Britain’s WORST EVER tank battle: The Battle of Gazala 1942 BATTLESTORM Documentary

Previously in the North African campaign series we've seen the Italians Advance into Egypt only to be thrown back during operation Compass Britain's greatest forgotten victory of the war which saw the British reach the elala area raml then landed in Africa and launched his first offensive driving the British back to T Brook and the Egyptian Frontier failing to take to Brook RL resisted the British offensives of operations brevity And battle AXS but was driven back during operation Crusade which has to be the most insane battle ever and subsequently he fell back to elor again then rumel

launched his second offensive forcing the British back to the gazala line which is where we are now in the aftermath of rl's second offensive in Libya the British had entrenched at the gazala line 30 Mi west of the port of T Brook from these Positions the commander of the British eth Army General Richie was ordered to launch a fresh offensive to the West Richie's boss General orac chief of the Middle East was Keen to attack because somebody was breathing down his neck that somebody was prime minister Churchill who was as impatient as ever demanding numerous

times between February and June 1942 that Orin laac attack to be as Fair as possible there were various political pressures on Churchill and he really needed a victory the British had just lost Singapore perhaps the worst defeat in British military history a good chunk of Burma and the East Indies had been taken by the Japanese Malta was under a heavy Siege and the Germans had just succeeded in sending three of their ships straight through the English Channel while Churchill had won a vote of confidence in January 1942 morale at home was low and so the

political pressure was on Churchill to gain some sort to Victory oring L though resisted committing to a premature offensive he told Churchill that it wasn't possible to attack until June Churchill damned Orin Le's unwillingness to attack and even the defense committee sided with Churchill who then ordered orle to come to London for a consultation but surprisingly orle refused this order and Churchill contemplated removing orac from command instead he sent sir Stafford Crips and Leftenant general Archie NY to orle to present his case and they both ended up siding with oring leg and then produced a

detailed report that ruled out the possibility of an attack needless to say Churchill was not amused the argument continued right through until May which was when Churchill said that if an attack on Malta happened orle would be ordered to Launch an immediate offensive to distract the Germans and he even sent a telegram to Orin leac that gave him The choice of complying or resigning ultimately orl committed to a limited offensive in June which would put him in a strange position when the British Ultra intelligence service deciphered the German Enigma codes and told Orin leac that

roml was about to attack him Ultra was not able to inform Orin of romel's tactics for the becoming offensive so he had to guess what his intentions were but it was obvious that RL would want to take the port of to Brook and what's going to become important later in the video is that Orin told Richie to prevent to Brook from being taken because if the axis took it this would shorten their supply lines allowing them to advance into Egypt Richie was not to defend to Brook itself if the axis broke through the gazala line

he would abandon it but he wants to destroy the port to prevent its use as a logistics base locking up an entire division in the ports as he had Done previously and then struggling to resupply it via sea just wasn't appealing a long line of Mine Fields was therefore laid and this stretched down the coast to the position of bur hakeim they could have made it shorter but the British believed that a long line would make romal think twice before going around the South due to his overstretched Logistics and limited fuel supply the British infantry

under General got's 13th core therefore positioned themselves along this line and at to Brook but because this line was long there simply weren't enough troops to mount the entire length of it and the British were stretched thin each Brigade was in a separate defensive box and there were gaps between them so to compensate for this several fortified positions were created behind the lines to block roads and generally prevent free movement in the event r did go Around the flank this has actually caused a long running debate amongst historians over whether this plan of having a

line running through the desert was a good thing or not but the overall point is that the British positions were somewhat isolated from each other and the flank was still exposed after assessing the situation Orin Le told Richie that he thought roml had two options he could either try to go around the southern flank and aim for to Brook Or he could simply break through the Center the line orinet believed that rumel would strike the line itself while a faint would be made in the South to draw the British armor away orlet concluded this because

the Panza divisions were near the coast so it made sense that RL would attack the gazala line head on rather than go all the way around the South however roml had this habit of doing the unexpected and so orle wasn't entirely certain what the Desert fox would do and and decided to play it safe he ordered Richie to place the British armor under General nory's 30 core west of L Adam where they could be used to stop an attack from the center or the South depending on what Ral did well Richie disagreed with ainle thinking

