Winter Storm (30 page)

So it
was that, while Brink’s infantry was swarming through the gap west of Hill 541,
the fast motorized troops of the 4th Indian had swung down around the badlands
of Wadi Thiran, where they finally found what they thought was the southernmost
end of the German line, held by the 442nd flak battery, with 37mm guns. Using artillery
to shake up the German gun positions, a full regiment of the veteran Indian
troopers went in and put the remaining gun crews to rout. As dusk fell,
O’Connor was getting reports that the Indian Division had found and turned the
enemy flank, but they were all wrong. Dawn would bring the truth to light, and
O’Connor would finally learn where the German Panzer Divisions were.

*

Rommel
had been listening to reports all that day as well, noting the progression of
the British attack on his map, and surprised by its scale and scope. By
mid-day, Crüwell was nagging him for permission to commit Ravenstein’s 21st
Panzer Division to stop the British attack between Bir Hachiem and the gap in
the line at Hill 541, and he also wanted the 15th Panzers to begin moving up.

“Not
yet!” Rommel admonished him on the radio. “Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s
thrown four infantry divisions at the two we have on the line, hoping to pull
our teeth, and there you are wanting to oblige him. Don’t show your reserves
yet. Keep your nerve. Tell the 90th Light to hold their ground, even if the
enemy gets through. We will see what the situation looks like near dusk.”

Crüwell
stewed, wanting to meet fire with fire, and not really knowing what staying
power those two German infantry divisions might have. He had not yet seen the
new
Panzerfaust
, and beyond that, the idea that a single man could hold
something in his hands capable of destroying a British heavy infantry tank
would never enter his mind. So he chafed and fretted with Bayerlein, eventually
sending word to Ravenstein to be prepared to move at first light the following
morning.

He had
come here to set things right for the man he most loved and respected in this
world, Adolf Hitler, and he was going to do things his way, come hell or high
water. There would be no high water to face in the dry Western Desert, but
Crüwell would soon learn what it was to be in hell, and he would have a devil
to pay.

On
the morning of the second day, Monty took Gazala from the Trento
division, and he had no intention of ever giving it back. The Matildas of the
32nd Armor Brigade rattled into the narrow streets, backed by infantry of both
the New Zealand and British 70th Infantry divisions. It was his intention to
push well beyond that fortified town, moving west beneath the high stony escarpment
that overlooked it to the south. From there he would have to choose whether to
drive up the coast road towards Derna, or to swing southwest into the desert,
and either choice rested on the outcome of O’Connor’s maneuvers to the south.

In that
sector, developments would lead to a most difficult decision. The 4th Indian Division
had gotten through the tortuous wrinkled gullies of Wadi Thiran, then swung
northwest, thinking they were turning Rommel’s flank. There, several thin
tracks led due west towards a distant Hill 597, perhaps 50 kilometers away,
which was now getting visitors in the arrival of the 10th Panzer Division.
Fischer’s battalions were strung out west along the roads for miles, but once
they snaked past that hill, every road was going to lead them right into the
thick of that turning movement by 4th Indian.

It was
an attack that looked so promising to O’Connor, that he quickly reinforced it
with the 4th Armored Brigade, and troops from the 7th Armored Support Group on
light carriers. This was the sector being covered by 15th Panzer Division and,
in spite of Rommel’s admonitions, it had been slowly drawn into that battle,
the 115th Schutzen Regiment infantry going up to check the advance of the
Indian troops, and then the tanks of Cramer’s 8th Panzer Regiment swinging
south to take up the road that led right through Wadi Thiran. He was supposed
to be recovering in a hospital, later to be reassigned to a post in Germany,
but that artillery round had not found him in this telling of these events, and
so he still led the 8th Regiment into the winter of 1941.

Wadi
Thiran spread, tree like, for nearly 50 square kilometers, with sandy gullies
as branches running off in many directions to the north. There, on some
relatively good ground between two branches, a big battle was raging, where the
German 33rd Recon Battalion had rushed in, only to find itself swarmed by
Indian infantry. Cramer’s II/8 Battalion came plowing through to the rescue, guns
blazing, machine guns rattling, and his second battalion was not far west.
Along with a machinegun battalion and the division pioneers, this made for a
fairly powerful Kampfgruppe to push up that road, and to make matters for the
British worse, Meindel’s Sturm regiment posted well south of that position, was
now marching to the sound of that battle.

The
question now was what to do with the one loose cannon on Rommel’s deck, 21st
Panzer Division. It was sitting right in the center, directly west of Bir Hacheim,
and Crüwell got ever more nervous when the British 2nd Armored Division plowed
through after the South Africans and an ominous bulge in the front resulted.
Ravenstein had already sent his 2nd and 8th MG Battalions forward to try and
seal off that penetration, but Crüwell wanted to act decisively with the whole
weight of that division.

