Alamein (Major Battles of World War Two) Read online

  ALAMEIN

  C. E. Lucas Phillips

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Notice

  Part I: The Desert Battlefield

  Chapter One: On The Springbok Road

  Chapter Two: The Desert

  Chapter Three: The Fight Begins

  Chapter Four: Blemishes And Obstacles

  Chapter Five: The New Commanders

  Chapter Six: Prelude To Alamein

  Chapter Seven: Preparations

  Chapter Eight: Meet The Divisions

  Chapter Nine: The Plan

  Part II: Lightfoot

  Chapter Ten: D Day

  Chapter Eleven: The First Night

  Chapter Twelve: D Plus One

  Chapter Thirteen: The Change Of Tune

  Chapter Fourteen: The Day Of Crisis

  Chapter Fifteen: The Riflemen And The Gunners

  Chapter Sixteen: Thompson’s Post

  Part III: Supercharge

  Chapter Seventeen: ‘A Real Hard Blow’

  Chapter Eighteen: The Charge of 9th Armoured Brigade

  Chapter Nineteen: The Hammering Of The Panzers

  Chapter Twenty: The Day Of Doubt

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Day Of Victory

  Appendix A: Eighth Army Order Of Battle

  Appendix B: Western Desert Air Force, Order of Battle

  Appendix C: German Army Order Of Battle

  Appendix D: Italian Army Order Of Battle

  Appendix E: 2 NZ Division Order Of Battle For ‘Supercharge’

  Appendix F: 1 Armd Div Order Of Battle For ‘Supercharge’

  Appendix G: Authorities And Sources

  Acknowledgements

  A Short Glossary

  A Note to the Reader

  Author’s Notice

  Accounts of the Battle of Alamein from the generals’ point of view have been written by several hands, but, hitherto, no account appears to have been published from the point of view of the regimental soldier, other than personal narratives and regimental histories. In spite of its great fame, Alamein still remains a battle of which the combat operations are little known, even by many of those engaged in it. This book is an attempt to fill that gap in part and to present a general picture of the battle in the manner of the peintre militaire.

  Hitherto, Alamein has been generally looked upon as a ‘general’s battle’. I hope that these pages will show, however, that, under the direction of a commander of the first order, it was very much a ‘soldier’s battle’, in the great tradition of Waterloo, Blenheim, Agincourt and many another famous field. It was won by that series of ‘dog fights’, that ‘real rough-house’, that ‘continuous strain of hard battle fighting’ which Field-Marshal Montgomery expressly prescribed and for the success of which he relied upon the fighting qualities of one of the finest armies that this country and the British Empire have ever put into the field.

  Nevertheless, it will be seen that Alamein was far from being the straightforward and almost fore-ordained victory which the Field-Marshal has made it appear to be. In fact, as Wellington said after Waterloo, ‘it was a damned nice thing’. Although we could never have actually lost the battle, the prospect of a clear-cut and decisive victory hung in the balance (though not in the Field-Marshal’s own mind) until the eleventh day.

  I have devoted a considerable portion of the book to an exposition of the conditions and events preliminary to the battle, as I am anxious that the reader not familiar with these matters should, like Montgomery’s soldiers, go into the battle well briefed. For a like reason, I have added a very short glossary. Some recent ill-qualified criticisms, which require refutation, have impelled me also to expand on certain points more than would otherwise have been necessary.

  In the main, I have confined myself to a straightforward narrative. The book is not a commentary (though comment there certainly is), nor have I strayed into the blind alleys of author’s hindsight. But there is a personal reputation that has to be put right and I have taken occasion also to reduce to its proper proportions the legendary and wholly exaggerated image of Field-Marshal Rommel. One of the foundations of Montgomery’s victory was his shrewd and exact appreciation of the mistakes that he knew Rommel would make. Hence the deliberate invitations to self-destructive counter-attacks.

