Auchinleck's new plan for El Alamein on 7 July 1942

By 7 July 1942, General Auchinleck had given up on his original plan for two columns to cut around the enemy's southern flank and move into his rear areas. Something about the separation between his two corps worried Auchinleck. He now decided that there were vulnerable Italian formations in the north that the fresh Australian soldiers could attack. 5 and 6 July had seen the 26th Australian Brigade moved up along the coast, behind the defended areas. By 8 July, the majority of the 9th Australian Division had been pulled up from Alexandria. The plan for the division from then onward was to keep a skeleton force for each battalion so if a battalion was destroyed, there was a base to rebuild from.
When General Morshead visited XXX Corps headquarters, he learned that General Norrie was leaving for England. The new XXX Corps commander was to be General Ramsden, the 50th Division commander. At 6pm on 7 July, General Ramsden phoned General Morshead to inform him of his new assignment. This meant that General Morshead would report to a general who had less responsibility than Morshead, a short time before. At the time of the call, General Ramsden was still a Major-General, while Morshead, as AIF commander, was a Lieutenant-General. It turned out that during the remainder of First El Alamein, Ramsden and Morshead disagreed and had a poor relationship. The situation was created by the fact that Morshead was not impressed by Ramsden's performance and that affected his attitude.
7 July 1942 saw 24th Brigade ordered to stage a raid with one infantry company with engineers. The strength involved 4 officers, 64 infantrymen, 20 engineers, with six stretcher bearers. The force was assembled at Point 71 at 10:30pm. They moved out by 11pm. They walked about 1400 yards, the front of the group could see enemy troops at about 800 yards. They attacked while the other platoons spread out left and right and also moved in.
The raid seems to have been successfull. The engineers destroyed one M3 Stuart and two Grant tanks, along with a gun and its gun tractor. One man recaptured a British carrier and drove it out. The enemy had fired wildly and inaccurately. The raiding part returned to point 71 by 3am and had a positive affect on 9th Division morale as well as nearby troops. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.