Friday, November 03, 2006

Ian Paterson has a good narrative of events in the Crusader Battle

On the Battles 1941 page, Ian Paterson has a good narrative of events in the Crusader Battle. The page is very ambitious, covering all actions for the 7th Armoured Division in 1941. His assessment of the situation on 23 November 1941, early in the day seems quite accurate:

By dawn on 23rd November, 7th Armoured Division was in considerable disarray. The 4th Armoured Brigade was scatted everywhere, the 7th Armoured Brigade had only 15 battle worthy tanks, with the 22nd Armoured Brigade reduced to 34 Crusaders. The Support Group was virtually non existent. If the Division was to survive these scattered and battle weary elements needed to be concentrated.

General Gott had completed the scattering of his division that had been partially planned by 30th Corps and the army commander. That enabled the Germans to overwhelm the scattered pieces.

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