South-African Forces in North Africa I

During the North African campaign, South Africa committed two divisions and an air wing. The first South African soldiers to arrive in Egypt, Pienaar’s First Brigade, established a headquarters at Amariya in May 1941 and were soon incorporated into Britain’s new Eighth Army. By September 1941 there were 60,000 South African soldiers, including 15,000 blacks, in Egypt. In November 1941 the British launched an offensive, known as Operation Crusader, along the Egyptian-Libyan border to relieve Tobruk where a mostly Australian garrison had been holding out against an Axis siege. The First South African Division was part of this push. This offensive culminated in a large and chaotic tank battle in the open desert around the Axis airfield at Sidi Rezegh, south of Tobruk, in late November. During a German-armored thrust that eventually failed to throw back the Allied advance, the Fifth South African Infantry Brigade was overwhelmed with 3,000 men killed, wounded, or captured. This outcome represented the worst single loss in the history of the Union Defence Force and caused considerable anxiety in South Africa where Afrikaner nationalists put an ultimately unsuccessful motion to quit the British Empire before parliament. In December the newly arrived and poorly equipped Second South African Division, commanded by South African Police Commissioner Major General I. P. de Villiers and with two infantry battalions of South African Police, made a number of unsuccessful assaults on the besieged Axis border strongholds of Bardia, Sollum, and Halfaya. These operations had been hampered by Eighth Army desires to limit South Africa casualties because of political issues and problems with acquiring replacements. Supported by the heaviest Allied bombardment of the campaign up to that time, South African infantry and British tanks penetrated the Bardia defenses on New Year’s Eve 1941, and after intense fighting the Axis garrison, which outnumbered the attackers, surrendered on January 2, 1942. South African casualties amounted to 132 killed and 270 wounded, and 7,775 German and Italian soldiers were captured. Later in January the Second Division took Sollum and Halfaya in order to secure Allied supply lines. The capture of Bardia and Sollum liberated 1,246 Allied captives, and in all three operations a total of 13,842 Axis prisoners were taken.

During January 1942 Axis forces retook the initiative and the Allies, in early February, pulled back to the Gazala Line, a series of widely spaced strong points just west of Tobruk. The First South African Division was assigned the extreme northern section of the line, and the Second Division was held in reserve at Tobruk in anticipation of a renewed Allied advance. At this time the Fourth and Sixth South African Armoured Car regiments were attached to the British Seventh Armoured Division and 50th Division, respectively, and deployed as reconnaissance ahead of the Gazala Line. At the end of May 1942 an Axis offensive began with a feint on the First Division, under newly promoted Major General Pienaar, that quickly hooked around the southern portion of the Allied line resulting in the First Division joining a general Allied retreat. The Second Division commander, Major General Hendrik Balzaser Klopper, was placed in command of the entire Tobruk garrison, and as the other Allied forces moved east he was instructed to hold out against an Axis siege. Klopper had a week to oversee the reconstruction of the deteriorated Tobruk defenses. Antitank ditches and trenches had filled with sand, many of the position’s mines had been removed for use elsewhere, and a third of his men were logistical troops working in the harbor. Klopper lacked operational command experience as did the members of his staff who bickered among themselves. The result was a poorly prepared defensive perimeter in which one of three infantry brigades was uselessly placed along the coast, artillery was positioned too far from the front line, and transport vehicles were not camouflaged. The garrison gained false confident when, in its first engagement with the enemy, the Transvaal Scottish killed 80 Italians and took 200 prisoner. The Germans, under Erwin Rommel, initially appeared as if they were going to bypass Tobruk in pursuit of the fleeing Eighth Army. However, on the night of June 19, Rommel quickly repositioned his forces and launched a surprise armored and infantry assault that pierced the defenses and reached the port. German air support came in from all over North Africa and Crete, whereas the Allies did not have a plane in the sky. The majority of the South African soldiers, defending the western, southern, or coastal sections of the perimeter, did not fire a shot. Although Klopper sent a message to his western units that there would be a breakout, reports that German tanks were gathering for an attack on one of the South African brigades changed his mind. On June 21, 33,000 Allied soldiers of the Tobruk garrison, including 12,722 South Africans of the Second Division, surrendered. When the Germans allowed Klopper to address the Allied prisoners, they booed and heckled him for having sold out to the enemy. After the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, the loss of Tobruk represented the second largest British capitulation of the Second World War. Having famously been the only incident of the war to make Churchill wince, the surrender of Tobruk cast doubt on South Africa’s military prowess and loyalty to the Allied cause.

