History of the Second World War (21 page)

On June 14 a mobile column under Brigadier J. A. C. Gaunter made a surprise stroke against Fort Capuzzo, and captured this important frontier stronghold, though the British did not try to hold it permanently, as their strategy was to keep mobile — ‘masters of the desert’ — while inducing the Italians to concentrate and provide targets. The published list of Italian casualties for the three months until mid-September amounted to 3,500, while the British were only just over 150 — despite being often bombed and machine-gunned from the air, where the relatively numerous Italian aircraft met little interference at that time.

It was not until September 13 that the Italians, after massing more than six divisions, began a cautious move forward into the Western Desert. After advancing fifty miles, less than half way to the British position at Mersa Matruh, they sat down at Sidi Barrani, and there established themselves in a chain of fortified camps — which were too widely separated to support one another. Week after week then passed without any attempt to move on. Meanwhile further reinforcements reached Wavell, including three armoured regiments rushed out from England in three fast merchant ships, on Churchill’s bold initiative.

Wavell now decided that, as the Italians did not come on, he would sally forth and strike at them. That stroke was to have an astonishing effect, leading to the destruction of the whole Italian army and the near-collapse of the Italians’ hold on North Africa.

But such a dramatic result was unforeseen. The stroke was planned, not as a sustained offensive, but rather as a large-scale raid. Wavell thought of it as a sharp punch to stun the invaders temporarily while he diverted part of his strength down to the Sudan, to push back the other Italian army there. Thus, unfortunately, no adequate preparations were made to follow-up the overwhelming victory that was actually gained.

Much was due to a radical change which was made in the attack plan following a rehearsal that raised doubts about its practicability. An indirect approach to take the enemy’s camps from the rear was substituted for a frontal assault that would probably have failed — the more probably because it would have had a minefield in its path. The change of method was suggested by a staff officer, Brigadier Dorman-Smith, who had been sent by Wavell to attend the rehearsal. But its advantages were immediately grasped by the commander of the Western Desert force, General O’Connor, and the run of victory that followed was mainly due to his executive handling — for the higher commanders, Wavell and Lieutenant-General H. M. Wilson, were too far distant to exert positive influence on a fast-moving battle. They did have an important, and unfortunate, negative influence — as will be related.

Dick O’Connor’s force consisted of 30,000 men, against an opposing force of 80,000 — but it had 275 tanks against 120. The fifty heavily armoured ‘Matilda’ tanks of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment, impervious to most of the enemy’s anti-tank weapons, played a particularly decisive role in this and subsequent battles.

On the night of December 7, the force moved out from the Matruh position on its seventy-mile approach through the desert. Next night it passed through a gap in the enemy’s chain of camps, and early on the 9th the infantry of the 4th Indian Division (General Beresford-Peirse) stormed Nibeiwa camp from the rear, with the 7th Royal Tanks as its spearhead. The garrison was taken by surprise, and 4,000 prisoners captured, while the attackers’ casualties were small — among the tankmen only seven.

The Matildas then led the way northward against the camp called ‘Tummar West’, which was stormed in the early afternoon, while ‘Tummar East’ also fell before this day of triumph ended. Meanwhile the 7th Armoured Division* had driven on westward and reached the coast-road, thus getting astride the enemy’s line of retreat.

* Commanded in this battle by Brigadier J. A. C. Caunter, as General Creagh was temporarily sick.

On the next day the 4th Indian Division moved north against the cluster of Italian camps close around Sidi Barrani. The enemy were now on the alert, while violent sandstorms were also a hindrance to the advance. But, after an initial check, a converging assault from both flanks — with two additional tank regiments sent back by the 7th Armoured Division — was launched in the afternoon, and the greater part of the Sidi Barrani position was overrun before the day ended.

On the third day the reserve brigade of the 7th Armoured Division was brought up for a further enveloping bound to the westward, and arrived on the coast beyond Buq-Buq to intercept a large column of retreating Italians. The capture here of a further 14,000 Italians and eighty-eight guns brought the total bag to nearly 40,000 prisoners, and 400 guns.

