First Battle of El Alamein

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 1st of July 1942, at three in the morning, German infantry advanced east across the Egyptian desert toward a railway station so unremarkable it had no strategic value of its own. That station was El Alamein. But 106 kilometres behind the advancing Panzer Army Africa lay Alexandria, and behind Alexandria lay Cairo, the Suez Canal, and the entire Allied position in the Middle East.

  How had it come to this? Only weeks earlier, the British Eighth Army had been fighting in Libya. Now it was scrambling to hold a line inside Egypt, while Benito Mussolini flew to Libya in anticipation of riding into Cairo in triumph. At British headquarters, staff officers burned their papers in a panic later called "the Flap". The question the next twenty-seven days would answer was whether Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's exhausted, undersupplied army could punch through one last defensive line before the Allies rebuilt their strength. The answer would shape the rest of the North African war.

• 2. Retreat and Collapse

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  At the Battle of Gazala in Eastern Libya in June 1942, the British Eighth Army under Lieutenant-General Neil Ritchie suffered a defeat that left it virtually without armour. Ritchie retreated east to a defensive line at Mersa Matruh, roughly 160 kilometres inside the Egyptian border, but that position too was built around an armoured reserve he no longer possessed. Without tanks to hold the flanks, his infantry would be picked apart.

  On the 25th of June, General Claude Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief Middle East Command, relieved Ritchie and took direct command himself. He chose not to fight at Matruh. His reasoning was direct: he could not stop Rommel from outflanking his open southern flank the same way Rommel had outflanked him at Gazala. He ordered a further retreat of 160 kilometres east to El Alamein.

  The fighting withdrawal through Matruh and Fuka on the 26th and the 27th of June was badly coordinated. X Corps, out of contact with Eighth Army headquarters for hours, discovered the withdrawal order too late. The coastal road east of Matruh had already been cut. X Corps was forced to break out southward into the open desert, leading to heavy confusion. The 29th Indian Infantry Brigade was destroyed at Fuka. Axis forces captured more than 6,000 prisoners, along with 40 tanks and large quantities of supplies.

  The scattering of X Corps meant that the prepared positions at El Alamein would have to be occupied by a battered army still sorting itself out.

• 3. The Line at El Alamein

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  El Alamein itself was an inconsequential railway station on the Mediterranean coast, but its geography was its value. Ten miles to the south lay the Ruweisat Ridge, a low stony prominence that gave clear observation over miles of desert. Twenty miles further south was the edge of the Qattara Depression, a vast sunken salt flat whose steep slopes made it impassable to armour. The gap between the sea and the Depression was roughly 40 miles wide, meaning Rommel could not simply swing around the southern flank as he had done before.

  Lieutenant-General William Norrie of XXX Corps had begun constructing three defended boxes along this line. The strongest, at El Alamein on the coast, had been partly wired and mined by the 1st South African Division. A second box at Bab el Qattara, about 20 miles from the coast, had been dug but not yet wired or mined. At the southernmost box at Naq Abu Dweis, on the edge of the Depression, very little work had been done at all. Most of the line between these boxes was open, empty desert.

  Rommel, for his part, had originally planned to pause for six weeks after the capture of Tobruk in June. His supply staff had built that assumption into their logistics. Instead, Rommel had pushed forward continuously, and by the time he reached Alamein his three German divisions numbered only 1,200-1,500 men each. His transport was stretched back more than a thousand kilometres to Tripoli. Water and ammunition were constantly short. Even so, Rommel believed that if he struck before Auchinleck had time to settle, momentum would carry him through.

• 4. First Days of Battle

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  At 03:00 on the 1st of July, Rommel launched his assault. The plan called for the 90th Light Division to penetrate between the Alamein box and a feature called Deir el Abyad, then veer north to cut the coastal road, while the Afrika Korps swung south to hit the rear of XIII Corps. Instead, the 90th Light strayed too far north and ran straight into the 1st South African Division's defences, where it became pinned down.

  The 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions were delayed by a sandstorm and then by a heavy air attack. When they finally circled around Deir el Abyad, they discovered an unexpected obstacle: the 18th Indian Infantry Brigade, which had made a hasty journey from Iraq and occupied the position at Deir el Shein just the night before, holding 23 twenty-five-pounder gun-howitzers, 16 of the new six-pounder anti-tank guns, and nine Matilda tanks.

  At about 10:00 on the 1st of July, the 21st Panzer Division attacked Deir el Shein. The 18th Indian Brigade held through a full day of desperate fighting before being overrun by evening. But the time they bought was decisive. Auchinleck used those hours to organise the defence of the western end of Ruweisat Ridge, and the 1st Armoured Division drove the 15th Panzer Division westward. By the end of that first day, the Afrika Korps had only 37 tanks remaining from an initial complement of 55.

  On the 2nd of July, Rommel tried again. An improvised formation called Robcol, named after its commander Brigadier Robert Waller, held the Ruweisat Ridge. Comprising a regiment each of field and light anti-aircraft artillery plus a company of infantry, Robcol bought time until the two British armoured brigades arrived that afternoon and drove back repeated Axis attacks. By the 3rd of July, the Afrika Korps was down to 26 operational tanks. The Royal Air Force flew 780 sorties that day alone.

• 5. Tel el Eisa

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  By the 8th of July, Auchinleck had identified an opportunity on the coastal sector. He ordered Lieutenant-General William Ramsden of XXX Corps to seize the low ridges at Tel el Eisa and Tel el Makh Khad, and to send raiding parties west toward the Axis airfields at El Daba.