Rather
than waiting and counterpunching the enemy breakthrough as Rommel had advised,
he hankered to send Ravenstein’s armor quickly south to strike through the
lines of the 90th Light Infantry that was now holding in a large horseshoe
formation between the penetration achieved by both the British armored
divisions. This would put him in good open desert where he thought he could
effectively cut off either penetration at his whim. And this is exactly what he
did.

Light
on his feet, O’Connor saw what was happening, and pulled the bulk of his armor
out of a planned attack to the northwest. Instead he swung them back to engage
Ravenstein’s tanks. His counterattack fell first on the German 3rd Recon
Battalion, leading the way for the Panzers in their armored cars. They were not
enough to stop the massed British tanks, falling back on to II/5th Panzer Regiment
in some disorder.

The
British 3rd RTR had 37 of 45 Matildas left, and another 31 of 35 Crusaders. It
was joined by the 7th Hussars, with 20 more Crusaders and 22 ‘Honeys,’ the
American M3 Stuarts that had arrived to swell the ranks of the British Armor
Divisions. 7th RTR had 28 more Matildas, making for a combined force of 138
British tanks. They would be opposed by 49 Pz IIIs, and a dozen IV-Ds, or 61
German tanks in that battalion. But off its left flank, II/5th Panzer had
another 82 tanks, including eight of the newer Pz IV-F long barrels. That was
going to even matters out considerably.

In a
sharp duel, the British lost 21 tanks and a number of light Mark VI tankettes.
Turrets were rotating in all directions, their crews frantically firing, and
platoons scattered all along the edge of a low escarpment, the entire scene
completely clouded over with heavy dust. At times a light Crusader would emerge
into a pocket of visibility and find itself sitting right beside a German
Panzer III, the astonished crews gawking at one another before they gunned
their engines and disappeared into the dust. Tanks collided with one another
like jousting knights, some then firing point blank to blast the turrets of
their enemies.

Off to
the south, Lt. General Frank Walter Messervy had planted his banner atop
Hill 522, the scene of his breakthrough the previous day. He was standing there
with field glasses in one hand, and a radio headset in another, trying to
ascertain just what had happened to his 4th Indian Division. He had not shaved
for days, following a ritual habit to always go into battle with a beard, and
now the so called ‘Bearded Man’ by his junior officers was in a quandary.
Yesterday his exuberant infantry battalions had swarmed over and around that
hill, then disappeared into the heavy haze over Wadi Thiran. He could hear the
sound of battle there to the west, and the telltale rattle of German MG-34s,
but had heard little overnight as to what had happened.

At dawn
he finally learned that his men had pushed nearly 15 kilometers ahead, thinking
they were turning the enemy flank, until they were suddenly faced with the
sharp counterattack of Newmann-Silkow’s 15th Panzer Division. One of his
Brigadiers finally radioed in that they had been caught flat footed, and a good
portion of the division was forced to withdraw into the cover of the wadis,
where they were now fighting a difficult holding action against the
Panzergrenadiers. At the same time, Cramer’s panzers had swung down and were
trying to envelop the whole division sector. Messervy could see the dust from
that battle about 7 klicks south of his hill, and there was absolutely no
support of any kind on his left. The flankers were now being flanked, and by
German armor. He got on the radio, trying to raise O’Connor for help.

“What
are you talking about, Frankie? That’s Davies’ whole bloody 7th Armored Brigade
down there with your infantry as it stands! I’ve nothing else to send.”

“Well
I’m not getting round the corner here,” said Messervy. In fact, if Davies
doesn’t stop those enemy tanks, Jerry will have my whole bloody division in the
bag, and your whole bloody brigade along with it! Sir, I better ask for
permission to pull my people out.”

“Very
well,” said O’Connor, the disappointment obvious in his voice. “If that’s your
assessment, then fall back and try to cover the roads leading up to Bir el
Gobi. We don’t want the Germans back there. Monty still has the 22nd Guards.
I’ll see what I can do!”

Yes,
Monty still had both the 22nd Guards Motorized Infantry Brigade, and the 22nd
Tank Brigade to go with it. They were lined up all along the Tobruk bypass road
from Knightsbridge to Sidi Rezzigh, waiting on his lordships beck and call.
O’Connor also radioed Brink with the 1st South African Division to see if he
had anything he could spare from his sector, and ended up extracting the 3rd
Independent Indian Motor Brigade. He was now scrambling to cover his deep left
flank, because somewhere out there, he knew Rommel had yet one more Panzer
Division, and he was wondering exactly where it was.