The remnants of the invading Italian army, after re-crossing their own frontier, took refuge in the coast-fortress of Bardia. There they were speedily isolated by the encircling sweep of the 7th Armoured Division. Unfortunately, there was no backing-up infantry division at hand to take advantage of their demoralisation, for the British higher commanders had planned to take away the 4th Indian Division as soon as Sidi Barrani was captured and to bring it back to Egypt for despatch to the Sudan. Their remoteness from the battlefield made it hard for them to realise what a decisive victory O’Connor had won, or what an immense opportunity it offered, and they persisted in the order for the recall of the 4th Indian Division.

Thus on December 11, the third day of battle, the routed Italians were running westwards in panic while half the victor’s force was marching east-wards — back to back! It was a strange spectacle, and entailed a fateful delay. For three weeks elapsed before the 6th Australian Division arrived from Palestine to aid in continuing the British advance.

On January 3, 1941, the assault on Bardia was at last launched, with twenty-two Matildas of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment leading the way as ‘tin-openers’. The defence quickly collapsed, and by the third day the whole garrison had surrendered — 45,000 prisoners, with 462 guns and 129 tanks. The Australian divisional commander (Major-General I. G. Mackay) said that each Matilda tank was worth a whole infantry battalion to him.

Immediately after the capture of Bardia, the 7th Armoured Division drove westward to isolate Tobruk until the Australians could come up to mount an assault on the coastal fortress. Tobruk was attacked on January 21 and fell next day — yielding a bag of 30,000 prisoners, 236 guns and eight-seven tanks. Only sixteen Matildas were left for use in this assault, but once again they made the decisive penetration. That night some of the men of the R.T.R. listened in to a news broadcast, and heard the commentator say: ‘We suspect that the assault was led by a famous cavalry regiment.’ One tankman was so incensed that he gave the box a hearty kick, exclaiming: ‘You have to be colonial, black, or cavalry, to get any credit in this — war.’ It was a justifiable reaction. For never in the history of warfare has a single fighting unit played such a decisive part in the issue of a series of battles as the 7th R.T.R. did at Sidi Barrani, Bardia, and Tobruk in turn.

The rapid progress of the British advance into Cyrenaica was the more remarkable since it was made under a fresh handicap. Reinforcements, transport, and aircraft that should have been sent to O’Connor were held back in Egypt, and a number of units were even taken away from him. For Mr Churchill’s imagination was now chasing a different hare. Following the scent of his old venture in the First World War, and stimulated by the way that the Greeks were standing up to the Italians, he pictured the possibility of creating a powerful combination of the Balkan countries against Germany. It was an attractive picture, but unrealistic, for the primitive Balkan armies had no power to withstand Germany’s air and tank forces, while Britain could send them very little help.

Early in January Churchill decided to press the Greeks to accept a contingent of British tank and artillery units, to be landed at Salonika, and ordered Wavell to make immediate preparations for despatching such a force — although it meant weakening O’Connor’s small strength.

But General Metaxas, who was then head of the Greek Government, declined the proposal, saying that the force offered would be likely to provoke the German invasion without being nearly strong enough to counter it. Moreover the Commander-in-Chief, General Papagos, expressed the view that the British would be wiser to complete their conquest of Africa before attempting anything fresh, and splitting the effort.

This polite rebuff from the Greek Government coincided with O’Connor’s capture of Tobruk, so the British Government now decided to allow him to push on another step and capture the port of Benghazi. That would complete the conquest of Cyrenaica, the eastern half of Italian North Africa. But the British Prime Minister continued to cherish his Balkan project, and Wavell was told not to give O’Connor any reinforcements that might subtract from the building up of a force for that theatre.

On receiving permission to push on, O’Connor once again achieved much more than could be expected from his meagre resources. (His mobile arm, the 7th Armoured Division, had shrunk to only fifty cruiser tanks, with ninety-five light tanks — which had very thin armour and no effective armour-piercing gun.) Finding the enemy in a strong position at Derna on the coast-road, he planned to lever them out of it by a flanking move as soon as further supplies and cruiser tanks reached him. These were expected in time for him to resume the advance on February 12.

But on the 3rd, air reconnaissance showed that the enemy was preparing to abandon the Benghazi corner, and to retreat to the Agheila bottleneck, where they could block the route from Cyrenaica into Tripolitania. Large columns were seen to be already on the way.