  Following the heaviest barrage yet experienced in North Africa, which began at 03:30 on the 10th of July, the Australian 26th Brigade attacked along the coast. The bombardment panicked the soldiers of the Italian 60th Infantry Division "Sabratha", who had only just occupied inadequate defences in the sector. The Australians took more than 1,500 prisoners and routed the division. They also overran the German Signals Intercept Company 621, a find whose importance would only become clear later.

  On the 11th of July, the Australian 2/24th Battalion captured Point 24 at the western end of Tel el Eisa hill, then held it against a series of Axis counter-attacks through the day. A small raiding column forced a battalion of Italian infantry to surrender at Deir el Abyad before being checked at the Miteirya Ridge.

  On the 12th of July, the 21st Panzer Division counter-attacked Trig 33 and Point 24. The attack was beaten off after two and a half hours, leaving more than 600 German dead and wounded in front of the Australian positions. The following day the Germans struck the El Alamein box itself, where the Royal Durban Light Infantry faced their assault without adequate anti-tank guns, their telephone cables cut by German artillery. Nine separate supporting units eventually had to assist in repulsing the attack. South African losses on the 13th of July totalled nine dead and 42 wounded.

  After seven days of fighting, Australian 9th Division estimated at least 2,000 Axis troops had been killed and more than 3,700 prisoners taken. The capture of Signals Intercept Company 621 proved to be among the most consequential results of the battle, as it had been supplying Rommel with intelligence from British radio communications.

• 6. The Ruweisat Ridge Battles

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  With Axis forces drawn north to the coastal sector, Auchinleck launched Operation Bacon against the Italian Pavia and Brescia Divisions holding the centre of the front at Ruweisat Ridge. His policy, sharpened by signals intelligence showing the Axis order of battle in detail, was to strike the Italians wherever possible, because, as he put it, the Germans could not hold extended fronts without them.

  The night attack began at 23:00 on the 14th of July. By shortly before dawn on the 15th, both New Zealand brigades had taken their objectives. But minefields and pockets of resistance behind the advancing troops disrupted the move forward of reserves and artillery. The New Zealanders held exposed positions on the ridge with almost no support weapons. Then the two British armoured brigades failed to advance to protect them.

  At first light, the 8th Panzer Regiment of 15th Panzer Division counter-attacked the New Zealand 4th Brigade's 22nd Battalion. When the anti-tank guns were knocked out, the infantry were left with no option but to surrender. Approximately 350 New Zealanders were taken prisoner. Later that afternoon, Lieutenant-General Walther Nehring launched a second counter-attack with forces drawn from both 21st and 15th Panzer Divisions. Again the anti-tank defences were overwhelmed. Another 380 New Zealanders were captured, including Captain Charles Upham, who had destroyed a German tank, several guns, and vehicles with grenades despite being shot through the elbow. Upham was awarded a second Victoria Cross for his actions that day.

  The second Ruweisat battle on the 21st and the 22nd of July went worse. This time the 23rd Armoured Brigade advanced into minefields over a route that XIII Corps commander Lieutenant-General William Gott had incorrectly believed was clear. The brigade was counter-attacked by the 21st Panzer at 11:00 and destroyed, losing 40 tanks outright and 47 badly damaged. The New Zealanders in the El Mreir depression suffered more than 900 casualties when dawn found them again without armoured support. In three days of the combined Ruweisat fighting, the Allies took more than 2,000 Axis prisoners; the New Zealand division alone suffered 1,405 casualties.

• 7. Stalemate and Its Meaning

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  On the 26th and the 27th of July, Auchinleck launched Operation Manhood, a final attempt to break through in the northern sector. Australian 24th Brigade took its objectives on Miteirya Ridge by 02:00 on the 27th, and the British 69th Brigade secured its objectives by about 08:00. But supporting anti-tank units became lost in darkness, leaving the attackers exposed at daylight. Rommel counter-attacked immediately. German armoured battle groups overran the two forward battalions of 69th Brigade. In the confusion over minefield gaps, 50th Royal Tank Regiment lost 13 tanks without finding a route through. The 69th Brigade suffered 600 casualties and the Australians 400, for no gain.

  On the 31st of July, Auchinleck ordered an end to offensive operations. The Eighth Army had suffered over 13,000 casualties in July, including 4,000 in the 2nd New Zealand Division, 3,000 in the 5th Indian Infantry Division, and 2,552 battle casualties in the 9th Australian Division. The Axis advance had been stopped, but a decisive breakthrough had not been achieved.

  In early August, Winston Churchill and General Sir Alan Brooke visited Cairo and decided to replace Auchinleck. William Gott was appointed to command the Eighth Army but was killed when his aircraft was shot down before he could take up the post. Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery was appointed in his place and assumed command on the 13th of August.

  Rommel later defended the performance of his Italian troops in remarkably direct terms, stating that the Italian soldier had been willing, unselfish, and a good comrade, and that Italian achievements at Alamein surpassed anything the Italian Army had done in a hundred years. He blamed instead the Italian military system, poor armament, and lack of political will. Historians including Dr James Sadkovich have argued, however, that Rommel himself frequently out-ran his logistics and squandered materiel without clear strategic goals, and that his habit of blaming Italian allies concealed his own operational deficiencies. In New Zealand, the Maori Battalion's role at El Alamein remained a source of particular national memory, with commanders Frederick Baker, James Henare, and Eruera Te Whiti o Rongomai Love, who was killed in action, counted among its honoured figures.