that rummel's main thrust would strike around his flank so Richie decided to place his two armored divisions much further to the South than oril had wanted this wasn't a bad idea In and of itself but Richie made the mistake of splitting the two armored divisions apart from one another he thought that if roml came around bakim seventh Armored Division could delay him and fall back giving plenty of time for the first Armored Division to come up and join the battle this was great in theory but would it work in practice interestingly the two core commanders

disagreed with Richie they respected orle more than the Inexperienced rich and shared Orin Le's opinion that got's infantry would take the brunt of the attack so the more experienced commanders beli RL would just attack the line whereas the least experienced Commander thought that RL would go south we'll see surely who was right Richie may have been a good staff officer and his appointment to eth Army's command during operation Crusader may have been necessary but he was inexperienced and Had only ever commanded a battalion in the field he'd never LED tanks in battle had no prior

experience with armored forces and he simply hadn't gotten grips with his new command orle had second thoughts about Richie and sent his chief of staff Eric Dorman Smith to go around the eth Army in February 1942 to talk to the various commanders with the excuse of monitoring Staffing techniques his real job though was to assess whether the other generals thought that Richie Was up for the job and as it turned out everyone thought that Richie was simply not the man for the job under Richie eighth Army was presided over not LED he remained a paradox

an impressive man who impressed very few Churchill hinted to Oran leg that orle himself should take command of the eighth Army but this was simply not possible orle was commanding the entire Middle East at this time and just couldn't do it but he would hold Richie's hand and something that he Complained about to one of his staff officers and orlet could not replace Richie without affecting the morale of the general public it after all believed that Richie had led the eth Army to victory over the desert fox during Crusader I have already sacked one Army

Commander to sack another within 3 months would have effects on morale but this made just be an excuse Orin Le was minded to remove Richie from command but he real realized that to do so would Reflect badly on himself and his judgment in picking Richie in the first place this irresolution on Orin Le's part was because he realized that if Richie was dismissed the most likely now General officer commanding in Chief was Montgomery an officer he held in the very lowest regard they did not like each other and that antipathy would last until the death

of Montgomery in 1976 but there were other problematic commanders too Major General Dan P had Been promoted after his performance as commander of the first South African Brigade during operation Crusader he was now in command of the first South African Division and was already falling out with his new core Commander General straford G who had been promoted from commander of the seventh armed division to commander of 13th core gots had been fighting in the desert since day one had seen a rapid promotion and had greater Prestige but despite What his biographer Nash says he wasn't

that great of a commander Nash is right about Pina though Major General Dan Pina was a particularly difficult and recalcitrant officer indeed he actively disliked got though what led to this animosity has never been explained the consequence of his very public negative and uncooperative attitude was that orle readily appreciated that got was not entirely master of his divisions and he tried to ensure that if possible the First South African division was not entrusted with any vital operation GS also had a close friendship with General norri 30 course's commander and the two sometimes made decisions together

rather than let Richie run the show Richie was also the same rank as nor and got all were acting leftenant generals and while both had shown mediocre performance in the past Nori and G both had more experience commanding units in the field and this was perhaps why Nori disagreed With Richie over the direction of rl's attack siding with orac and thinking that RL would just strike the gazala line even more Troublesome Frank mvi commander of seventh Armored Division was concerned for his daughter Rosemary who had just fallen out of a window at school and was

crippled in a hospital in kolkotta which it was thought would soon be overrun by the Japanese so M's mind was preoccupied with that and the commander of first Armored Division Herbert lumon blamed miserie for the poor handling of first Armored Division during operation Crusader and so lumon didn't get on with mvi and didn't think mvi was fit to command armored units therefore in a battle where the British really needed their two armored divisions to work as one the two armored commanders of those two armored divisions hardly spoke to one another to say that these senior

command assignments for the senior maneuver Formations was haphazard is an understatement amazingly no Royal tank regiment officer had yet been assigned to command a British Armored Division in combat a strong indicator that pre-war regimental prejudices were allowed to influence the selection of command CRA this is a vitally important point that needs to be understood because this explains a lot of what is about to happen in this battle the British tankers came from the old Cavalry units And still had the oldfashioned belief that tanks were basically armored horses throughout operation Crusader they had charged forwards without

infantry or artillery support rushing into destruction like the Light Brigade at balac clava well they hadn't learned from this at all and this mentality would result in disaster at the Battle of gazala jealously protective of their own regimental histories and traditions they Still found cooperation with other tank regiments let alone with artillery brigades and infantry battalions a novel baffling and invidious concept however Orin Le and some of the other generals had leared the lessons of operation Crusader and so they now tried to solve this problem tanks require the support of field artillery anti-tank guns and