When some white South African officers demanded they be housed in separate prisoner compounds from black South Africans, Rommel refused and pointed out that they all wore the same uniform and would be kept in the same facilities. Among the South Africans taken prisoner was Lance Corporal Job Maseko, a delivery man from Springs who had joined the NMC. In late July Maseko and some fellow prisoners, while being forced to work at Tobruk harbor, sunk a moored German naval vessel by concealing an improvised explosive among petrol drums. He later received the Military Medal.

South-African Forces in North Africa II

Maj-Gen Dan Pienaar. Assumed command of the 1st Division on 10 March 1942.

By the end of June 1942 the Eighth Army, with Axis forces not far behind, had regrouped along the ‘‘Alamein Line,’’ a chain of prepared defensive positions called boxes extending from the coast south to the Qattara Depression. What became known as the First Battle of Alamein would constitute the Allies’ last attempt to halt the Germans and Italians before they reached Cairo. With the First Division assigned the most northern section of the line, Pienaar positioned his Third Infantry Brigade with considerable artillery support inside the ‘‘Alamein Box’’ and pulled the First and Second brigades back to the southeast from where they would be employed as quick reaction forces. Early in the morning of July 1, the German 90th Light Infantry Division advanced along the coast and was brought to a halt by South African defenses and intense artillery fire. A concentration of German armor attempted to break through just south of the 90th Division but was caught in a crossfire between all three South African brigades and pulled back. All along the front the Axis advance ground to a halt and on July 4 Rommel ordered his men to dig in. Attacks, counterattacks, and raids continued until mid-July. The First Division suffered 1,997 casualties in June and 527 in July. It was around this time that the division received six pounder antitank guns giving them better anti-armor capability.

On the night of October 23–24, South Africa soldiers participated in Operation Lightfoot, a massive infantry assault, supported by artillery and followed by engineers who would clear paths through minefields for tanks. This was the beginning of the Second Battle of Alamein. The Second and Third South African brigades would advance southwest along the Qattara Road with the intention of overcoming enemy strong points and seizing a 5-kilometer long section of Miteiriya Ridge. The First Brigade was positioned to the southeast to provide supporting mortar fire on the ridge and to open gaps in the enemy minefields as required. Held up by enemy artillery and machine-gun fire, the Second Brigade, consisting of the Cape Town Highlanders, Natal Mounted Rifles, and Field Force Battalion, took heavy casualties but eventually seized Axis defensive positions and reached its objective. Of the brigade’s 334 casualties that night, the Field Force Battalion suffered the worst with 41 dead and 148 wounded. Corporal Lucas Majozi, an NMC stretcher bearer who had sustained several wounds, refused medical treatment and continued to expose himself to machine-gun fire to carry injured men to safety. Receiving the Distinguished Conduct Medal he became the most highly decorated black South African soldier of the Second World War. During the attack the Third Brigade—the Rand Light Infantry, Royal Durban Light Infantry, and Imperial Light Horse—advanced more easily taking light casualties. A South African armoured car regiment was attached to the British First Armoured Division that advanced west through a corridor toward Kidney Ridge, was held up by an enemy strong point, and pushed through the next day. During October 24 and 25, the South African infantry dug in on Miteiriya Ridge and tanks, guns and transport moved up the Qattara Road. On the night of October 26–27 two companies, one from the Cape Town Highlanders and one from 2 Regiment Botha, seized an enemy strong point called the ‘‘Beehive’’ and at the same time First Brigade advanced 1,000 yards beyond the division’s original objective. In order to create a reserve for future offensive operations, the New Zealanders were pulled back from the line, and by October 28, the South Africa Division had moved right to replace them. Within the division’s new area, the First Brigade took the right, the Third Brigade took the left, and the Second remained in reserve. On the night of October 30–31, Axis positions in front of the South African Division were bombarded by South African artillery to divert attention from a northward thrust by the Australians closer to the coast.