  This account has been compiled from all the available official records and various other authorities, which are set out in Appendix G. Among them is a considerable list of persons who have been kind enough to entrust me with their private diaries or journals or who have given me their personal narratives, in writing or verbally, often at considerable length and in great detail. Some have spent long hours with me in the close examination of maps and documents. To all I am very much indebted. Where I have not accepted personal accounts in full detail, I hope it will be understood that all have had to be checked with other information.

  I have especially to thank Major-General Raymond Briggs for his painstaking and most valuable help at all stages, by no means confined to the activities of his own division; his expertise in tank warfare, his long experience of the desert and his acquaintance with all the leading actors on that dramatic stage have been a stimulus to the understanding of operations. Likewise Major-General D. N. Wimberley has contributed most generously and in great detail on operations generally and those of the Highland Division in particular. Field-Marshal The Viscount Montgomery has informed me on the considerations that governed many of his decisions and on a great deal else as well. Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese, Bt, has thrown light on many facets of the battle and on the people concerned in it.

  For old times’ sake, Major R. S. Richmond, MC, RA, Instructor in Gunnery, has been good enough to rub the rust off my recollection of artillery procedure in Chapter Ten. Mr D. W. King, O.B.E., Chief Librarian of the War Office, has been a valuable ‘Intelligence Officer’ throughout my literary operations, and Mr L. A. Jackets, Head of the Historical Section of the Air Ministry, has unhesitatingly given me the fullest ‘air support’. Miss Rose Coombes, Librarian of the Imperial War Museum, has helped my search for published and unpublished matter that is difficult of access, and the photographic staff of the Museum responded generously to my large demands, particularly in the skilful extraction of shots from that superb documentary film, Desert Victory, made in the desert by the Army Film and Photographic Unit. The Historical Section of the Cabinet Office and the German Military Historical Research Bureau have helped to clear up some points of doubt.

  Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Wells, Major-General Sir William Gentry and others have guided me in the operations of 9th Australian Division and 2nd New Zealand Division respectively. Brigadier P. N. M. Moore, Brigadier G. R. McMeekan and Major J. F. M. Perrott have informed me in great detail on the methods and incidence of mine-lifting operations, which were so vital a preliminary to the victory.

  The figures I have given for enemy tank losses must be regarded as approximate; no completely reliable record seems now available, but I have used the best ascertainable information.

  Oxshott, January 1962

  C. E. LUCAS PHILLIPS

  Part I: The Desert Battlefield

  Chapter One: On The Springbok Road

  Early on the morning of 1 July 1942, a British artillery officer, dressed in tropical shirt and shorts, was jolting down the ‘Springbok Road’, which led southward from El Alamein, to rejoin his regiment in the Western Desert. He knew that the regiment had just moved into the hollow depression known as the Deir El Shein, after a hair-raising all-night drive across the open desert to avoid capture by the advancing enemy forces under Rommel.

  He was disobeying an order by Gen
eral Auchinleck that certain officers should be ‘left out of battle’, in order that whole units should not be wiped out, but he knew that his regiment was likely to engage the oncoming enemy some time that day, that they must be tired, and he was damned if he would stay out.

  He halted his small column of three vehicles to rest the drivers. Stepping out of his car, he stretched his legs, his desert boots sinking deep into the powdery dust, and smoked awhile, flicking the air with his handkerchief to keep off the soft-winged flies that came swarming round. The sun at this early hour was already hot.

  After a minute or two a truck came slowly up from the south in a shroud of dust and stopped beside him. It was from a Free French unit stationed deeper in the desert. A French officer dismounted and saluted. He was tall and very handsome but clearly very worried.

  ‘Can you tell me what is happening?’ he asked. ‘Is it true that the Boche has broken through?’ He spoke perfect English, but his voice and face showed anxiety.

  The British officer smiled. ‘Good heavens, no! Everything is under control.’ He really knew very little about the situation himself.

  The Frenchman relaxed but was not fully reassured.

  ‘You are sure about that?’ he said. ‘We’ve heard that the Boche are through on the coast road and making for Alexandria.’

