History of the Second World War (52 page)

But the wedge that had been driven into the defences in the north looked so menacing that the defending commanders threw in their tanks piecemeal during that day in efforts to prevent the expansion of the wedge. This action fulfilled Montgomery’s calculation and enabled his armour, now established in good positions, to inflict heavy losses on these spasmodic counterattacks. By evening the 15th Panzer Division had only a quarter of its tank strength left fit for action — the 21st Panzer Division was still in the southern sector.

Next day, October
26,
the British resumed the attack, but their attempt to push forward was checked, and their armour paid a heavy price for the abortive effort. The chance of developing the break-in to a breakthrough had faded, and the massive British armoured wedge was embedded in a strong ring of German anti-tank guns. Lumsden and his divisional commanders had already raised objections on the second night to the way that the armour was being used, to ram a passage through such narrow lanes, and the feeling that it was being misused became increasingly widespread among officers and men as losses multiplied in the still narrow-fronted pushes.

While maintaining an air of supreme confidence, Montgomery shrewdly realised that his initial thrust had failed, that the breach was blocked, that he must devise a fresh plan, and meanwhile give his main striking forces a rest. His readiness to vary his aim according to circumstances, on this and later occasions, was a better tonic to the troops and a greater tribute to his generalship than his habit of talking in retrospect as if everything had gone ‘according to plan’. Ironically, that habit has tended to obscure and diminish the credit due to him for his adaptability and versatility.

The new plan was christened ‘Operation Supercharge’ — a good name to impress the executants that it was decisively different and carried a better promise of success. The 7th Armoured Division was brought north as a reinforcement. But Rommel also took the opportunity of regrouping his forces during the lull, and the 21st Panzer Division was already on its way north, followed by the Ariete. The secondary attack in the south by the British 13th Corps had not fulfilled its purpose of distracting the enemy’s attention and making him keep part of his armour in the south. The switch northward, and the consequent closer concentration of both armies there, was tactically an advantage to Rommel. It left the British more dependent on sheer slogging power, and attrition. Fortunately for them, their numerical advantage was so large that attrition, even at a very adverse ratio, was bound to decide the issue in their favour if the ‘killing’ process was pursued with unflinching determination.

Montgomery’s new offensive opened on the night of October 28 — with a northward thrust towards the coast, from the big wedge that had been driven into the enemy’s front. Montgomery’s intention was to pinch off the enemy’s coastal ‘pocket ‘, and then start an exploiting drive westward along the coast-road, towards Daba and Fuka. But the new thrust became hung up in the minefield, and its prospects waned with Rommel’s quick countermove in switching the 90th Light Division to this flank. Even so, Rommel counted himself lucky when this attack came to a halt, for by now his resources were running low. The Afrika Korps had only ninety tanks left, while the Eighth Army still had more than eight hundred serviceable tanks on the spot — so that although it had paid a price of nearly four British tanks for one German, its ratio of superiority had risen, and was now 11 to 1.

Writing to his wife on the 29th, Rommel said: ‘I haven’t much hope left. At night I lie with my eyes wide open, unable to sleep, for the load that is on my shoulders. In the day I’m dead tired. What will happen if things go wrong here? That is the thought that torments me day and night. I can see no way out if that happens.’* It is very evident from this letter that the strain was wearing down not only the troops but also their commander, who was still a sick man. Early that morning he had thought of ordering a withdrawal to the Fuka position, sixty miles to the westward, but had been reluctant to take such a step back because it meant sacrificing a large part of his immobile infantry, and therefore deferred such a fateful decision in the hope that one more check would lead Montgomery to break off his offensive. In the sequel, the check to the coastward attack turned out to the British advantage. For if Rommel had slipped away at this moment, all the British planning would have been thrown out of gear.

* The Rommel Papers,
p. 312.

As soon as Montgomery saw that his coastward thrust had miscarried, he decided to revert to his original line of thrust — hoping to profit by the north-ward shift of the enemy’s scanty reserves. It was a well-judged decision, and another example of his own flexibility. But his forces were not as flexible, and the time consumed in regrouping prevented the fresh thrust being launched until November 2.