motor infantry the higher proportion of these supporting arms to actual tanks in the Panza divisions gave the Germans a Distinct advantage to our own tanks the value of good support from 25 Pounders was demonstrated time and time again therefore it would appear that in future the armored Brigade group should take the place of the armored Brigade Orin was persuaded by G to reorganize the British brigades into mixed Brigade groups with the Infantry Brigade group group consisting of three infantry battalions plus a mixed Battalion of artillery anti-tank anti-aircraft and Engineer units as well three of these

infantry Brigade groups would make up one Infantry Division while the armored Brigade groups would consist of three tank battalions one motorized infantry battalion and a mixed Battalion of artillery and anti-tank guns in theory one of these armored Brigade groups plus a motorized infantry Brigade group group would make up one Armored Division however organ Le's plans hadn't yet been fully implemented so the old design of Two armored Brigade groups and one motorized infantry Brigade group remained this meant that while there was a more combine arms approach they were still far too tank heavy and even though

orle told both Richie and Nori not to have the Brigade groups fight separately the armed division should fight as full divisions the brigades and divisions wouldn't cooperate and would go in peac mail when the battle began in fact this battle was to show the British forces Acting almost entirely as independent brigades and the impression is that the existence of the divisional level of command served only to slow down the transmission of orders and cause confusion at least among the Armed Forces so the overall organization of the British forces wasn't great and were the British plan

of Defense relied on the British tanks themselves and they weren't great either it was known by the troops in the field and confirmed by a Ministerial report back in England that the British tanks were awful the main issue was the near obsolete two pounder anti-tank gun which was the main gun mounted on the British tanks at this time this weapon was simply too weak to penetrate the frontal armor of the German medium tanks at long distances on top of that the armor of the British Cruiser tanks the faster Cavalry tanks was also poor and the

American built M3 light tanks the Stewarts or Honeys Weren't much better than the British built machines meaning that the British tanks were at a significant disadvantage against the panzas the armor of the Matilda and Valentine infantry tanks were heavier but these were slow tanks and also still had the two pounder anti tank gun both of these infantry tanks were deemed to be too slow to be included in the armored divisions themselves and so were placed in separate army tank brigades the British Tanks were so inferior in fact that in order to compensate orle believed he

needed a 3-2 superiority in tank numbers and even that might not be enough the Italian tanks were terrible so the British didn't really have to worry about them it was the German tanks that were the main problem due to their decent armor so what was desperately needed was an upgrade to the 2 pounder anti-tank gun and that's exactly what they were getting now the new six Pounder anti-tank guns were beginning to arrive unfortunately though only 112 of these had been received by the time the Battle of gazala began and there was also a lack of

anti-tank guns in general so while the Infantry brigades have been bolstered on paper in practice they were still vulnerable to Panzer attacks the British have been crying out for better tanks for a long time and finally a new type of tank had started to arrive from America that was exactly what the British needed the M3 medium tank now made its debut on the battlefield these were also known as the Lee and Grant tanks depending on the turret and at the Battle of gazala the majority were Grant tanks but there were some le as well for

E though I'm just going to refer to them as Grand tanks from now on the grand tank had a 75 mm gun which was far more powerful than the two Pounders on the other British tanks and also more powerful than the new six pounder and Tank guns as well even better the 75 mm gun could fire both armor piercing and high explosive shells which none of the other British tanks could do at the time so this tank could take on enemy infantry effectively the only drawback was that the 75 mm gun was a sponson it

was in the side of the body of the tank and thus had limited Traverse it also prevented the tank from going into a hold down position behind cover because the hole needed to be exposed in order To fire the gun it also hadn't received the latest armor piercing ammunition and the 37 mm gun in the turret was just not worth the hassle this turret it made the tank taller and thus more of a target for enemy guns and while the 75 mm was a great gun the German 88 mm flat guns could outrange it as

could the long barreled Panzer fors although the long barrel Panza fors didn't take part in gazala because no ammunition had arrived for them still with its good speed and Heavy Armor Plus its more reliable engine than the British Cruiser tanks the grant was a good tank for its time it was the first tank that the British had that was actually capable of taking on the German tanks head-to-head some have even argued that it was the best tank on the battlefield at the time which may be debatable but it definitely had the best gun of any