  ‘Well, I’ve just come from the coast road myself, saw the South Africans sitting tight at Alamein and everything is perfectly peaceful. Not a shot to be heard.’

  The Frenchman looked more relieved and said: ‘That’s good news. We are cut-off by ourselves, you know, out at the other end of the desert and we don’t hear much. We heard stories that there had been a complete collapse and the Boche was overrunning everything. So my CO sent me up to find out.’

  ‘Well, you can go back and tell your CO that all is well and under control. Here we are and here we’re jolly well going to stay.’

  They chatted for a bit and the Frenchman then remounted his truck and turned about.

  The British officer thought what a fine fellow he looked and felt very sorry for him and his comrades away by themselves and out-of-touch; and cut-off, he reflected also, from a country under the heel of a conqueror. The Frenchman was the only man he had met who was ill at ease. Though he himself had only a general idea of how operations to the westward were going, the British officer had a strong feeling of confidence. In spite of the long withdrawal from Gazala, in the latter stages of which he had taken part, morale was high among all whom he saw. How coolly, he recollected, ‘Pasha’ Russell had given his orders in that ticklish situation near Matruh!

  No doubt was in his mind that Eighth Army was well collected and that the reins of command were in good hands. That there should be any questioning of the higher leadership was a thought that never entered his head.

  Such was the author’s own introduction to the Alamein ‘line’ and in a few hours he was in action against the German panzer divisions.

  That day Rommel’s long advance was brought sharply to a halt.

  Chapter Two: The Desert

  ROCK, SAND AND SUN

  The Libyan, or Western, Desert extends westwards from the Nile and southwards from the Mediterranean for perhaps 2,000,000 square miles. It embraces some of the most arid country on earth. Save for some little streams in the small Cyrenaican hills, no river of any sort waters its harsh and desiccated surface. Along the verge of the Mediterranean rain may fall several times in the winter, but a few miles inland there is rain only two or three times a year, and in the deep heart of the desert there may be none at all for several years. When it does fall, however, the desert may become a bog within an hour, making the movement of all wheeled vehicles impossible, a phenomenon which on two occasions was to save the flying remnants of Rommel’s army from encirclement and destruction by Montgomery’s pursuing divisions.

  Thus we note very early that the ‘sands of the desert’ are for the greater part not truly sand, but dust. To the geologist, they are the ‘mechanical products of sub-aerial erosion by exfoliation and wind abrasion.’[1] We shall see all too much of this gritty dust, churned to powder by tanks, guns, vehicles of all sorts and the bursts of shells, enveloping the battlefield of Alamein in clouds as thick as a fog.

  Far to the south there rolls the Great Sand Sea, known to the Arabs as ‘the Devil’s Country’, almost impassable to anything but a camel, but over those portions of the desert where the armies fought there stretch great areas of rocky outcrop, stony wastes and loose sand. For the greater part this great waste has a complexion that is of a pale tawny hue flushed with pink, but near the sea, where limestone predominates, it is much paler and littered with whitish stones, and on the shore itself, where Montgomery, Leese and Coningham had their headquarters caravans, and where Winston Churchill and the soldiers of both armies bathed as opportunity was given, the sand is a blinding white against the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean.

  For some miles inland rock continues to predominate, thinly overlaid with sand, so that it was terribly hard work for the soldier to scratch himself even the smallest trench or to hew out a shallow pit for a gun. As one journeys inland sand begins to predominate, getting softer and softer, deeper and deeper, so that one may dig easily, but to drive a vehicle becomes more and more difficult.

  Here and there the desert erupts into low eminences of bare rock, as on Ruweisat Ridge, Miteiriya Ridge and the little hill called Tel el Eisa, where some of the bloodiest fighting of the war took place and where the harsh rock became littered with corpses rotting in the sun and smothered in black swarms of flies. The counterpart to those small elevations is provided by many deirs or ‘depressions’, gouged out of the desert’s countenance, like deep scars. They are large areas of eroded and windswept soil. Some are shallow and saucer-like, as in the Deir el Shein, where 18th Indian Brigade fought a critical action with the Panzers. Others have steep, cliff-like perimeters providing, as in the Munassib Depression, a natural defensive fortress, assailable only by the hardiest troops, such as the North-countrymen of the 50th Division and the high-spirited Maoris from New Zealand.

