Tigers East (Kirov Series Book 25) Page 20
“We Just came up from the HQ,” said a Lieutenant. “He’s there, alright. Threw in the Pretorian Guard half an hour ago when he unleashed the 23rd. There’s nothing else left but the AA Park units. He’s got them all dug in in front of the depot. We’re to hold this hill.”
Seven Kilometers south, Reese had been caught up in the sweeping battle with his 1/12th Royal Lancers. He was on the road east to Al Hunjah, and ran into the Panzer Fusilier Company from Sonderverband 288, which was quickly reinforced by a platoon of pioneers, and then, in the middle of the fight, up came II Battalion, 6th Panzergrenadiers. The three Challenger IIs formed a triangle, their 120mm guns blasting away and blowing up one halftrack after another. The Scimitars pumped out a lot of fire with their autocannons, yet Reeves saw two of his vehicles hit in rapid succession by a heavy caliber round, and their thinner aluminum armor was easily penetrated. There was too much enemy infantry. He could see them dismounting, moving forward in small groups, setting up mortars and machineguns, and their AT teams had the Panzerfaust that had ambushed one of his vehicles after Gazala. He knew he had to maneuver, and open the range.
“All units,” he ordered through his headset mike. “We move north to Ulyam ar Rimith. Challengers provide covering fire. Scimitars move now!”
Reese would lose one more Scimitar as they fell back. His other vehicles made it safely away, and the three Challengers remained invulnerable to any hits they took. Popski spotted them withdrawing toward his position, and raised Reeves on the radio. “Come on up and join the party,” he shouted over the din. “Our whole lot is up here with the S.A.S. company, and the General is right behind us.”
“This is going to get ugly,” said Reeves. “We spotted what looks like an entire battalion of armor swinging round your left and heading north. And there’s fighting at Alam al Hunjah. Hold on. I’m moving my unit to your position now.”
All over the field, the fortunes of battle were shifting, the balance teetering. The 4th Indian had swamped the German line, and was now heavily engaged with 15th Panzer Division, which acted like a good blocking linesman to allow the fullback, 7th Panzer, to race around the flank. The British 7th Armored pushed out onto the plain of Al Hamarayah, but then ran into a strong German blocking position at Wadi Daf’an. Ramcke had been listening to the battle back at Rommel’s old HQ at the airfield complex south of Sirte. The General was long gone, off to join his panzers, and Ramcke had no orders. Hearing the battle chatter on the radio, he knew there was trouble on the flank, and so he stepped out of the HQ tent, whistling for his Adjutant.
“Get the men up and ready to move,” he said. “The British are trying to come round the flank of 21st Panzer. We’re going to stop them!” He had five battalions of tough Falschirmjaegers, and they leapt aboard the reserve trucks pooled there, motoring off into the haze. When they reached the scene of 7th Armored’s turning maneuver, they could see that 21st Panzer was hard pressed, with the British 1st Armored to the east, and now the 7th Armored coming up from the south. The German Division had adopted a horseshoe defensive front, with the rugged ground of Wadi Daf’an in the center.
Ramcke knew that it would take tanks to stop that envelopment, so the thing to do was to get his battalions east to relieve the Panzer units on that line. Then they could swing south and engage the enemy armor. That battle was still raging, when another most unexpected arrival would shift the winds of fate in Rommel’s favor.
The 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion had landed at Tunis, and von Arnim had thought to put it on the trains to move west into Algeria, but Kesselring intervened.
“Those tanks are to go to Rommel,” he said. “Führer’s orders—direct from OKW this morning.”
So three companies of tanks were arriving, 27 Tigers with the lighter Lynx Recon tanks among them. Hitler had kept his promise, and now it was up to Rommel to keep his. The arrival of Ramcke’s five battalions had stabilized the situation. With this fresh force of heavy armor, the Germans would counterattack.
Harding’s attack was already slowing when he got a message from General Horrocks on the radio. “Look,” he said. “Rommel’s got 7th Panzer round our flank, and he’s already well east of Wadi Harawah. We’ve had to turn the whole of 4th Indian Division south to hold the flank, and so we’ve nothing to support you out there. O’Connor wants you to pull out, and now. Get back on the road to Bir Qarinah, and head due east. Jerry has turned north and he’s after the depot at Rimith!”