tank right now even if it was in the hole and just to point out the British had technically Skipped a step tank forces in most armies at this time had gone from 37 mm guns to 50 mm guns then to 75 mm guns the British went from a 40 mm gun the two- pounder straight to a 75 mm gun and they instantly noticed the difference in Firepower so it was no wonder that the Germans were about to be caught off guard by this tank and yes the British would get six Pounders in their tanks after

gazala but that leap from the 40 mm to the 75 mm in mid 1942 was a huge Leap because not enough grants had arrived yet the British decided to spread them out between the various tank battalions they wanted each Battalion to consist of two squads of Grants and one Squad of Crusaders or Honeys depending but there wasn't enough so only Richard's fourth armored Brigade from Seventh Armored Division was equipped this way the two armored brigades in lumsden's first Armored Division had battalions with only one Squad of Grants And two squads of Cruisers which made each

Battalion weaker than the ones in seventh armor division the fact that survey got priority over Lumsden may have also contributed to the conflict between the two commanders so apart from the grants the majority of the British tanks had poor armor and weaponry the British armor Doctrine was terrible and the British organization left a lot to be desired a British combined arms Warfare Doctrine hadn't yet been created And as seen previously in the North African campaign series the British tank units had a tendency to become muddled and then not Strikers won when they were needed spoiler

alert that's exactly what was about to happen again on the 13th of February 1942 gross Admiral Eric Raider told Hitler that the British were primarily fighting in Africa to protect their middle eastern oil wells ever conscious of the oil crisis Hitler was receptive to a New Vision known as the Great plan which would see roml advancing into the Middle East to meet German forces coming south from the Caucasus of course in order to pull this plan off ruml would need to be significantly strengthened and to do that the island of Malta would need to be

neutralized but this was like a chicken and egg scenario in order for RL to advance molta would need to be suppressed and in order to suppress molta roml would need to advance to push The British Air Force back and prevent them from supporting Malta so two plans were created operation Hercules the invasion of Malta and operation AA the drive for the Nile the island of molta was really important and was causing the axis a headache only 18,000 tons of supplies had reached the Panzer Army in March 1942 of the minimum of 25,000 tons needed this

obviously couldn't go on so the island was hammered like never before by Castle Ring's love flter 2 This didn't syn the unsinkable aircraft carrier as Malta was known as but it did neutralize it and from April onwards reinforcements and supplies started to flow in making a new advance in North Africa possible with an attack now on the cards Hitler and musolini met at bures Garden at the end of April 1942 and decided that this new offensive should start at the end of May or early June with a F attack on the island of Malta in

July and so roml was ordered to Advance and capture the vital ports of to Brook but he was not to go beyond the Egyptian Frontier only after Malta was taken out and once his supply routes were secure would RL be permitted to advance into Egypt this was the first time that RL had the blessing of everyone on his side he didn't have to worry about hder or the Italians holding him back it also seemed like this was a golden opportunity to attack since the British had withdrawn their best troops The Australians and new zealanders they

only had the first South African Division and the inexperienced British 50th division to defend the line with raml also knew that British training wasn't the best he dismissed their new tanks and anti-tank guns as being useless in the hands of men who didn't know how to use them and he questioned the capability of the eth Army's commanders to lead the troops in battle he also criticized their strategy of Having a fortified line with an open desert flank practically inviting him to go around it saying that a rigid system of static defense in the desert was

bound to lead to disaster now yes he had respect for the copious amounts of Minds that had been laid and he knew that the strong points behind the gazala line were garrisoned by strong infantry artillery and armored car units but he also knew that such positions could be isolated and destroyed the British had effectively split their forces into small Penny packets dissipating their strength and would be ripe for annihilation so roml was confident that his plan would work he had a bit of a problem though British armored car units and other elements had prevented the

aess from conducting proper reconnaissance of the British positions so roml didn't know that the mindfields right ran all the way down to bur hackim he thought they stopped about Here on the map and he assumed that the bur hackim position was isolated thus he thought he could drive his tanks straight through this area without much trouble with this in mind he decided to launch a fate attack with his infantry Force group cral against the minefields to give the impression that this was the main attack but it wasn't RL would lead his mobile forces around the