  Largest of all the depressions is that of Qattara, stretching for several thousand square miles, its floor 400 ft below sea level, much of it salty marsh and, because it was virtually impassable by anything but a jeep, providing a barrier to the wide-flanking movements which, in the earlier desert battles, had been the favourite manoeuvre of the armoured divisions of British and Germans alike.

  Apart from these occasional small elevations and ragged depressions, the greater part of the desert is, to the casual eye, almost quite flat. Not so, however, to the eye of the more experienced soldier, to whom an undulation of only three or four feet might give cover from observation by an enemy, and it was by the skill that he showed in taking advantage of these trifling undulations that the older hand in the desert was known. ‘The desert,’ he would say to the newcomer, against all the obvious evidence of unaccustomed eyes, ‘is not flat.’

  Possession of these mere ripples in the land surface, often too insignificant to be marked on even a large-scale map, was of high importance, as giving command over the enemy country. For the same reason, the lines of the ‘forward defended localities’ (FDLs) of the opposing armies were often far apart, sometimes several miles apart.

  It is no surprise that in this great desert there is little life. A few nomad Arab occasionally wander across the waste and somehow manage to raise a little thin barley in the unpromising soil near the sea, but, apart from some scattered settlements along the coast and a few oases deep in the south, no man permanently lives there. After the infrequent rains, the hollow places of the desert become miraculously flushed with green and enamelled with many small flowers; campanulas, dwarf iris, sea lavender, ranunculus and little red poppies eagerly open their petals to the ardent sun. They mature quickly and quickly die. Along the sea-board there is an occasional stunted palm or a wild fig. Otherwise plant life in the desert is confined to a scattering here and the
re of small, prickly bushes of ‘camel thorn’, littered with the empty, white shells of snails.

  Few animals of any sort are to be seen, but there are some lizards, a rare grey fox or jackal, the changeful chameleon, which the troops tried to keep as pets, the shy jerboa or desert rat, which the British 7th Armoured Division took as its famous emblem, a few larks and brisk little white wagtails, plenty of small scorpions and the black rotund scarab-like scavenging beetle, for which the troops had a rude name. Very occasionally a small herd of wandering gazelle may be seen in the winter, their elegant forms and graceful movements softening for a moment the harshness of the scene.

  Dry, austere and monotonous, the desert is also very hot. Near the sea the fierceness of the sun is somewhat moderated, but far inland shade temperatures of 120 degrees are common, though in the northerly plateau, where the fighting took place, they seldom go much above 100 in whatever shade there might be. Despite the heat, however, there is a quality in the air (except at midday) which gives to the climate an exhilarating, almost a champagne quality. The soldiers and airmen who lived and fought there were, except for some special ailments, extremely fit and in lively spirits.

  There is approximately an 8-hour day, the sun rising very quickly about 7.30 a.m., its globe huge on the flat horizon and the skyline crimsoned by the irradiation of the floating particles of dust. To the soldier, however, the ‘first light’ that comes about an hour before sunrise is of greater importance. The multitudinous stars fade, the vault becomes suffused with changing hues, shapes solidify and all movement must cease if the enemy is near. Towards midday the air begins to stifle, invaded by a torpidity that presses down upon one’s head and shoulders. As the afternoon comes on, the face of the desert begins to palpitate in the heat haze under the brazen sun. Imaginary lakes, which the wandering Arab called ‘Devil’s Water’, deceive the eye. Distant objects seem to float and move in space as the horizon becomes a quivering mirage and during these hours the soldier is unable to observe or reconnoitre accurately. An hour or two before sundown, as the landscape settles again into solidity, swirling sandstorms are apt to spring up, enveloping everything in a fog of dust.