If the British have enough in hand here to fight a battle of attrition, then I think I must find better ground, he thought. I won’t beat them that way, which is why I put the Italians on the coast road in the shop window, and hold my two Panzer Divisions back. My infantry will hold, but this O’Connor will come round the flank to the south in time. Then I decide whether or not to hit him in a counterattack.
And yet, isn’t that exactly what happened at Gazala? If he comes with those heavy tanks again, then all I’ll accomplish here is to wreck the last too Panzer Divisions I have, and now, with these landings behind me in Morocco and Spain, something tells me I will get fewer and fewer replacements. I am told von Arnim will take over the operational defense there from Kesselring, so Smiling Al can become the overall Theater Commander. I never liked von Arnim. He’s a stiff backed academy General, and with little imagination, and now he has my 10th Panzer Division. I had better discuss things with him soon, and tell Kesselring to get these bothersome Italian Generals off my back.
Cavallero was here again yesterday, complaining as he always does. He doesn’t like my placement of the two Italian Armored Divisions up front as I did. The fate of those infantry divisions at Benghazi still stings. The Italians think I am needlessly sacrificing their troops to save my own. He smiled as he thought that, because that was absolutely correct. Without my Afrika Korps, he mused, all those Italian Divisions would be in British prison camps in the desert by now, so Cavallero can moan and groan all he wishes. Yet he has the ear of Mussolini, who in turn will whine to Hitler, and on it goes.
Politically, I can see why the Italians are getting more and more nervous here. The loss of their colonies in Africa could break their morale altogether, and knock them right out of this war. Look what just happened with the French. In many ways, I thought the French to be more reliable than the Italians, but they folded like a badly set up tent when Hitler ordered our troops to take Oran and Algiers. Frankly, I do not think we have seen the last of them. They must have cut a deal with the Allies. They have not interfered with Von Arnim or Nehring, but they still sit in their colonies, and we haven’t the men or time to round up all their troops and put them under guard, let alone their equipment.
Yes, something tells me that many of those troops will join Leclerc or De Gaulle, and we will fight them sooner or later. This whole affair in Africa has been a great waste. I was never adequately supported, particularly by the Luftwaffe. And yet… I had three Panzer Divisions here, regiments from Goring and Grossdeutschland at the high tide mark. I should have boxed the ears of the British with that force and chased them all the way to Alexandria. It was only that damnable Heavy Brigade… And where is it this time around? Is it waiting to pounce the minute I give orders to 15th and 21st Panzers to stop this British attack?
Late in the day, the British Northumbrian Division stormed into Mersa Brega, but the Italians had a bone to pick with them after Benghazi, and Littorio Division decided to commit everything it had in a major counterattack. Their tanks rattled into the town again, with hot fighting from one broken building to the next. This forced back the infantry of the British 2nd Battalion, but the heavy infantry tanks if the 1st Tank Brigade were right behind them and quickly moved up to challenge the Italian armor.
There were 33 of the American Sherman tanks, a new model that had just been delivered a few weeks ago, much superior to the older Grants. They also brought up the Matilda Dozer tanks of the Royal engineers, which advanced on the Italian hard points outside the town, the enemy machinegun fire snapping off the big metal shovels up front, and the British infantry huddled behind this steel vanguard, their rifles fixed with bayonets. Behind them they suddenly heard the thunder of the Division artillery again. Fire from 48 guns was directed over the front at the road beyond the town, where it pounded columns of Italian vehicles. Meanwhile, 6th and 7th Green Howards and the 6th Yorkshire Infantry formed up to the rear of those guns, waiting to push forward when needed.
On the long wadi well south of the town, the Ariete Division was in a similar fight to the death with the 51st Highland Division. The northernmost segment of the British line was right on the wadi, the seam between the Italians and the German 164th Light Division to the south, which was well dug in to stony ground near Matan al Jafr. General Wemberly decided to make that seam his main effort, sending one reinforced regiment to lap up against the lines of the 164th in a masking attack simply intended to keep them in their positions. Then he committed the muscle of his other two regiments to fall upon the Ariete Division, which had already sent up lines of its medium tanks to hold the line.
The British armored cars of the 8th Hussars, particularly the heavy hitting AEC III with a QF 6 Pounder main gun, and armor up to 65mm thick, outclassed the Italian M14/41 tanks, which had only 30mm frontal armor and a 47mm main gun. The armored cars were also faster and more agile on the field, and better coordinated, as each had a radio, a liability the Italians had yet to correct in their armored formations. Yet coordination in this terrain simply meant filing your armored cars up the narrow passways, and along the single coast road, and it would become a grueling battle of attrition. It would take those two British divisions on the coast all of three days to push through Mersa Brega, clearing the mines, sending in the infantry, moving up the tanks of 1st Brigade in support.
No one would say the Italians did not acquit themselves well. Ariete and Littorio would fight tenaciously to hold that narrow coastal defile, while Rommel sat with his two Panzer Divisions in reserve, trying to decide whether to engage O’Connor’s armor as it attempted to wheel around his main defense over that horrid ground.
It would not be the tenacity of the front line troops that decided this battle, but news that came with the arrival of Kesselring that same morning. It was both good and bad. Hitler had issued another of his stand fast orders. Kesselring was not to yield Algiers, and Rommel was not to withdraw from his Mersa Brega line.
The good news was that Rommel was going to receive a nice new gift for his upcoming birthday, his old division from those halcyon days in France, the 7th Panzers.
“We know it was a lot to ask of you when we called for 10th Panzer and all Goring’s troops,” said Kesselring. “So you will get this division to compensate you. Perhaps it will take some of the sting out of that order from the Fuhrer.”
“The 7th Panzers?” Rommel was delighted, his mood elevated, eyes alight. This was the other phantom of those early days of the blitzkrieg, also called the “Ghost Division” when Rommel had it.
“The service troops are already busy repainting the camo schemes on the tanks with desert colors,” said Kesselring with a smile. And I met that aide you favor at the airfield when I landed, Lieutenant Berndt. He has just returned from Germany with a briefcase full of letters from your wife Lucy, and a box of those cookies you always talk about. Save a few for me!”
“This is excellent news!” said Rommel. “Yet you come with both fire and ice here, Kesselring.” Rommel paused, his mind working furiously, his thoughts congealing to a sudden new point of certainty. Now he knew what he had to do.
“I was resigned to hold this position when I lost those troops earlier,” he began. “It is the only ground suitable for good defense when badly outnumbered. But don’t you see? Now that I will get another Panzer Division, I can fight again. I can maneuver. That damnable heavy brigade the British have been using as a hammer is not here. The Luftwaffe reports it has moved towards Tobruk. Without that to check my panzers, I can maneuver—fight the second war instead of the first, and adopt a much more mobile defense—or better yet, I can go on the offense! But not here, Kesselring. Not here. The terrain is suitable only for static defense. All I can do here is fight a battle of attrition, and you know that we are outnumbered. O’Connor has eight divisions.”