South with the Italians on the Northern flank heading straight into The minefields while the paner divisions drove on bur hackim itself they would all turn north roll into the Knightsbridge area defeat the British armor and then eventually reach the coast at the same time an amphibious Landing would be conducted by a unit called the hecka group and these would meet up with the panzas cutting off the British units on the gazala line the axis would crush the South Africans in the British 50th division after which Everyone would race to T Brook which would fall quickly

and they would all go onto Egypt and then the Caucasus and then the Moon while Rich's plan to fight a defensive battle that gazala was unimaginative and timidly executed rl's concept for operation thesis or thesis in German was quite superficial based on dangerous assumptions and aggressively conducted with little regard for unexpected outcomes roml is known for being the desert fox a great commander Who outsmarted his opponents and this was meant to be his greatest battle and yet the plan wasn't even his it was created after a staff member of the 15th Panza division suggested it

and RL took it on board and it's a flawed plan General Bine who would soon become rl's Chief of Staff said at the time that he didn't like this plan and told romal this repeatedly the South African historians say this Rummel was engaged in his first large-scale deliberate Assault but the plan which emerged is no particular advertisement for the military skill of himself and his staff in the desert at any rate he was always a better tactician than strategist and this particular operation combined a temperamental recklessness with superficial appreciation of his intelligence material in a

way which ought to have cost him the victory RL thought that to Brook would be captured in about 4 days and so his mobile Divisions had Supply columns in tow which had four days worth of rations and water 3 days worth of ammunition and enough fuel for about 300 miles clearly the timings were extremely optimistic and had roml actually attacked in the way his plan originally said this probably would have been a disaster for him but the Germans were accidentally being fed information from American colonel boner fellas in Cairo and so they now learned of

something That would save the entire plan it was to discovered that the British armor was not where oring Le had wanted it instead it was located Northeast of bur Hakim so revisions were made the entire Advance was shifted South the Italian mobile divisions were given the task of capturing bur hackim on their own while the rest of the Africa core swept south of B Hakim and then northwards they would go around the minefields this did dilute the attack on bakim which would Have significant consequences in the coming battle but ultimately this change at the 11th

Hour really did save the entire plan still there were other issues though that weren't addressed romal thought that got's 13th core had two divisions but it actually had three he didn't know that got's third division the second South African division was in to Brook he also hadn't identified the 21st guards and third Indian brigades in their positions and didn't know that the 150th Brigade group was in the middle of the line there were thus five more Brigade groups facing roml than he was bargaining for one infantry two motorized two armored and he had placed one

infantry Brigade group in the wrong position so roml had underestimated the the strength of the force he was facing and while he did know about the arrival of the new gr tanks and the six pound anti-tank guns he didn't know any of the details and thus discounted them as rl's Intelligence officer remarked perhaps fortunately we underestimated the British strength for had we known the full facts even raml might have bked at an attack on such a greatly Superior enemy but raml did have huge advantages on the Tactical level the 88 mm Flack gun outclass every

other weapon on the battlefield at this time and could hit British tanks long before they could hit them back their 50mm pack 38s were also decent enough to take on any British Tank and all the Panza Mark 3s had these guns the most numerous tank on the axis side all the German medium tanks in the desert were also decently armored so all of the British tanks apart from the new grants would have to get close in order to do any damage to them worse 19 of the new Panza 3s had a longer barreled 50 mm

gun as well providing better muzzle velocity and penetration technically the Panza fors with the long barreled 75 mm gun were superior but there were only Four of these and no ammunition had arrived for them so they didn't take part in this battle still German anti-tank guns were used aggressively being pushed well up with and in advance of the tanks the British practice on the other hand employed them in the defense and very rarely as offensive weapons instead the British commanders developed what general oril has called the idea that the Royal armored Corp was an Army

within an army which could operate Without reference to other arms of the service the good news for the British was that the Italian anti-tank guns were worse than the British two Pounders and most Italian divisions were of poor quality with the notable exceptions being the arietti armored and EST a motorized divisions some of the Italian divisions were only at regiment strength and the German 90th light division was more the size of a brigade but RL would only use his Italian infantry to tie Down the British as his mobile elements won the battle so really roml

had the qualitative Advantage here the numbers are disputed but there were roughly 90,000 axis troops ready for the attack many of whom were Italian the Germans had 3 32 panzas and the Italians had 228 tanks which is 560 axis tanks in total bearing in mind that there were only 1,167 operational panzas on the Eastern front in their 19 Panza divisions so raml actually had a huge number of Panzas and Italian tanks in comparison some have suggested that this was due to his Prestige at the time but it was probably because the logistics on the east