This further pause, following the repeated checks, deepened the depression and anxiety in London. Churchill was feeling bitter disappointment about the slow progress of the offensive, and was with difficulty restrained from sending off an acid telegram to Alexander. The brunt fell on the C.I.G.S., General Sir Alan Brooke — who strove to reassure the Cabinet, but inwardly had growing doubts, and anxiously wondered whether ‘I was wrong and Monty was beat’. Even Montgomery himself was no longer so confident as he outwardly appeared, and privately confessed his anxiety.

The start of the new attack, in the early hours of November 2, was again damping — and increased the feeling that the offensive might have to be broken off. For, once again, the minefields caused more delay, and the resistance proved tougher, than expected. When daylight came, the leading armoured brigade ‘found itself on the muzzles of the powerful screen of anti-tank guns on the Rahman track, instead of beyond it as had been planned’.* In that cramped position it was counterattacked by what remained of Rommel’s armour, and in the day’s fighting lost three-quarters of its tank strength. The remainder gallantly held on, and thus enabled the follow-up brigades to push through the gap, but they in turn were held up just beyond the Rahman track. When nightfall put an end to the fight, the British had lost nearly two hundred more tanks in combat and mechanical casualties.

* Alexander:
Despatch,
p. 856.

Gloomy as the situation looked after this further check — particularly when viewed from afar — the cloud was about to lift. For by the end of the day Rommel was at the end of his resources. It is amazing that the defence had held out so long. The hard core of it was the two panzer divisions of the Afrika Korps, but even at the start of the battle, their fighting strength had been only 9,000, and had withered in the fire to little more than 2,000. Worse still, the Afrika Korps was left with barely thirty tanks fit for action, whereas the British still had more than 600 — so that their superiority over the Germans was now 20 to 1. As for the thin-skinned Italian tanks, they had been pulverised by the British fire, and many of the survivors had vanished from the battlefield in westward flight.

That night Rommel took the decision to fall back to the Fuka position in a two-step withdrawal. This was well in progress when, soon after midday on the 3rd, an overriding order came from Hitler — insisting that the Alamein position must be held at all costs. So Rommel, who had not previously suffered from Hitler’s interference, nor learned the necessity of disobedience, stopped the withdrawal and recalled the columns that were already on the way back.

The turnabout was fatal to the chance of making an effective stand farther back, while the attempt to resume a stand at Alamein was futile. The westward withdrawal had been spotted and reported from the air early on the 3rd, and naturally stimulated Montgomery to continue and intensify his efforts. Although two attempts to get round the enemy’s screen were checked during the day, a fresh infantry attack that night (by the 51st Highland and 4th Indian Divisions), made with a south-westerly slant, succeeded in piercing the joint between the Afrika Korps and the Italians. Soon after dawn on the 4th, the three armoured divisions passed through the breach and deployed — with orders to swing northward and bar the enemy’s line of retreat along the coast-road. Their exploiting drive was reinforced by the motorised New Zealand Division, and a fourth armoured brigade, under its command.

There was now a magnificent opportunity of cutting off and destroying Rommel’s entire army. The chance was all the greater because the commander of the Afrika Korps, Thoma, was captured in the confusion of the morning, and the order for retreat was not given until the afternoon — while Hitler’s belated permission was not received until next day. But as soon as the retreat order was given by Rommel, the German troops moved very fast, packed into such motor transport as remained to them, while the British exploitation suffered from its old faults of caution, hesitation, slow motion, and narrow manoeuvre.

After passing through the gap and deploying, the three armoured divisions were directed northward to the coast-road at Ghazal, only ten miles behind the broken front. That narrow wheel gave the remnant of the Afrika Korps a chance to block them, by a quick and short side-step. After advancing a few miles they were checked by this thin screen, and kept in check until the afternoon, when the Panzerarmee began to withdraw as ordered. Then when darkness came the British cautiously halted for the night. That was the more unfortunate because they were well beyond, and behind, the bulk of what remained of the Panzerarmee.

