The attack on Tobruk in January 1941

For the attack on Tobruk, there were only 18 infantry tanks still running. There was considerably more artillery, however, as well as a new British MG battalion, the 1/Cheshire. The units involved included the 2/1st and 2/2nd Field Regiments with one battery from the 2/3rd. There was British 7th Medium Regiment, one battery from the 64th Medium Regiment, the 51st Field Regiment, the 104th Field Regiment, and a battery of the 4th RHA. The 19th Brigade attack would have 52-25pdrs, 16-4.5in guns, 2-60pdrs, and 8-6in howitzers in support. Source:

• Gavin Long, To Benghazi, 1952.
  

Montgomery followed General Auchinleck's plan at Alam Halfa

In 1948, the former theater commander, Alexander wrote that he had accepted Auchinleck's and Dorman-Smith's plan to fight at Alam Halfa, as it was a natural strong point. Montgomery executed that plan after he assumed command of the 8th Army from General Auchinleck. Part of the political need for Churchill to make a change was to relieve both Auchinleck and Eric Dorman-Smith, he chief-of-staff. The German assault was expected to follow Rommel's usual tactics, which were to try to go around the Southern flank and strike for the coast. In the past, that had been sufficient to panic the less capable British commanders. Churchill wrote of this period that he was at his weakest, politically, of any time during the war. He needed Auchinleck to make some gesture that would shore up his political situation. When that was not possible, Churchill needed to show that he was taking action, so he relieved Auchinleck. The Desert Generals, despite being old, tells the story well from an Auchinleck partisan view.

Partly, the Gazala Battles were lost because Rommel pre-empted British action

While General Neil Ritchie's 8th Army was moving into position to attack, Rommel's mobile forces pre-empted British plans. Rommel's strike force consisted of the 21st Panzer Division, the 5th Panzer (formerly 5th Light Division), and the 90th Light Division. They went South around the British desert flank. They were aiming behind the British lines, including for the famous Sidi Rezegh airfield, Southeast of Tobruk. The first phase of the battle was unfolding on 27 and 28 May 1942. The speed and decisive movement unhinged the British command, and succeeded in bagging the divisional commander, General Frank Messervy, and disrupted the 4th Armoured Brigade. Things only got worse from there.

The 9th Australian Division in February 1941

In February 1941, General Blamey told General Wavell that he should use the 9th Australian Division in Libya, and send the 6th Australian Division to Greece. Brigadier Moreshead had been recently promoted to be the 9th Australian Division commander. The division had not really been assembled in the field, at this time. It was missing units, and had other units under its temporary command. They were the target of the initial probing attacks by the newly arrived German reconnaissance battalion. When enough of the 5th Light Division had arrived, Rommel attacked, and caught the British and their allies flat-footed.

British Army Units, Circa 1940

Armoured regiments or battalions (either armoured cavalry or battalions of the Royal Tank Regiment) had a established strength of 52 tanks. Regiments and battalions were divided into squadrons, batteries (artillery), or companies. These were all units of between 100 and 300 men. An infantry "rifle company had 127 officers and men". A tank squadron had 170 men. A field artillery battery had 267 men. I believe that this is from Colonel Ellis' official history of the war in France and Flanders, although I am just guessing, as I am reading from a photocopy from 20-25 years ago.

Australians and the force sent to Greece in late 1940 and early 1941

General Wavell's plan had been to send the 7th and 9th Australian Divisions and to keep the experienced 6th Australian Division in Cyrenaica. The Australian commander, General Blamey, insisted that the best Australian troops be sent to Greece. That meant relieving the 6th Australian Division, replacing them with raw troops, and transporting them to Greece (where they lost their equipment). We can sympathize with General Blamey, however, in that he didn't want to expose inexperienced units to the uncertainties of the operation to aid Greece against the Italians. No one foresaw that the Germans would enter the theater in both Greece and Libya, and would do so very soon. The 7th and 9th Australian Divisions eventually turned into seasoned veterans, but only after some considerable difficult experience.

More about Sidi Barrani

Apparently, by nightfall of December 10, 1940, Sidi Barrani had been taken, but strong Italian forces still remained capable of fighting. By this time, the 6th RTR was reduced to 7 cruiser and 6 light tanks. Unsupported, they had probed aginst the 1st Libyan Division, but were repulsed by anti-tank guns. That night, the 11th Indian Brigade formed a line to the southeast of Sidi Barrani. To the south was the Central Indian Horse (mechanized cavalry). On the morning of December 11th, Selby's Matruh Force, the 11th Indian Brigade, with armoured support attacked. Soon, Italian soldiers started to surrender. Indian soldiers, with accompanying armour, took between 1500 and 2000 prisoners from the camp at "Point 90".