front were terrible even worse than they were in North Africa so it may just be that the axis were actually able to sustain a lot of tanks in this theater but anyway the axis had 704 aircraft in North Africa of which either 497 or 542 were operational the British on the other hand had 100,000 men at gazala Some say 110,000 many being Indian and South African troops as well as some French the British had 573 Cruiser tanks in the first and seventh armored divisions and another 276 infantry tanks in the first and 32nd armored brigades

bringing the total to 849 tanks the first armored Brigade with another 145 tanks have been ordered to join the eighth Army but wouldn't arrive until later in the battle but if we do Include them the grand total for the British would be 994 tanks and this number could have been much higher due to a shortage of radio sets and intercom equipment over 300 tanks were held back because they lacked the means to communicate as a result a large backlog of Tanks accumulated in warehouses around Alexandria and sewers the good news for raml was that the

British only had 190 operational aircraft in the gazala area Although many sources say there were 604 aircraft in total with the other aircraft being spread throughout the Middle East which could potentially be called upon it's not too important due to the fact that the German bf109s were Superior aircraft to any aircraft the British had at the time and the eighth Army didn't call upon the Desert Air Force that often effectively making the air force near useless in this battle as we're about to see not only did the axis Air strength outnumbered the Allied but also

the me 109f outperformed every other fighter in the desert and there were 120 of them it is quality rather than quantity that is generally decisive thus for the battle of gazala the British had almost doubled the number of Tanks than the axis slightly more infantry and were outmatched in the air and since the British were relying heavily on their tanks it would all come down to the tank battle could roml beat A British tank force twice the size of his own let's find out in the days prior to the battle the axis had increased their

reconnaissance and dive bombing activities hitting rail heads and other lines of communication this indicated that roml was about to attack and on the 26th of May 1942 he did that afternoon the cruel group started to advance on the British positions under the cover of artillery stokers and a sandstorm this faint Operation was not serious at all made little impact on the British lines and resulted in one of the German regiment commanders being mortally wounded at the same time rl's motor and armored forces concentrated in the South concealed by sandstorms in the evening the dust settled

and RL set off to the southeast watched by the fourth South African armored car regiment which saw Columns of vehicles heading towards bakim thus surprise was lost for the Axis or at Least it would have been had seventh armored division's headquarters not dismissed these reports they still believed that the southern attack was merely a distraction and that the main effort was going against the gazala line overall rl's move went smoothly except for The Trieste division which hadn't received rl's updated orders and drove straight into the minefields further north they also lost touch with the other

units making RL wonder what had Happened to them still the rest of the divisions rolled to the area south of bakim and now camped for the evening to rest and ref fuel as far as RL was concerned the British didn't know that he was there and he was optimistic about his chances overnight and into the early hours of the 27th of May 1942 a staff officer in 30 core major Carver had listened to the reports of the reconnaissance forces and started ringing various generals and officers Trying to prompt them into action when he spoke to

seventh armor division's general staff officer he was chastised for waking him up at 1 a for listening to seventh armored division's messages and was told to mind his own unable to get through to mury himself Carver therefore woke up General norri and told him to ring mvi norri did but mvi told him not to worry saying these reports were clearly inaccurate and that this was nothing more than an Italian faint Nari agreed with miseri and when Carver rang lumon at First Armor division again speaking to the general staff officer he was told that Lumsden had

no intention of sending reinforcements to help mvi even if the main attack was coming from the south the problem here was that they all believed that Orin leg had been right that the Germans would hit the main gazala lines not go around the flank so they all dismissed the threat thinking that this wasn't the main Attack when more reports came in that RL was parked south of B hackim Carver was desperate and woke norri again pleas meing with him to do something nari then rang mvi and eventually convinced him to move the fourth armored Brigade

forward but while mvi did order Richards to move South it looks like mvi still didn't fully believe the danger and so most likely didn't tell Richards to hurry this is probably why Richards decided to have a nice leely breakfast before Heading out oh but wait it gets worse Nori also rang Lumsden and asked him to send the 22nd armored Brigade South to help movi out but Lumsden said no he said that M's tank brigades had twice as many Grand tanks than his own so Lumsden argued that rather than have lumon go south to rescue miseri

mvi should move north to rescue Lumsden what relevance this argument had to the developing tactical situation is now somewhat obscure but it seems at the time to have Convinced norri who to Carver's concern refrained from giving lumon the direct warning order the total result of all this was that nothing happened Richards was the only one given the order to move and he decided to eat breakfast first and just to point out misseri later claimed that he was aware of rl's attack in the South and had asked norri if he could get the core battle ready