O’Connor immediately planned a bold stroke to intercept the enemy’s withdrawal, employing only the depleted 7th Armoured Division under General Creagh, and despatching it across the desert interior with the aim of reaching the coast-road well beyond Benghazi. It had about 150 miles to go, from its position at Mechili — the first long stretch being across extremely rough country. It moved off with only two days’ rations and a bare sufficiency of petrol — on one of the most daring ventures and breathless races in military history.

Caunter’s 4th Armoured Brigade started at 8.30 a.m. on the 4th, preceded by the 11th Hussars’ armoured-cars. (The other armoured brigade, the 7th, had been reduced to one unit only, the 1st Royal Tanks.) At midday an air report brought the disconcerting news that the retreating enemy were already south of Benghazi. In an attempt to hasten the interception, Creagh ordered Gaunter to organise an entirely wheeled force of motor infantry and artillery, and send it ahead with the 11th Hussars under Colonel Combe. Caunter’s objections to this were borne out by the confusion and delay caused in pulling out these units from the rear of the column, and in organising special transport and signals for them. Moreover, on the terribly rough ground that was met in the afternoon, the tanks almost overtook the wheeled force. Gaunter pushed on until after midnight, by moonlight, before pausing to allow his tank crews a few hours’ rest.

In the morning (of the 5th), with easier ground, ‘Combeforce’ made faster progress. By the afternoon it had established a blocking position south of Beda Fomm across the enemy’s two routes of retreat. That evening it trapped a very surprised column of Italian artillery and civilian evacuees.

Meanwhile Caunter’s tanks, closely following up, had arrived at about 5 p.m. on the enemy’s line of retreat past Beda Fomm. They broke up two columns of artillery and transport before dark. That action fittingly capped an advance in which they had actually covered 170 miles in thirty-three hours — a record in armoured mobility that has never been equalled. The roadlessness and raggedness of the country made the feat all the more astonishing.

Next morning, the 6th, the enemy’s main columns began to appear on the scene, escorted by tanks. There were over 100 new Italian cruiser tanks in all, whereas Caunter had only twenty-nine cruiser tanks. Fortunately, the Italian tanks came along in packets, instead of in a concentrated body, and kept near the road, whereas the British tanks skilfully manoeuvred to gain fire-positions where their hulls were concealed and protected by folds in the ground. A series of these tank battles went on all day, the brunt being borne by the nineteen cruiser tanks of the 2nd R.T.R., which were reduced to seven by the afternoon — when the 1st R.T.R. of the other brigade arrived, with ten more cruisers. The 3rd and 7th Hussars, using their light tanks boldly, did much to distract and harass the enemy.

When night fell on the battlefield, sixty of the Italian tanks had been crippled, and a further forty were found abandoned in the morning, while only three of the British tanks had actually been knocked out. The Italian infantry and other troops surrendered in crowds when their protecting tanks were destroyed and they were left exposed.

Combe’s force, acting as a back-stop, caught such fractions as managed to evade the 4th Armoured Brigade. The Italians’ last effort to break out was made against this rear position soon after daylight, and headed by sixteen tanks, but was checked by the 2nd Battalion, Rifle Brigade.

Altogether 20,000 prisoners were taken in this battle of Beda Fomm, as well as 216 guns and 120 tanks. The total British strength, in both Caunter’s and Combe’s forces, was only 3,000 men. When Bardia and its garrison fell on January 4, Anthony Eden, who had just returned to the Foreign Office as Secretary of State after seven months at the War Office, had coined a new version of Churchill’s famous phrase, saying ‘never has so much been surrendered by so many to so few’. That was even more true of the crowning victory at Beda Fomm.*

* Much of the credit was due to a man who took no part in the campaign — Major-General P. C. S. Hobart, who had been appointed to command the armoured division in Egypt when it was originally formed in 1938, and had developed its high pitch of manoeuvring ability. But his ideas of how an armoured force should be handled, and what it could achieve when operating in strategical independence of orthodox forces, had been contrary to the views of more conservative superiors. His ‘heresy’, coupled with an uncompromising attitude, had led to his removal from command in the autumn of 1939 — six months before the German panzer forces, applying the same ideas, proved their practicability.