*

The
10th Panzer Division was just where O’Connor hoped it would not be, moving
across good open desert towards Wadi Thiran. Well screened by the action of
15th Panzers, that night it would move through spots selected and improved by
the engineers in the wadi, and reach a point just north of hill 440, about 10
kilometers due south of the British flank. There, away from prying enemy eyes,
the
Panzertruppen
would halt to refuel and make ready for operations on
the following day. Just another 10 kilometers due east, they would find a road
leading up to Bir Ash Shaeiq, and to Bir el Gobi about 30 kilometers north of
that watering hole. If they got there, they would not only have the 4th Indian
division and 7th Armored Brigade bagged, but O’Connor’s entire XXX Corps.

The
Germans were not going to be polite that night and retire for the evening.
Cramer was determined to turn that southern flank, and he doggedly pressed
forward his remaining tanks, pushing the British back and advancing inexorably
on Hill 522. General Messervy got very little sleep listening to the battle
growing ever closer, until he could finally see the bright streaking tracer
rounds of the tanks, still dueling with one another until well after sunset.

O’Connor
had managed to move down the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade and that infantry
dismounted in the darkness, rushing forward to take up defensive positions and
allow the 4th Armored Brigade to pull out and head south to the crisis point
near Hill 522. While he thought he would be bolstering the embattled 7th
Brigade, in actuality he was now assembling his entire division for what would
be the decisive action of the battle the following morning.

That
was when Fischer unleashed his hounds, the newly structured 7th Panzer Regiment
of his division, with 48 Lions, and an equal number of Leopard medium tanks. They
found the 7th Hussars at the point of the 4th Armor Brigade, up early and
trundling south to try and cover that very exposed flank. At the same time,
Meindel’s weary paratroopers, having fought small actions all night,
nonetheless joined the 15th Panzer in a renewed effort to reach Hill 522.
Messervy had no sleep either the previous night, and now the Bearded man would
go without breakfast.

As if
perfectly planned, Ravenstein’s 21st Panzer Division resumed its push against
the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade that had relieved that armor, and they would act
as the northern half of a classic pincer operation. It was not what Rommel
wanted, but it was looking to be a very fortuitous plan hatched in Crüwell’s
fertile mind the previous day.

For his
part, Rommel had heard little of what was really happening. He gathered that
the British had taken Gazala, and were now pushing further west, but the rest
of the line seemed to be holding. Yet he could not reach either Ravenstein or
Newmann-Silkow on the radio to find out what was happening with his two panzer
divisions. As if sensing that the battle was slipping from his grasp, he rode
east all night from his headquarters at Mechili, looking to find Ravenstein,
where he expected his division to be. What he found instead was a single
bridging company, the Major in charge saluting crisply when he saw Rommel
emerge from his Mammut command truck.

“Where
is your division?” he asked the man.

“Sir,
most of it is due east down this road, about 25 kilometers. When you get to the
old shrine near the well site, our artillery should be very close by.”

“Most
of the division you say? Where is General Ravenstein?” But the man could not
help him further. Frustrated, he got back in his Mammut, and sped away,
ordering his Chief of Staff Gause to get on the radio and try to find his panzer
division.

As the
sun came up on the third day, O’Connor was on the radio also looking for
troops. He called up Montgomery, listening briefly to him cluck about taking
Gazala.

“I’ve
got the Macaroni’s on the run,” he said unceremoniously. The Trento Division is
giving up the road to Derna and pulling up on higher ground to the east. Now
it’s time for Phase II of my little operation, the coup de gras!”

“Very
glad to hear it,” said a weary O’Connor, “but it looks as though I’m up against
all three German Panzer Divisions now, while you’re bullying down on the
Italians. Rommel is up to his old style again, and he’s getting round my
southern flank. I need the 22nd.”

“Which
Brigade?” said Montgomery flatly.

“Both
of them.”

“Both?
I was needing at least one of those Brigades to kick on through. They were
assigned to XIII Corps. Leave them with me and I’ll be in Derna in three days
time.”

That
was an exaggerated brag, O’Connor knew, and he needed to press the gravity of
the situation on Montgomery. There was no time for haggling.

“Look
Monty, you may very well get to Derna with those troops, but if you don’t hand
them over, Rommel will be in Bardia behind us! Am I making the situation
clear?”

“Damn!”
said Montgomery. “Very well, it will be XIII Corps to the rescue then. I shall
tell my Brigadiers they’re wanted elsewhere. Will the road south from Bir el
Gobi suffice?”

“Perfectly.
And I’ll need them to get moving at once.”

“You
know you might have placed this call to Brigadier Kinlan,” Monty ventured in
one last attempt to hold on to his local reserve.