winston from wiring to Alex and Monty and upsetting their plans with his impatience.69

  Relenting a week later, Brooke was horrified to learn that Churchill ‘after giving me a solemn undertaking that he would not tell anybody what I had told him about details of [the] impending M[iddle] E[ast] attack had calmly gone and told Eisenhower and Bedell Smith!!’

  I had had great doubts as to whether Winston would keep his secret, and my doubts were not misplaced! The newspaper reporter in him was coming to the fore. News was not something to sit on, it must be cashed in on at once, even if that cash only meant importance. He had no reason whatever to tell Eisenhower, this attack did not concern him in the least at that moment, and what is more important, Ike’s HQ was conspicuously leaky as regards information and secrets at that time.70

  Back in Egypt, Brigadier Davy visited XIII and XXX Corps to check on preparations:

  Both the corps commanders, Horrocks and Leese, explained their plans to me. Both were confident, as were all the subordinate commanders I met. I played polo as usual the day before the battle, for the sake of security. Dick [McCreery] and Alex had conferred together on the various aspects of my polo, as soon as they took over, and decided that from the point of view of security and morale it was a good thing that I should continue. I gat
hered from Freddie that Monty did not approve.71

  On the evening of 23 October, Major-General Wimberley watched his men quietly move into position in the moonlight and hoped his command would maintain its illustrious reputation:

  Platoon by Platoon they filed past, heavily laden with pick anti shovel, sandbags and grenades – the officer at the head, his piper by his side. There was nothing more that I could do now to prepare for the battle, it was only possible to pray for their success, and that the Highland Division would live up to its name and the names of those very famous regiments of which it was composed.72

  Sergeant James Harris of 4th ‘Sharpshooters’ County of London Yeomanry wrote that ‘Today will go down in history as the start of a great battle, we all feel confident as to the outcome of it.’73 Colonel ‘Flash’ Kellett of the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, perhaps subconsciously echoing Montgomery’s August intent to ‘hit Rommel and his army for six, right out of Africa’, told his navigating officer, ‘Put on your white flannels. You’re batting first for England’.74 For Captain Robert Angel, a Great War veteran and now 7th Rifle Brigade’s quartermaster, ‘It all seemed a pretty desperate venture and I was very conscious that I had probably seen the last of some of my friends.’ 75

  In London, Brooke saw the impending battle’s tremendous significance. With it and the imminent Torch Landings in North Africa, his strategic plans, outlined on taking office the previous year, were once more possibilities. On the evening of 23 October, he received word that the attack ‘had started’.