Battle of Alam Halfa, (31 August–7 September 1942)

Commencing on August 31, 1942, a month after the German Panzerarmee Afrika was checked at the Battles of El Alamein, Alam el Halfa was Erwin Rommel’s final attempt to break through to the Nile valley in continuation of his frustrated drive across Cyrenaica and western Egypt. Leading the British Eighth Army, Gen. Sir Bernard Law Montgomery deployed his forces near Alam el Halfa, an east-west ridge astride Rommel’s path of advance. On the first day of battle, three German armored divisions defeated British forces, turning the Eighth Army’s southern flank. However, Montgomery rallied an extraordinary defense—considered by military historians a textbook example of the modern repulse—and, coordinating armor and infantry with air and artillery support, stopped Rommel at the ridge. By the fourth day of the battle, Rommel had been forced into retreat, redeploying his armor in a defensive line running north and south. The battle was over by September 7, by which time Rommel, checked again, had lost significantly more than the 1,750 casualties (killed and wounded) suffered by the Eighth Army.

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North African battle between German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps and British Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery’s Eighth Army. Fearful that he would permanently lose the initiative to the Eighth Army after his advance was halted at the First Battle of El Alamein in July 1942, Rommel reorganized with the intention of resuming his advance toward Suez. Meanwhile, Montgomery assumed command of the British Eighth Army on 13 August and began planning for the offensive, all the while expecting Rommel to attack first.

Late on the evening of 30 August, Rommel attempted, as at Gazala, to get around Eighth Army’s left flank although his force was weak in armor. With diversionary attacks designed to hold British forces along the coast, Rommel ordered the Afrika Korps east and south of Alam Halfa Ridge with the aim of swinging north to the Mediterranean coast behind Montgomery and enveloping the Eighth Army.

The Eighth Army had established a defense in depth, including strong positions on the Alam Halfa and Ruweisat Ridges, and Montgomery rejected any withdrawal. The 10th Armored Division, 22nd Armored Brigade, and 44th Division defended Alam Halfa, while the 7th Armored Division was south of the ridge. Montgomery ordered his armored units to defend from their current positions rather than advancing to meet Rommel’s Panzers.

Slowed by British minefields and fuel shortages, Rommel’s tanks did not reach Alam Halfa until the evening of 31 August. Daylight brought vicious Desert Air Force attacks against the Axis advance, and the 7th Armored Division’s placement forced Rommel to swing north prematurely, into the teeth of a tank brigade on Alam Halfa Ridge. Fuel shortages prevented the Afrika Korps from outflanking Alam Halfa to the east, forcing Rommel onto the defensive there.

On 1 September, after a flank assault on the 22nd Armored Brigade failed and having suffered severe losses, Rommel ordered his forces to retire to their original positions. The withdrawal, which began the next day, exposed the Afrika Korps to further devastating British aerial attacks. Rommel repulsed a counterattack by the 2nd New Zealand Division on the evening of 3 September, and Montgomery believed that he lacked the resources to force a general Axis withdrawal, so he decided not to press his advantage for the time being. Certainly Rommel’s past successes made Montgomery wary of pushing too far forward.

Montgomery had fought his first battle as commander of Eighth Army with great skill. Rommel now had no choice but to go on the defensive. He established positions between the Mediterranean and the Qattara Depression as both sides prepared for the Eighth Army’s upcoming offensive: the Second Battle of El Alamein.

Historically, the victory here is significant as an outstanding instance of ground-air coordination and the exploitation of intelligence. British breakthroughs in the decryption of the enemy’s coded communication proved crucial to the triumph at Alam el Halfa. On August 15, 1942, Rommel, using the Enigma cipher, transmitted his plan of action—to effect a breakthrough to Cairo and the Nile—to Adolf Hitler. Within 48 hours, Montgomery had a decrypted translation of this message. Learning that Rommel intended to move south around the end of the British line, then strike the British flank to cut off the Eighth Army from its base and supplies, Montgomery was able to deploy his forces at the Alam el Halfa ridge and check the German advance.

Further reading: Hinsley, F. H., and Alan Stripp, eds. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; McCarthy, Peter, and Mike Syron. Panzerkrieg: The Rise and Fall of Hitler’s Tank Divisions. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002. Stewart, Adrian. Eighth Army’s Greatest Victories: Alam Halfa to Tunis 1942–1943. London: Leo Cooper, 1999; Stewart, Adrian. North African Victory: The 8th Army from Alam Halfa to Tunis, 1942–43. London: Penguin UK, 2002.

Desert Campaign AFVs

One of the myths of World War II is that the Germans enjoyed superiority in numbers as well as quality of tanks. This is simply untrue. What the Germans possessed was a better mix of vehicles for the circumstances, a superior tactical doctrine for their employment, and more effective leadership. In the end better Allied equipment and, above all, superior numbers simply overwhelmed the German forces.

The Italians had a well-developed armor doctrine that closely paralleled the Germans' blitzkrieg. They planned to utilize medium tanks to punch holes in enemy lines while light tanks served as the exploiting arm. Early on, especially in the fighting in North Africa, the Italians lacked mobile artillery, although their later self-propelled guns, the Semovente, helped make up for this. The Italian artillery doctrine of fuoco da manovra (fire and maneuver) called for artillery and antitank guns to be located close to the front line supported by infantry.