During the first few days of November two South African armored car regiments participated in Operation Supercharge, the Allied offensive that broke through enemy lines sending Axis forces in a final westward retreat. Racing forward, South African armored cars operated behind enemy lines destroying transport and supplies. By November 8, the Four/Six Regiment had accounted for 5,000 enemy prisoners, 150 guns, and 350 vehicles, and on November 12, it was the first Allied unit to enter Tobruk, abandoned by the Axis, liberating a large number of NMC prisoners. As British and New Zealand infantry advanced as part of Supercharge, units of the South African Division took their place in the defensive line from where they mounted fighting patrols and were harassed by Axis shelling. In mid-November, after the general Axis withdrawal from Alamein, the First South African Division was pulled back to Quassasin. In December 1942 and January 1943 the division was transported to South Africa for conversion as an armored formation. On December 19 the plane carrying Major General Pienaar, who historian Neil Orpen has described as one of South Africa’s ‘‘most colourful and ablest military commanders,’’ and some of his staff back to South Africa crashed in Lake Victoria with no survivors. After the seizure of Tobruk, the Four/Six South African Armoured Car Regiment continued to lead the Allied advance as part of a British light armor brigade all the way to Benghazi that was taken on November 20, 1942. The Four/Six Armoured Car Regiment was then sent back to South Africa where it was disbanded, as was its parent formation the South African Tank Corps, in order to create the new armored division. It is also important to note that South African engineers, who took part in the Eighth Army’s pursuit of Axis forces after Alamein, breached minefields; repaired roads, railway, and harbor facilities; and secured water supplies. On May 12, 1943, South African warplanes dropped the last bombs of the North African campaign in which South Africa had lost 2,104 men killed, 3,928 wounded, and 14,247 captured.

Western Desert (as at 17 October 1942: Second Battle of El Alemain)

1^st Division Commander: Major General Daniel Hermanus ("Dan") Pienaar CB, DSO & Bar

    1st South African Infantry Brigade Brig. E.P. Hartshorn

        1st Duke of Edinburgh's Own Rifles SA Infantry Corps

        1st Royal Natal Carabineers SA Infantry Corps

        1st Transvaal Scottish SA Infantry Corps

        One Sqn 3rd SA Armoured Car Regt SA Tank Corps

        3rd and 4th Anti-Tank Batteries SA Artillery Corps

        1st Light Anti-Aircraft Battery SA Artillery Corps

        1st Field Company SA Engineering Corps

        11th and 15th Field Batteries of 4th Field Regt SA Artillery Corps

        7th, 19th and 20th Field Batteries of 7th Field Regt SA Artillery Corps

    2nd South African Infantry Brigade Brig. W.H.E. Poole

        1st Cape Town Highlanders SA Infantry Corps

        1st Natal Mounted Rifles SA Infantry Corps

        1st Field Force Battalion SA Infantry Corps

        2nd Field Force Battalion SA Infantry Corps

        B Company (Machine Gun), Die Middelandse Regiment SA Infantry Corps

        4th Company (Machine Gun), Regiment President Steyn SA Infantry Corps

        1st and 2nd Anti-Tank Batteries SA Artillery Corps

        3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Battery (less two Troops) SA Artillery Corps

        1st, 3rd and 14th Field Batteries of 1st Field Regt SA Artillery Corps

    3rd South African Infantry Brigade Brig. R.J. (Bobby) Palmer

        1st Imperial Light Horse SA Infantry Corps

        1st Rand Light Infantry SA Infantry Corps

        1st Royal Durban Light Infantry SA Infantry Corps

        One Troop 3rd Light Anti-Aircraft Battery SA Artillery Corps

        2nd Field Company SA Engineering Corps

    Division Troops

        2nd Regt. Botha, SA Infantry Corps

        Regt. President Steyn (less one Coy), SA Infantry Corps

        3rd SA Armoured Car Regt (less one Sqn), SA Tank Corps

        8th Royal Tank Regiment, (part of 23rd Armoured Brigade Group)[116] equipped with Valentine tanks