Next day, November 5, the cutting-off moves were again too narrow and too slow. The 1st and 7th Armoured Divisions were at first directed on Daba, only ten miles beyond Ghazal, and the leading troops did not arrive at Daba until midday — to find that the retreating enemy had slipped past them. The 10th had been directed on Galal, fifteen miles further west, and there caught the enemy’s tail, capturing some forty tanks — most of these being Italian tanks that had run out of fuel. No effort was made to chase the main retreating columns until the evening, and the British armour then halted for the night as usual, after a short advance of eleven miles — when six miles short of its new objective, the escarpment at Fuka.

The New Zealand Division and its attached armour had been told to go for Fuka when the breakthrough was achieved, but it was delayed in following the armoured divisions through the gap — partly owing to bad traffic control — and then lost more time in mopping up Italians in its path. So it was less than half way to Fuka when it halted at nightfall on the 4th. It arrived near its objective at midday on the 5th, but then halted in face of a suspected minefield — which was, in fact, a dummy that the British had laid to cover their own retreat to Alamein. Darkness was approaching before the New Zealanders pushed through it.

Meanwhile the 7th Armoured Division, after its too early wheel inwards at Daba, had been sent back into the desert to drive for Baqqush, fifteen miles beyond Fuka. But it was delayed in crossing the New Zealanders’ tail, as well as by the suspected minefield — and then halted for the night.

Next morning these three pursuing divisions closed in around Fuka and Baqqush — but the retreating enemy had already slipped away westward. All they caught were a few hundred stragglers and a few tanks that had ran out of fuel.

The main hope now of catching Rommel’s columns depended on the 1st Armoured Division — which, after missing them at Daba, had been ordered to make a longer circuit through the desert and cut the coast-road west of Mersa Matruh. But its drive was twice halted by fuel shortage — the second time when only a few miles from the coast-road. That was all the more exasperating to its commander, because he and others had urged that at least one of the armoured divisions should be prepared for a long pursuit, to Sollum, by replacing some of the ammunition in the transport with extra fuel.

In the afternoon of November 6, rain started to fall in the coastal belt, and became very heavy during the night. That put a brake on all the pursuit moves, and ensured Rommel’s get-away. After the event, it formed the main excuse for the failure to cut off his retreat. But, in analysis, it becomes clear that the best opportunities had already been forfeited before the rain intervened — by too narrow moves, by too much caution, by too little sense of the time-factor, by unwillingness to push on in the dark, and by concentrating too closely on the battle to keep in mind the essential requirements of its decisive exploitation. If the pursuit had driven deeper through the desert, to reach a more distant blocking point such as the steep escarpment at Sollum, it would have avoided the risk of interception either by resistance or weather — for while rain is a likely risk in the coastal belt it is rare in the desert interior.

During the night of the 7th Rommel withdrew from Mersa Matruh to Sidi Barrani, and there made another brief stand while his transport columns were filtering through the frontier bottleneck by the passes up the escarpment at Sollum and Halfaya, which were being heavily bombed by the British air force. For a time there was a huge traffic jam on the coast-road, a queue twenty-five miles long, but with well-organised traffic control most of it got through on the following night, despite the British bombing. So on the 9th, although about a thousand vehicles still had to pass through the bottleneck, Rommel ordered his rearguards to withdraw to the frontier.

Meanwhile Montgomery had organised a special pursuit force, consisting of the 7th Armoured and New Zealand Divisions, and grounded the other two armoured divisions as a safeguard against running out of fuel and giving Rommel a chance for one of his ripostes, against a stranded force. This longer pursuit started on the 8th, but the New Zealanders did not reach the frontier until the 11th, and although the two armoured brigades of the 7th Armoured Division, advancing through the desert south of the coast-road crossed it the afternoon before, they just missed catching the enemy’s tail when it passed through Capuzzo on the 11th.