but this is contradicted by other evidence and the sheer fact that M's own division did Nothing so it's likely that mvi wasn't being entirely honest in his post battle account M's statement to Kelli Barnett is suspect like most of his statements quoted in that book it is affected by the desire to justify his own actions a failing to which soldiers like others are prone anyway in the early morning of the 27th of May 1942 the axis armor started their move to the Northeast a forward Observer for 30 core reported back to his superiors that he

could see Axis tanks coming at him but the officer he was talking to didn't believe him there is a cloud of dust to the South it has the appearance of a military formation there are no repeat no troops to your South through the haze I can now identify tanks difficult to identify but possibly German Mark fors we repeat no repeat no forces in your vicinity I am coun Mark fors 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 there is no doubt repeat no doubt that this is a large German Force Mark fors number over 30 and

there are also Mark 3s and a large number of motorized infantry this could be I repeat this could be the Africa core moving at speed of approximately 30 mph towards ladam there are no enemy forces in your area it is undoubtedly the Africa core moving at speed towards L Adam I am Wonder silence followed I love this exchange because it shows just how completely out of touch the British command were with what was going on even in the face of reality They stuck to their beliefs which is ultimately what led them astray in the coming

battle now up to this point raml had advanced in one giant group and hadn't sent his reconnaissance forces forward first meaning that he had no idea what was ahead of him he had also ordered the arti division to split from this group and and move on bur hackim so without realizing that they were there the arietti division rolled straight into the third motorized Indian infantry Brigade whose Commander urgently reported to movi that he faced an entire German paner division he was wrong it was the Italian arietti Division and it didn't matter anyway because Missi didn't

believe him well this one infantry Brigade in the hastily dug positions because they had only just arrived had no chance against an entire Italian armored Division and having not received half of their anti-tank guns the Brigade was overrun within half an Hour the exact number of British casualties is not clear but the survivors scattered back to the frontier and while they would reform after the battle this was clearly an early blow to the British it was also a huge morale boost for the Italians who now surged towards bhak their main objective for the first time

in the second world war Italian armored units have won a significant offensive tactical Victory and without any help from their German Allies at this point British Air reconnaissance requested by Carver reported that hundreds of tanks were moving in the area southeast of ber hackim this information finally woke the British commanders up from their irrationality but when norri rang the survey and ordered him to send Richard's Brigade forwards he was told they weren't ready to move and Richards only got going 20 20 minutes after third Indian infantry Brigade had been routed Nori then rang Lumsden who

once again argued that he shouldn't send the 22nd Army Brigade South nari had to give him a direct order to get the tanks to move but lumon responded saying that they weren't ready so it would take time before they could actually do so as these discussions were going on the 90th light division had stumbled into engaged and pursued the patrols of Ton's seventh motor Brigade back to the rhma box at 0830 hours they began to break down the Defenses at rhma and had overrun the Western portion of the Box in just 15 minutes The Defenders

have been given no warning of Africa cor's approach in fact seventh Armored Division HQ had allowed half the Garrison to go to T Brook to swim the Brigade Commander Renton who arrived back at his HQ on the morning of the 27th found that there were not even enough men to man all the guns so renton's Brigade began to retreat and as they did so a British Supply dump Containing copious amounts of whiskey was hit by the Germans and erupted in blue flames having finished his breakfast Richards ordered his Brigade to assemble as a combat formation

14 km to the Southwest thus the three battalions of the Brigade rolled out of their camps and moved separately towards this assembly Point well just 10 minutes after the eighth hos had started on their Journey the 15th Panza division was spotted racing towards them and a Fight broke out the honies deployed first and were knocked out by the panzas as I took my Squadron of Honeys up a slight rise and reached the top I saw what looked like the whole bloody German Army coming up the slope below I radioed back I'm engaging now and put

up the black Battle Flag well any tank will shoot at anything resembling a command tank so everyone fired at me in minutes my tank was on fire and I was burned quite badly as it turned out but then The new Grant tank showed up and the 75 mm guns mounted in their heavily armored holes started to take their toll because their 50 mm guns struggled to penetrate the Grant's frontal armor Panza after Panza began to explode initially causing confusion in the German ranks unfortunately our Panza units attacked without artillery support although I had constantly been