Those orders were easily given, but they would be very difficult to carry out. About half the division was able to disengage and get back to the road. The other half was still locked in close range firefights with the German 21st Panzer Division. As Harding’s column headed east in the gloom, they could hear the sounds of battle off their right shoulders, the line of the 4th Indian still fighting with 15th Panzer Division. At Sidi Azzab, a patchwork of machine gun units, engineer field companies, and the Free French troops were battling to hold that crossing point over Wadi Harawah.
O’Connor could see that he had been outmaneuvered. His attack toward the wadi to try and stop 7th Panzer in that massive tank battle involving 23rd Armored Brigade was a gamble, but the Germans had held with most of their division while sending that battalion of tanks right on around the flank. He needed armor, and quickly, reluctantly giving the order to Brigadier Richards to pull his brigade out and return to Ulyam ar Rimith, the site of the HQ AA park and forward depot. It was all the fuel the British had brought forward to sustain their planned envelopment, and it had to be saved.
8th RTR was able to disengage and move northeast, but it would not get there in time. 46th RTR took a route south of the hill where Popski and the others watched, and ran into a recon company from Sonderverband 288. But Reeves had been listening to all this radio traffic and knew now what he could do. He gave the order to move to full battle speed, and his fast AFVs moved like the desert wind, racing north around Popski’s position and then swinging up to Ar Rimith to arrive there just as the first of three companies of German panzers began their attack. The light flak batteries with their 40mm Bofors were trying to hold the line, but now they would get some most welcome relief.
Reeves hit the 1st Company of I 25th Panzer, which had 12 VK-55 Lions, three of the new bigger versions, the VK-76, 21 Leopards medium tanks and 9 of the speedy Lynx Pz II recon tanks. The Challengers opened fire, knocking out two Lions and three Leopards, which forced the Germans to fall back and regroup. There were two more companies, equally configured, and they were continuing to flank the position to the right. Then the Germans organized another tank rush with 1st and 2nd Companies, and Reeves was all that stood in their way. Behind them the Germans, II Battalion of 6th Panzergrenadier was coming up in support.
Rommel had been on the scene, racing in his staff car from one unit of the 7th Panzer to another. He pulled together any scattered unit he found, a few flack guns on halftracks, two towed AT guns, a company of motorcycle troops. Building small kampfgruppes like this, he sent them east and north, and battalion by battalion, he had directed the masterful sweep of the 7th Panzer Division in that envelopment. He had reached Al Hunjah just a few hours after he said he would, a testament to the amazing skill he possessed, the ability to see ahead in a battle like a good chess player, judge the terrain, and know what his units could do, where they could go, and how fast. Now he wanted that fuel depot.
46th RTR brushed the recon company it encountered aside and was now assembling just northeast of Popski’s hill. 8th RTR was 2 kilometers to the northwest, moving towards the depot, and 50th RTR was still on the road, another 5 kilometers west near Sidi Azzab. The 4th Indian had been slowly extricating itself from the lines of 15th Panzer Division, falling back north again. Reeves had stopped one company of German tanks, and was hotly engaged by the reinforcing battalion arriving.
The tanks we can handle, he thought. Our Challengers can pick them off one by one if they persist, though I’m down to four scimitars now, and the three Warriors. His o
wn Dragon-90 had taken a glancing blow from a lighter gun, most likely from one of the German Leopards, which still had the 50mm gun. It failed to penetrate at the angle it hit, and Cobb saw the enemy tank, pivoting and blasting it with that 90mm gun. The arrival of 8th RTR was a welcome sight, and when it engaged, he decided to pull his Squadron out, shifting northeast to an ancient cemetery site where the road crossed a wadi bed. When he arrived he could see the Army transport pool truck reserve heading north.
O’Connor now had a most difficult decision to make. The Germans had reached the depot, overrunning the stores and barrels of fuel stockpiled there with two companies of tanks. They now had the bulk of the entire 25th Panzer Regiment on the scene, reinforced by two Panzergrenadier battalions and two battalions from the recon force, which were already bypassing the site, speeding east past hill 430 towards Nofilia some 26 kilometers on. The only thing that could try and stop them was the RAF. The 21st Indian Brigade was still dueling with elements of Sonderverband 288 near Alam al Hunjah, very near the place where Rommel was at that moment. O’Connor ordered the Brigade to withdraw towards Nofilia the way it had come.