The First Battle of El Alamein

The First Battle of El Alamein ended German chances of victory in North Africa. From that point forward, the British forces, with their Commonwealth allies, were ascendent. Correlli Barnett, in The Desert Generals, wrote that on 17 July 1942, the turning point had been reached. The battle actually lasted longer than that, as the preliminary phase started in early July and continued until late July. British (including Commonwealth) infantry attacked South from El Alamein and systematically rolled up the Italians. There were insufficient German forces to really affect the issue, although Rommel used all that he had. The irony is, that after General Auchinleck, and his staff officer, Major General Eric Dorman-Smith, won the First Battle of El Alamein, they were replaced, as Churchill needed to shore up his political position. General Auchinleck had his problems. He seems to have made abominally bad choices for his field commanders. On the other hand, Churchill wanted to see Auchinleck be the field commander, as he recognized just how good Auchinleck was. That was difficult, when General Auchinleck was also theater commander, with wide-flung responsibilities. Auchinleck was replaced by two pedestrian, but reliable, commanders: Harold Alexander as theater commander and Bernard Law Montgomery as field commander.

The initial British strategy for the Crusader Battle in November 1941

At the start of the Crusader Battle, the British planned to outflank Axis forces at the "wire" and strike toward Tobruk. They were newly equipped with large numbers (relatively) of new tanks, including the Cru. Mk.VI Crusader II and the American-built M3 Stuart light tank. The British armour was concentrated in the 30th Corps, which struck initially at Gabr Saleh, on the Trigh El Abd. One detachment turned short and headed North, just to the West of Sidi Omar. The 13th Corps, with infantry, attacked directly against the Axis forces between Sidi Omar and Halfaya Pass, in front of Sollum. The German 21st Panzer Div. was sitting at Gambut, on the Via Balbia. The 15th Panzer Division was sitting at the edge of Tobruk, near the Sidi Rezegh airfield. Elements of 30th Corps headed straight at the 15th Panzer Div. The action did not go well for green British armoured forces, and eventually, General Auchinlech relieved his field commander Lt. General Alan Cunninghem, and took charge himself. He eventually won the battle. Correlli Barnett's book The Desert Generals, has a good description of the Battle. Another book that gives the feel of what was happening is Robert Crisp's Brazen Chariots.

Selby force at Sidi Barrani in December 1940

Brigadier Selby commanded a force for the attack on Sidi Barrani that was composed of three columns. He personally lead one column with the 3/Coldstream Guards, 6 field guns, three light tanks, and a machine gun company. The second column had a rifle company, a machine gun company and one field gun. They also had 8 dummy guns (I suppose to overawe the Italians). The third column had some infantry, artillery, and this time, 65 dummy tanks. I suppose the use of dummy equipment was to give the appearance of greater force, as they were opposed by large numbers of Italian troops. The whole purpose was to break the Italian morale. This is drawn from Gavin Long's To Benghazi.

30th Corps Troops at El Alamein

In what is described as 30th Corps Troops and troops in Corps reserve, there were the following units:

1. 23rd Armoured Brigade commanded by Brigadier G.W. Richards. The 23rd was composed of the 8th RTR, 40th RTR, 46th RTR, and 50th RTR, along with the 121st Field Regiment RA, 168th Light AA battery RA, and engineers and ambulance units
2. 4/8th South African Armoured Car Regiment
3. Artillery, consisting of the 7th Medium Regiment, the 64th Medium Regiment, and the 69th Medium Regiment
4. This was along with mortars and signals units

This is a from photocopies from Appendix A of what I believe is the official history

1st Armoured Division on 23 October 1942

The 1st Armoured Division fought in the Second Battle of El-Alamein. The divisional commander was Major-General Raymond Briggs. The division consisted of the 2nd Armoured Brigade and the 7th Motor Brigade, plus divisional troops.

The 2nd Armoured Brigade commander was Brigadier A. F. Fisher. The brigade's units were The Queen's Bays, 9th Lancers, and the 10th Hussars, with the Yorkshire Dragoons motor battalion.

The 7th Motor Brigade was commanded by Brigadier T. J. B. Bosvile, and consisted of the 2/Rifle Brigade, 7/Rifle Brigade, and the 2/King's Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles).

The divisional troops included: 12th Lancers (armoured cars), 2nd RHA, 4th RHA, 11th RHA (HAC), elements of the 78th Field Regiment, 76th A/T Regiment, and 42nd Light AA Regiment. They also included engineers, signals, and ambulances.

An interesting note from To Benghazi

On page 130 of To Benghazi, there is an interesting note regarding the Thompson submachine gun (Tommy gun, as it is called in the note). It was only through hard lessons fighting the Germans that the Tommy gun was finally adopted. The Germans actually had adopted more modern submachine guns. The British only made the Tommy gun part of the standard equipment after the fall of France in 1940. As early as 1918 had found German troops equipped with machine pistols with 25-round magazines. The British had encountered German troops armed with submachine guns in Norway and in probing actions in Lorraine, prior to May 1940. Apparently in May 1940, a British battalion may only have had as many as two or three submachine guns. When the commandos were formed in June 1940, there were only 40 Thompson submachine guns in all of Britain.