The chief deficiency in Italian armored doctrine was the lack of tactical air support, the consequence of Italy's embrace of Guilio Douhet's doctrine of strategic bombing. Other handicaps included a lack of radio equipment in the tanks. As with the French, Italian tank crews communicated in battle primarily with flags. Italian forces were also not as well trained as the Germans. As two scholars have summed up, "Italy had developed the concepts but lacked the materiel to implement them."

The Allies understood the important role tanks could play in stiffening the resolve of infantry. They also introduced some numbers, albeit insufficient, of assault guns and self-propelled antitank guns working with the infantry. Such weapons came to play a key role in armored warfare, as did development of larger high-velocity guns to defeat improved armor protection.

Following its 3 September 1939 declaration of war against Germany, Britain deployed only a single tank brigade to France with the BEF. In the experience of the defeat of France and the subsequent Italian invasion of Egypt, British leaders at last realized the necessity of building a large armored force. Prime Minister Winston Churchill called for the creation of 10 armored divisions by the end of 1941, and the government launched a crash program to build the tanks required to equip them. Much might have been saved had this decision been taken earlier.

The Allies' problem was that they did not fully understand or appreciate the use of combined arms, especially the concept of tanks and antitank guns working in concert. It took the 1940 Battle for France and serious reversals in the North African desert for the British to understand this. British armor doctrine provided that infantry tanks, armed basically with machine guns, would operate in support of infantry that would punch a hole through enemy lines. Cruiser tanks would then push through the gap, operating independently of infantry and other arms in a cavalry-type role. For example, in Operation CRUSADER in North Africa during November 1941, the British 7th Armored Division operated essentially alone, without infantry or supporting artillery. In the early fighting in North Africa the British incorrectly assumed that the Germans used tanks to destroy other tanks, whereas German armored doctrine assigned that task to antitank guns while the tanks were to destroy infantry.

Major General Eric Dorman-Smith summed up early British generalship in North Africa with these words:

In the Middle East Command, during the autumn of 1941, there arose the tactical heresy which propounded that armour alone counted in the Desert battle, therefore British armour should discover and destroy the enemy's equivalent armour, after which decision the unarmoured infantry divisions would enter the arena to clear up what remained and hold the ground gained.

Only through the crucible of experience did the British Eighth Army learn how to conduct mobile warfare effectively. In North Africa, both sides learned to keep their tanks waiting in cover, rarely firing on the move. The commander of Germany's Afrika Korps, General Erwin Rommel, employed his antitank guns and field artillery in an offensive role, pushing them as far to the front as possible, where they could be employed against British tanks and strongpoints. When on the move, the Germans dispersed their antitank guns among the length of the march column so they could be quickly deployed.

During the attack Germans invariably opened up first with artillery and antitank guns. The tanks would then advance as quickly as possible until within range of enemy positions. The leading tanks were accompanied by 105mm howitzers and field guns operating in a direct support role as highly trained infantry worked in close concert to reduce enemy antitank defenses. If Commonwealth forces counterattacked with tanks, the German antitank guns, infantry, and artillery were in position to work in concert to destroy them. These tactics were amply demonstrated during British reversals at the hands of Axis forces in North Africa in 1941-1942.

Although the Germans perfected this system, they could not overcome the Allies' overwhelming superiority in numbers of tanks at the start of the Battle of El Alamein in late October 1942. Also, the British generals, who initially failed to comprehend the concept of mobile mechanized warfare, corrected their earlier tactics with new equipment. Not until after Alam Halfa did the British have widely available in Eighth Army the new 6-pounder antitank gun, a weapon that could stop the German panzers. Major General William H. Gott, commander of 7th Armoured Division in Eighth Army, was largely responsible for the belated British policy of breaking down the traditional, rigid British organizations into combined all-arms groups, a process that became standard in the British Army. General Bernard L. Montgomery summed up the importance of combined arms in tank warfare with these words: "I cannot emphasize too strongly that victory in battle depends not on armoured action alone, but on the intimate cooperation of all arms; the tank by itself can achieve little." The Americans would have to learn the same lesson for themselves in 1943.

Colours of the Crusader

Though most of the initial defects were overcome to an extent, the Crusader, as it was named in. late 1940, always suffered from unreliability and the speed and urgency with which it was rushed into production did not allow long development trials, particularly for desert operations, where the Crusader became the principal British tank from Spring 1941 onwards. It first saw action near Capuzzo in June 1941, was prominent in all the major North African desert actions which followed, and was still in service, in its later 6pdr-armed form at the time of the Battle of Alamein in October 1942, though by then in the process of being displaced by American-built M3 and M4 mediums (qv). The last Crusaders in North Africa were finally withdrawn from first line use in May 1943, but the type was used for training until the end of the war. From mid-1942 onwards Crusaders were converted for numerous special purpose roles, including AA tanks, gun tractors, and ARVs.

The Crusader was designed just too late to incorporate any of the lessons learned in the early tank actions in France in 1940, but several modifications resulted from trials with the prototype. These included removal of the front auxiliary machine gun turret, mainly because it was too poorly ventilated and of limited value, which also simplified production. This turret was also removed retrospectively from many Mk I vehicles in service, and the space allowed extra ammunition stowage. It was also possible to increase the armour thickness slightly on hull and turret front. Finally, the Mk III version was up-gunned with a 6pdr replacing the 2pdr. The Germans respected the Crusader for its speed, but it was no match for the PzKw III with 50mm gun, its main desert opponent, in hitting power, armour thickness, or serviceability. The German 55mm, 75mm and 88mm antitank guns also had no trouble in picking off Crusaders in the desert fighting.