As for the rest of his 8th Army, it was clear to O’Connor that he was not going to beat Rommel that day, nor was he going to break the defensive front his nemesis had established here. On the coast, the 51st had broken through the line of the wadi, but then up came the Italian Giovanti Fascisti Brigade, just in time to stop them. Called “Mussolini’s Boys” by the Germans, the Young Fascist unit was fanatical and very stubborn when it went into combat. It was an odd moment, with an Italian unit coming to the rescue of the German 164th Division, and they were enough to hold the Via Balbia closed to further British advance. 50th Northumberland could not break the well-fortified lines of the 90th Light, and so everywhere, the British were on defense.
O’Connor turned to a staffer. “We’ve lost the forward dump, and now the stocks at Nofilia are exposed. Send word to the 1st South African Division at Agedabia. I want then to move west into the bottleneck at once. All units west of Wadi Harawah will disengage and return to their starting positions. This battle is over—unless Rommel persists on this flank. I can’t imagine he can push much farther east, but I’ve been wrong before. I want all of Tenth Corps to retire through Bir Qarinah. We’ll just have to pull ourselves together and try again another time.”
Tobruk gone, and now this, he thought heavily. The whole army is out here, and deflating like a great balloon. If I have to fall back, that’s exactly what it would be like, getting all the air out of that bloody balloon. I’ve a single good road passing through the bottleneck, and the whole area is just four kilometers wide. On the other side, we can’t be bothered. Rommel simply cannot push through the mass of this army as long as I still hold that defile. But something tells me he has no intention of ever trying. No. He’s forsaken Cyrenaica for good now, and while it looked like he was giving us half of Tripolitania with his withdrawal, he snookered me good. He was just luring me out into good ground for a fight. Yes, he can’t fight on the ropes, so he wanted to dance in the middle of the ring again, a weary old champion looking for one last victory. Well, he’s got one now. But we aren’t beaten yet. We’ll fall back, consolidate, hold the bottleneck in tight if we have to. Then it’s simply a matter of replacing our losses before we try again.
That evening he would learn that 2 battalions of 22nd Armored Brigade had been cut off and destroyed, almost to a man. War was hell.
Chapter 24
As night fell, O’Connor realized that any further retreat by the Army as a whole would likely end up in a complete mess. Units would get lost, intermingled, equipment would be abandoned, and worse, morale would ooze out of the Army like air from that balloon. So he issued a stand fast order to all the infantry divisions. They were to consolidate behind a defensive front, begin moving their artillery and local stores, but would make no retreat that night. He did not think the German infantry divisions could threaten or move them in any case. The infantry when well deployed on defense was a sturdy shield.
For his shattered sword, the armored force, he knew that he needed to keep moving. Behind Ulyam ar Rimith, there was a track that ran due east for a little over 20 kilometers. It would parallel the road the German recon units had taken to Nofilia, and so that was where he wanted his armor. He sent Popski on ahead that night, telling him to report in hourly as to the condition of the track, and any enemy movement that might be attempting to cut that route. Then he assembled his Brigadiers and got them all on the same page, telling them what he wanted them to do.
“Nofilia,” he said. “We’ve lost the fuel at Rimith, but there’s a good deal more at Nofilia. Rommel’s headed that way, but he has a long flank to watch, and it gets longer with each mile he moves east. We’ve got the inside track, and so we move east with him, right along this road. It passes the hill at Ras at Tarqui, then crosses the highland here at Ras Kubar. At that point, the Via Balbia is just seven or eight klicks north, and Nofilia no more than fifteen klicks east. We need that ground. We’ve got to block any move by the Germans to the north and secure the depot at Nofilia. Gentlemen, how are your brigades looking after this fight?”
Roberts of 22nd Armored spoke up, a dejected look on his face. “I’m afraid our lot took quite a beating. Jerry got up the paras to hold the line we were fighting with 21st Panzer. Then the mobile units shifted south and caught my brigade in the flank. I’ve lost the whole of 1st and 5th RTRs, nearly a 100 tanks gone there. I managed to save the Yeomanry, and the infantry battalion and artillery.”
