Operations in North Africa and the Middle East 1942-1944 El Alamein, Tunisia, Algeria and Operation Torch

324 Pages·2015·5.15 MB·English

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
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Copyright © John Grehan and Martin Mace, 2015
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Contents
List of Plates
Introduction
Abbreviations
1. Field Marshal Viscount Alexander of Tunis’ Despatch on the African
Campaign from El Alamein to Tunis, 10 August 1942 to 13 May, 1943
2. Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham’s Despatch on Operation Torch, the
landings in North Africa, 22 October 1942 to 17 November 1942
3. Lieutenant General K.A.N. Anderson’s Despatch on operations in North
West Africa, 8 November 1942 to 13 May 1943
4. General Wilson’s Despatch on operations, 16 February 1943 to 8 January
1944
5. Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham’s Despatch on Control of the Sicilian
Straits during the final stages of the North Africa Campaign
List of Plates
Field Marshal Viscount Alexander.
Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham.
Lieutenant General B.L. Montgomery, General Officer Commanding Eighth
Army, watches the beginning of the German retreat from El Alamein from the
turret of his Grant tank, 5 November 1942.
A large convoy of British vehicles is queued up during the Allied advance east.
‘Australians storm a strongpoint’.
A stylised drawing which, depicting British gunners in action in North Africa,
was commissioned by the Ministry of Information during the Second World
War.
Troops of the US Army’s 1st Infantry Division, known as “The Big Red One”,
go ashore at Oran, Algeria, on 8 November 1942 during Operation Torch.
The severe damage to the stern of the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Delhi seen here
was caused during operations off North Africa in late 1942.
Bombs fall away from a Boeing B-17 of the USAAF’s Twelfth Air Force during
an attack on the important Axis airfield at El Aouina near Tunis, on 14 February
1943.
British transport passes a knocked-out Italian field gun in its emplacement.
Two German SC 1000 (1,000kg) bombs in front of a wrecked Heinkel He 111H
bomber at Benghazi airfield in early 1943.
Three Afrika Korps prisoners of war are searched by Allied troops as the tide of
the fighting in North Africa turns against the Axis forces.
The remains of a number of wrecked Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters
pictured in late 1942.
An Eighth Army officer inspects a German 88mm gun which had been put out of
action by British artillery during the fighting in North Africa.
Allied vehicles pictured travelling along a road heading in to Tripoli after the
Allied victory in May 1943.
A batch of PoWs in a prisoner of war cage waiting to be processed.
Introduction
General Harold Alexander took over Middle East Command from General
Claude Auchinleck in August 1942. His area of responsibility extended
throughout Egypt, Palestine, Sudan, Cyprus, Kenya and British Somaliland and
North Africa. However, when he took up his command, Alexander was informed
that his ‘prime and main duty’ was ‘to take or destroy at the earliest opportunity
the German-Italian Army commanded by Field-Marshal Rommel together with
all its supplies and establishments in Egypt and Libya.’ Under him he had
Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery who was nominated for the command
of the Eighth Army following the death of General Gott en route to Cairo.
Rommel’s Axis forces were drawn up in front of El Alamein. It was expected
that once Rommel had built up his strength once again, he would attack the
British defences in the hope of pushing onto Cairo. What Alexander needed was
time – time to build up his own forces before Rommel attacked.
In his despatch, which is over 50,000 words long, Alexander details his
arrangements for holding Rommel and his plans to move onto the offensive. His
main concern was regarding the German armoured divisions which were
equipped with Mark III and Mark IV tanks, a few of which were of the newer
type with the high velocity 75mm gun, and with the anti-tanks guns which both
the German and Italian divisions were armed. ‘Though all desert warfare is not
armoured warfare, it is always conditioned by the presence of armour,’
Alexander wrote, ‘since the desert allows infinite mobility and flanks are nearly
always open, every formation and unit down to the smallest must be capable at
any moment of all-round defence and prepared to meet an armoured attack.’ For
this reason anti-tank guns were decentralized down to infantry companies each
of which had a total of at least three and, where possible, six guns. These were
the greatest danger facing the British tank battalions.
Alexander, interestingly, felt the need to comment on his adversary, Rommel,
who had achieved such notoriety. ‘A considerable body of legends had grown up
around him,’ Alexander explained, ‘… but this interest had led to an
exaggeration of his undoubted qualities which tended to have a depressing effect
on our own troops, however much it may have appealed to the newspaper reader
at home. I have always considered it vital to obtain all the information possible
about my principal opponents and I took steps shortly after my arrival to sort out
the truth from the legends about Rommel.’
Alexander then delves into the background of Rommel, before analysing his
operations in North Africa: ‘As I studied the records of his African campaigns it
was soon clear to me that he was a tactician of the greatest ability with a firm
grasp of every detail of the employment of armour in action and very quick to
seize the fleeting opportunity and the critical turning points of a mobile battle. I
felt certain doubts, however, about his strategical ability, in particular as to
whether he fully understood the importance of a sound administrative plan.
Happiest when controlling a mobile force directly under his own eyes he was
liable to over-exploit immediate success without sufficient thought for the
future.’