Attached formations

Not reflected in the above order of battle due to date discrepancies:

    21st East African Infantry Brigade from 27 February 1941 to 6 April 1941

    Polish Independent Carpathian Rifle Brigade from 3 February 1942 to 18 March 1942

    Free French Brigade from 3 February 1942 to 10 February 1942

    6th South African Infantry Brigade from 18 March 1942 to 20 April 1942

British Fighting methods during the early Desert War

The British Army had begun the Desert War in June 1940 knowing surprisingly little about waging highly mobile operations using mechanized forces under the peculiar conditions imposed by the desert. Indeed, it appeared virtually a new form of conflict carried out using predominantly lank and motorized formations fought in an area where no one had previously believed large-scale military operations possible. The basic source of written doctrine employed by all the British Commonwealth armies - Field Service Regulations and the manuals for each arm of service (as amended by various Military Training Pamphlets produced by the Directorate of Military Training at the War Office since World War II began) - contained next to nothing of specific guidance. Although FSR contained much of general value about war fighting, this was often largely discounted by men on the spot due to a pervasive distrust of written doctrine, the fact that doctrine was not imposed from the top down by senior commanders, and that it was left to commanding officers to interpret official sources. Tank warfare using highly mobile AFVs was a new and virtually unknown quantity, with contending theories abounding within the Royal Tank Corps about the correct organization and employment of armour, especially in independent mobile operations. Recent experience in France had yet to be fully digested and lessons learned. Perhaps most seriously a pervasive idea quickly became established that the desert was a unique combat environment and caused serious difficulties; this in part explains why FSR were largely ignored. To many observers it appeared the tank and the desert presented a whole new challenge in terms of devising a workmanlike doctrine with which to both prepare troops for combat and to direct the fighting itself. With little authoritative advice from senior officers, much was left to commanders on the spot. As Michel Carver has accurately described: 'In default of experience, the army had to either to rely on theory or, as most commanders did, on what they regarded as pragmatic common sense or even happy-go-lucky intuition.' The result was that techniques were gradually evolved and various new methods perfected.

The newcomers who joined Western Desert Force could draw on some, albeit limited, advice from troops who had served in Egypt in its small pre-war garrison about both fighting methods and doctrine for armoured warfare, and living, moving and fighting in the desert. Before June 19-10 these units had carried out exercises in the Western Desert during which much had been learnt about 'desert lore', what constituted 'desert worthy vehicles' and the movement of small, highly mobile, mechanized forces across featureless desert terrain. A great deal still remained to be learnt about the desert, however, especially in relation to a war using large numbers of vehicles.

These troops in Egypt were heavily influenced by Maj. Gen. Percy Hobart, a doyen of the Royal Tank Corps in the 1930s and GOC of the Mobile Division (Egypt), later re-designated 7th Armoured Division. Inspired by the ideas of Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart, this prickly and strong-minded individual fervently believed that forces exclusively consisting of tanks would exert a decisive effect on all fighting, with armoured formations operating widely dispersed across a battlefield and suddenly concentrating at decisive points. By using manoeuvre and surprise alone, tanks would play a key role in securing victory. Unfortunately this belief meant Hobart badly neglected inter-arm co-operation, largely relegating infantry and artillery to a very subordinate role, and little thought was ever given to how the other teeth arms could assist in destroying enemy armour or be used in the desert. As Carver has noted: 'The problem of how to employ infantry in the desert, and therefore how to organize and equip it, was never satisfactorily solved.' Under his command this formation was intensively trained in accordance with his bullish belief that armoured units would have a paramount role in a future conflict. Although Hobart was dismissed in November 1939, over differences with his commander on doctrine, his ideas about the supremacy of the tank were widely accepted in 7th Armoured Division and lived on during the early war years. It proved a very unfortunate legacy and ultimately cost the Desert Army dear. Indeed, according to Tim Place: 'The tactics in which Major General Hobart trained the Mobile Division in Egypt in 1938-39 set the pattern for the tactics which would bring defeat after defeat at Rommel's hands in 1941 and 1942.'