We are moving towards discussing the Crusader Battle

One of the hardest fought and longest running battles in the war in North Africa in 1941 and 1942 was the Crusader Battle, which started in November 1941 and ended the the Axis retreat to the west. One of the nastiest features of the battle was that the British only won after Claude Auchinleck took charge of the battle. Auchinleck was the theater commander, but he was Churchill's favorite to command the 8th Army in the field. Auchinleck just wanted to be theater commander and let a more junior officer command the 8th Army. Auchinleck kept picking men who were not up to the job of successfully fighting Rommel, so Auchinleck had to keep getting more involved in operations than he wanted. Stay tuned for the eventual "blow-by-blow" of the battle.