The lead-in to the 9th Australian Division operation, where General Morshead was very unhappy

General Morshead, the 9th Australian Division commander disliked General Ramsden, the XXX Corp commander. They had a two hour meeting where Morshead told General Ramsden that he disagreed with the plan for the attack on 22 July 1942. After hearing about the conference, General Auchinleck sent for General Morshead for another meeting at XXX Corps headquarters. The meeting attendees were General Morshead, General Auchinleck, General Ramsden, and Eric Dorman-Smith, DCGS. The DCGS took notes for the meeting. Auchinleck laid out the plan for the XIII Corps attack. If you read The Desert Generals, you learn that Eric Dorman-Smith was sort of "co-conspirator" during this period with Auchinleck. They were intent on making radical changes to how operations were conducted with the aim of becoming more competitive with Rommel's forces. Eric Dorman-Smith was disliked by the.
In the meeting, General Morshead objected that his division would be too dispersed to give the necessary support. Morshead told Auchinleck that the Australian objectives were much more difficult than Auchinleck and Ramsden realized. General Auchinleck apparently did not like how Morshead had responded, although he did not let Morshead know that. General Auchinleck told General Morshead that he wanted a willing commander for the operation. General Morshead told Auchinleck that he just wanted tasks that he could reasonably be sure of accomplishing with the goal of minimizing casualties  while performing the needed operation.The Desert Generals book has the time of the meeting wrong, in that the meeting was prior to the attack on 22 July, not for an operation on 24 July.
In the time leading up to the attack on 22 July, the men of the 9th Australian Division, at least those in the battalions facing the enemy, were given no rest. They were involved in active patrolling. The 2/48th Battalion diary noted that the "heat and flies" made  sleep during the day impossible. At night, they were too busy "digging and patrolling". They took to sending one man each day to the beach to be able to sleep. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official History.