“Bad throw there,” said O’Connor. “Let it be a lesson to us. Even the mighty shall fall. These sands cover the heads of kings and warlords who thought they would rule here forever. We’re just the latest to come along.”
4th Light Brigade was in better shape, except for the Household Cavalry. 23rd Armored Brigade still had plenty of tanks on hand, some still fighting down near the lost depot. Ironically, they were low on fuel. O’Connor continued to count his eggs, then gave orders to each Brigade commander, suiting the condition of the forces he had. While 51st still held on the north coast, he withdrew the 1st Tank Brigade, and started it east on the fast road surface of the Via Balbia
“Gentlemen,” he said. “We thought we’d give the Germans a surprise with our Churchills and the new American tanks. But I’m told they did the same to us. He’s taking his Tigers east, but we’ve got a lot of fight left in us yet.”
“Yes sir, those new heavy tanks really are Tigers—well named. But our heavies can stop them, wherever they are.”
The men looked at O’Connor with expectant eyes. They had seen, time and time again, the swift moving mass of Kinlan’s 7th Heavy Brigade riding to the rescue, and O’Connor could see that they were wondering where it was.
“Brigadier Kinlan was at Tobruk,” he said. “And I’m afraid I have some bad news about the place….”
* * *
Lieutenant Reeves had a problem. That night one of his three Challenger IIs hit a mine as he was withdrawing up the road from the cemetery. It completely blew off a segment of the left track and damaged two wheels, though the interior of the tank was not compromised and no one was injured. Under normal circumstances in operating with the Brigade, an incident like this would not have been a problem. They would have just called for engineers to come and tow the tank, or even effect a field repair, and it would have been back in operation within hours. That was not possible now, not with two battalions of German tanks and infantry three kilometers behind him, and nothing but a thin screen of light flak holding them—that and the darkness. He huddled with Sergeant Williams.
“Willie,” he said, “that’s a huge chunk of our firepower sitting there, and I hate to leave it, but I don’t see there’s anything we can do. We either leave it there as a pill box and have it fight to the last round, or we cut our losses and save the ammo. Let’s get every round out and distribute them to the other two tanks. The crew can ride in the Warriors.”
“We’re going to just leave it sitting there for the Germans?”
“Hell no! Rig up a demolition charge and place it inside the tank. Another goes down the barrel. That’s the best we can do. It will blow the interior equipment and electronics to bloody hell. Before we do that, strip off any external equipment we can use for the other two, and scour the damn thing for anything that shouldn’t be left behind. Let’s be quick. The Germans could move this way any minute, and we’ll find ourselves in another firefight.”
So there it went, one of the last three Challengers on the field of battle. An hour later Reeves was following in the footsteps of Popski, heading east on the road to Ras at Tarqui, and leading the long column of 23rd Armored Brigade in a slow procession of steel. Along the way they passed a Muslim shrine, and then the broken column of an old Roman ruin. When he saw them, Reeves could not help but think of the empires that had swept over these sands, each thinking it was the epitome of power, there to bend the hand of fate to its will. The thought of that Challenger II he was leaving behind nagged at him—all glory was fleeting. Now it would be just another derelict ruin in the desert, and a monument to the folly of man’s pride, and of war.
Come dawn on the 3rd day, October 12th, O’Connor gave the order for the infantry to withdraw, with 51st Highland on the coastal road, and 50th Northumbrian taking a parallel track through the desert. 4th Indian and the two French brigades continued to screen the withdrawal of the armor. A single battalion of the Indian 21st Independent Brigade reached Nofilia as ordered. One was still hung up near Alam al Hunjah, surrounded by German troops of the 7th Panzer Division. The other was strung out on the roads, dogged by elements of Sonderverband 288.
Rommel was standing exactly where he had planned to be, but the chaos of war saw his panzer divisions scattered all over the desert, on ground spanning over 40 kilometers. What he needed now was infantry, a force to screen his flank if he continued to push the panzers east. The heavy Tigers in the 501st arrived, and he immediately sent them east in a shock column build around two Panzergrenadier battalions of the 15th Panzer Division, and a battalion of armor that had been operating with those Tigers.