Armour at the Gazala battle in 1942

The Germans started the Gazala battle with a new weapon. They had 19 Pzkw IIIJ's with the long 50mm gun with the frontline forces. There were another 19 at Tripoli, presumably newly arrived. The British also had a new weapon, the M3 Grant tank with the 75mm gun in a hull-mounted sponson. The 8th Army had 167 Grants in service, so the British started the battle with a big advantage. They also had another 250 Grants in Egypt, in reserve. The 4th Armoured Brigade had all the majority of Grants. They equipped their regiments with two Grant and one Stuart squadron. The 1st Armoured Brigade had one Grant squadron to two Crusader squadrons in their regiments. It was surviving Grants that stopped Rommel's advance at the First Alamein on July 3, 1942. On July 3rd, the 1st Armoured Division had 38 Grants out of their approximately 100 tanks. That was sufficient to stop Rommel's 26 tanks.

The Commonwealth forces in the Middle East in early 1940

The 16th Australian and 4th New Zealand brigades arrived in the Middle Eastern theater in February 1940. The theater commander was General Wavell, and another thing happened in February: Wavell's command responsibilities were expanded to cover a wide area, from the Balkans to East Africa, to Iran and Iraq. His divisions included 7th Armoured, 6th British infantry, 1st Cavalry (yeomanry regiments), 6th Australian, New Zealand, and the 4th Indian. They were all undermanned and equipped. This was just before the entry of Italy into the war.

It may not be of general interest

Not everyone may be interested in such trivia as what I just posted, but for a miniatures wargamer such as myself, it is quite useful. I have, in the past, used my own orders of arrival and OOB's. To make them accurate needs a great deal of otherwise trivial data, such as this. The whole effort of preparing OOB's and equipment lists necessarily consists of finding all these bits of data and aggregating them. We are also always on the lookout for new sources, and if possible purchase them. Otherwise, we copy pages, or barring that, take notes.

British artillery units at Bardia in December 1940

I was pleasantly surprised to see that a copy I have lists the artillery regiments and their equipment that were at Bardia in December 1940. Note that RHA stands for Royal Horse Artillery, RAA is Royal Australian Artillery, and RA is, of course, Royal Artillery. The units are as follows:

• 1 Regiment RHA 16-25pdrs
• 4 Regiment RHA 24-25pdrs
• 104 Regiment RHA 16-25pdrs
• 51 Regiment RHA 24-25pdrs
• 2/1 Field Regiment RAA 24-25pdrs
• 2/2 Field Regiment RAA 12-4.5in howitzers and 12-18pdrs
• 7th MEdium Regiment RA 2-60pdrs, 8-6in howitzers, and 8-6in guns
• 64th Medium Regiment RA 16-4.5in guns

This is from a footnote on page 155 of To Benghazi, by Gavin Long.

Some German Pzkw inventory figures

I have some copies from the Geschichte des zweiten Weltkrieges book that I made at the Johns Hopkins Library, right before I left Maryland. There is a table from page 124 that gives artillery and tank inventory numbers for 1 September 1939 (at the start of the war), 1 April 1940 (before the attack in May), and 20 June 1941 (right before the invasion of Russia). These are the tank inventory numbers:

Pzkw I: 1,445, 1,045, 889
Pzkw 35(t): --, 163, 203
Pzkw II: 1,228, 1,095, 1,197
Pzkw 38(t): --, 256, 801
Pzkw III: 101, 388, 1,565
Pzkw IV: 213, 148, 358

In some ways, the numbers of Pzkw I's in service in 1941 is surprisingly high. By 1941, though, it has fallen to third place in the inventory. The Pzkw III had become the most used tank. In 1940, it was the Pzkw II, with the Pzkw I a close second.

The British heavy artillery regiment in 1940

A British heavy artillery regiment was organized with a headquarters and four batteries. The regiment was armed with 4-6in guns and 12-8in or 9.2in howitzers. The troop strength was nominally 700. They did have 10-LMG and 17-Boys anti-tank rifles. I imagine that the LMG might have been Bren guns.

Things haven't changed much in the Middle East since 1936

The situation was different, in the sense the Britain controlled "Palestine" in 1936. From then, until the start of the war in 1939, there was conflict between Jewish immigrants and Arabs who resented their growing presence, and the government giving them land. In the process that lead to the war in 1948, when the Jewish state was formed, there was continued immigration of Jewish people to the region, beyond the quotas set by the British government. That lead to the "Exodus" voyage, post war. It also lead to bad situations where refugees were denied a landfall prior to the war. By the time the Australian and New Zealand forces arrived, Palestine was partitioned into three zones. The zones were determined by whether there was free access to Jewish people to purchasing land, or if it was restricted, or banned.