This over-exploitation, in Alexander’s view, had led Rommel to advance to
the point where he had become over-stretched, which was why the Axis forces
had been unable to complete their advance into Egypt. Rommel, though, was
hampered by the difficulty of supplying his forces from across the
Mediterranean. This meant that Alexander was able to reinforce the Eighth
Army quicker than Rommel was able to strengthen the Afrika Korps. The result
of this was that it was Montgomery, not Rommel, who undertook the next great
offensive in North Africa.
That offensive began with the Second Battle of El Alamein and continued
until the capture of Tripoli. Alexander clearly had a gift for language and his
despatch reads more like a history of the campaign in the desert during the
period he was at Middle East Command.
In February 1943 General Maitland Wilson took over Middle East Command,
and at the beginning of his despatch, Wilson spelt out the extent of his
responsibilities: ‘My main tasks, in order of priority, were to maintain Eighth
Army and support its present operations to the utmost, to plan for future
operations in conformity with the requirements of General Eisenhower, to
prepare to support Turkey, and to conduct amphibious operations. In addition I
was to make plans, when required, for land operations in the Balkan States,
Crete, and the islands in the Aegean; I was to plan possible operations in Arabia
and to be ready to assume command of the land forces in Aden should major
land operations develop in or beyond the borders of that Protectorate.’ No other
British command was so extensive or so varied. Helpfully, he provided an order
of battle for the Middle East Command which gives a clear view of the extent of
his responsibilities. The total number of troops under his command amounted to
approximately 31,000 officers and 494,000 men.
What is revealed in this despatch is the scale of the preparations for the
offensive into Tunisia. This included the construction of petrol storage depots for
tens of thousands of gallons of fuel, medical facilities with more than 5,000 beds
and even a complete tin factory was despatched to Tripoli and erected there. To
reduce flying time from Egypt twenty-two all-weather runways were completed
in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania for the RAF, in addition to about fifty fair-weather
landing grounds and the numerous fighter strips made for Eighth Army.
As well as the Tunisian campaign, Wilson relates the operations his command
undertook in the Aegean and the difficulties with social unrest in Palestine and
Syria. As Allied forces gathered in preparation for the invasion of Italy,
following the defeat of the Axis army in North Africa, discussions were held
concerning a change in Wilson’s responsibilities. The Middle East Command’s
forces were reduced to a minimum and all possible help was given to
Mediterranean Command and to General Eisenhower’s Allied Force
Headquarters.
The transfer of troops and resources to Mediterranean Command and other
theatres saw the end of major operations for Middle East Command. In January
1944, Wilson became Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean.
Whilst the Eighth Army was battling westwards, Anglo-American forces
landed in French North Africa as part of Operation Torch. The two commands
converged in Tunisia and were brought together under Alexander as the 18th
Army Group.
The naval element of Operation Torch was organised and led by Admiral
Andrew Cunningham all the way from the UK to North Africa. The operation
was relatively trouble-free both on the passage to North Africa and the
amphibious assaults at Oran, the landings at Algiers, however, were a different
story. Cunningham states that the analysis of the problems that occurred at
Algiers were not ‘lessons learnt’ but were ‘recognised and foreseen
disadvantages which had reluctantly to be accepted owing to the speed with
which the operation was staged and the consequent short time available for
training.’ However, the fact that Operation Torch was the forerunner of two
much larger and more hazardous amphibious operations – the invasion of Italy
and the invasion of Normandy – made its successes and failures of considerable
interest to those who had to plan those future enterprises. If mistakes could occur
when the landings were relatively unopposed, a repetition of those errors in the
face of a determined enemy might prove disastrous.
The majority of losses were incurred as the troops were disembarking, with
numbers of landing craft being wrecked. This was due, Cunningham believed, to
a lack of training and bad seamanship primarily amongst the American crews.
This prompted a suggestion from the US Army, that landing craft should be
manned and operated by the Army instead of the Navy in the belief that it would
improve co-ordination. Cunningham’s response to that was that ‘it matters little
what uniform the crews wear provided that they are disciplined, trained and
practised seamen and provided that they are organised and operated by officers
competent in their jobs and in close touch with the requirements of the troops
they are required to land and maintain.’
The despatch on Operation Torch was written by General Kenneth Anderson
who commanded the First Army. Anderson experienced considerable difficulty
co-ordinating the British, French and US armies and this was not solved until
Alexander incorporated the US 2nd Corps into his 18th Army Group, leaving
Anderson with just the British and French troops. The Axis forces were unable
to resist the combined strength of Anderson’s and Alexander’s forces and in
May 1943 they surrendered.
The reason why the Germans and Italian forces, some 220,000 strong,
surrendered was because they had been unable to evacuate across the straits to
Sicily. This was because of the naval forces under the command of Admiral
Cunningham, effectively sealed off the Tunisian coast with US and Royal Navy
destroyers, submarines and motor gun boats. With the surrender of the Axis
forces in North Africa the stage had been set for the next operation – the
invasion of Scilly and the Italian mainland.
*
The objective of this book is to reproduce the despatches of the likes of
Auchinleck, Alexander and Cunningham as they first appeared to the general
public some seventy years ago. They have not been modified or edited in any
way and are therefore the original and unique words of the commanding officers
as they saw things at the time. The only change is the manner in which the
footnotes are presented, in that they are shown at the end of each despatch rather
than at the bottom of the relevant page as they appear in the original despatch.