Free The Moscow Option by David Downing

by the five hundred tanks of the 7th, 4th and 22nd Armoured Brigades a huge column of transport rolled across the frontier between Gasr el Abid and Fort Maddalena. This was 30th Corps, under General Norrie; its task was to seek out and destroy the German armour and then proceed to the relief of Tobruk. On its right flank the 13th Corps, mostly made up of infantry formations, was to pin down and then envelop the enemy troops holding the frontier positions.
    This may have looked good on the map-table, but if so it is hard to believe there was a map on it. For one thing the two corps were pursuing separate objectives on diverging axes, for another 13th Corps, with very little armour of its own, was dependent on the disappearing 30th Corps for flank support. The result should have been predicted. The British armour was doomed to dispersal.
    Unaware of what the fates had in store, through 1 November the British armoured brigades advanced steadily across the desert wastes and into the enemy rear without meeting any resistance. German reconnaissance patrols were sighted slipping away to the north. By evening 30th Corps had reached the vicinity of Gabr Saleh, on a front thirty miles wide facing north-west. Here the plan began to go awry. The low cloud still hindered air reconnaissance, and Cunningham had little idea of the whereabouts of the German panzer forces marked down for destruction. It had been assumed that they would find him, but they hadn’t. By morning on the following day there were still no dust- clouds on the horizon, and the British commander was in a dilemma.
    It had been foreseen, and a dubious contingency plan prepared. Norrie, Cunningham’s one commander with experience in handling armour, had doubted whether Rommel would seek battle at Gabr Saleh. If not, he had argued, the British should drive on to Sidi Rezegh, the key to Tobruk. Then the Axis commander would have no choice.
    On the morning of 2 November Cunningham compromised. Fatally. 7th Armoured Brigade would move north on Sidi Rezegh, but alone. 4th Armoured Brigade would have to stay at Gabr Saleh to protect 13th Corps’ left flank, and 22nd Armoured Brigade would have to secure 30th Corps’ left flank against the threat of the Ariete division, which its reconnaissance screen had discovered in the Bir el Gubi area. The British armour was divided up.
    Thirty miles to the north Rommel was concentrating his armour and waiting for accurate intelligence of the British movements. When the skies cleared sufficiently that evening for air reconnaissance he could hardly believe his good fortune. He ordered General Cruewell, commander of the Afrika Korps, to take his two divisions south towards Gabr Saleh against the isolated 4th Armoured Brigade. As darkness fell the German tanks rolled forward into the clear desert night, lights extinguished and wirelesses turned off.
    At dawn on the 3rd they were spotted by the RAF. Cunningham immediately ordered 22nd Armoured Brigade back from Bir el Gubi to Gabr Saleh. But it had twice as far to travel as the German panzers.
    An hour or so after dawn the hastily breakfasting soldiers of 4th Armoured Brigade spotted the dust-clouds they had searched for in vain the previous day. At around 06.30 Cruewell launched a concentric attack on the sprawling leaguer around Gabr Saleh. 15th Panzer moved in from the north as 21st Panzer, which had taken a longer wheel round to the east, attacked from the south-east. The British tank crews, high on gallantry but low on tactical sense, rushed out to do battle in their Stuarts. Fast and reliable, but thinly armed and, since they ran on aviation fuel, liable to flare up, the Stuarts were no match for the Panzer IIIs. Soon the desert was littered with flaming wrecks as the experienced panzer commanders pressed home their advantage. By 09.00 between ninety and a hundred Stuarts had been destroyed for German losses of around fifteen, and the remainder were withdrawing in disorder to the south.