at pains to impress on them not to do so until our artillery had opened fire there was also a British Surprise awaiting us here one which was not to our advantage the new Grant tank the Advent of the new American Tank had torn great holes in our ranks after their initial shock obis lant tager rallied his panzas sent a battalion around the flank and with some 88 mm guns destroyed the eighth hosas in isolation they then turned to face the third royal tank regiment which was also quickly reduced to a handful of Tanks all of

which had run out of ammunition Not wanting his panzas split up ning had ordered 21st Panza division to Halt when 15th Panza division was engaged which not only caused conflict with him and roml but also allowed the British fifth Royal tank regiment to pick off the panzas at a distance with their grants mortally wounding one of their Battalion commanders without losing a single tank in return raml arrived at ning's headquarters 25 minutes later and immediately countermanded this order Naring who said of Ral that he was a bit like Hitler in that he always imagined that

the enemy would react exactly as he had anticipated was outraged at rl's imperious attitude this had been a surprisingly hard fight but the Germans had won it and the remnants of fourth armored Brigade withdrew East at the same time renton's forces broke and fled Northeast to bur El goby and so the 0th light division raced northwards chasing richards's Brigade as it fled towards L Adam during this move Clan's division drove straight into General M's headquarters capturing mie and his staff bought unfortunately for the Germans movi had concealed his Rank and passed himself off as a

private this allowed him to escape with two of his officers sometime later of course in his absence his division was leaderless and would remain so for the next 2 days until the 29th making seventh Armored Division largely Impotent to the West the ariatti division struck the free French at bur hackim hoping to Simply shatter them in place as they had the third Indian Brigade both the six French infantry battalions including two from the French Foreign Legion had 62 anti-tank guns 26 field guns and were well dug into their position which was also surrounded by mines

in other words this was a well fought position that wasn't going to be rolled over especially since the French Were determined to restore French honor after the disasters that had befallen their Nation previously worse emboldened by their previous Victory the Italian tanks attacked without infantry or artillery support which was a critical mistake and tank after Italian tank went up in Flames the commander of the arietti armored regiment was captured and the attack ended with a clear French Victory so far the Italians had lost 57 of their 228 tanks and the Germans Another 40 of their

332 panzas although some of these would be repaired the grants and the new six Pounders employed by the Infantry had taken out one in seven axis tanks in the morning of the first day of the battle so just because the axis hadn't lost any units yet doesn't mean they weren't hurting but clearly this morning was a a complete disaster for the British an entire Armored Division had routed and Nori realized that his entire Southern flank Was now exposed which is why he evacuated his headquarters into L Adam before the 90th light division got to him

Nori then ordered the 22nd armored Brigade to reinforce the fourth armored Brigade not realizing that the fourth had already been beaten so the 22nd armor Brigade finally got going and after some time parked in front of the 21st Panza division plus elements of the 15th perhaps still thinking the southern attack was a faint and the main attack Would come from the West two of the three battalions in the 22nd armed Brigade were facing northwards when they came to a halt and so were hit in the rear by the oncoming panzas worse they were initially ordered

not to fire back mistakenly thinking that the enemy tanks were the survivors of the fourth armor Brigade it was quickly realized that they weren't friendly tanks when their own vehicle started exploding One Survivor of this engagement explains That they had received conflicting and confusing orders from their superiors which may explain this strange Behavior but obviously in this model this was anything but a fair fight and each British Battalion was attacked separately again the panzas fired shot after shot into each British tank destroying 24 of them and a bunch of other guns within half an hour

yet even with all the advantages granted to them the Germans still didn't have it all Their own way the Collision was Bloody over lant Von hulson was immediately killed by a round to the Head the commander rammed a field piece and also took one he and his agitant were dead Rock Hall assumed command of the Battalion right at the beginning of the fighting one of the vehicles was hit and I was called forward I moved up jumped out of my vehicle and dressed the people in the open Burns later I ran into my ambulance it

was full of wounded Lumsden Ordered the 22nd armored Brigade back to the Knightsbridge area which they started towards chased by the Germans who struck the gr tanks in their weaker rear armor now up to this point the axis plan had gone very well and roml even congratulated nearing for his efforts but it was at this moment that the plan began to unravel the German divisions were starting to run out of fuel and ammunition and so came to a halt in exposed positions west of Knightsbridge Waiting for their supply colums to catch up the 90th light

division had also reached the area south of Al Adam but was stopped by the ninth Indian infantry Brigade and the remnants of fourth armored Brigade when the two German recon battalions attempted to dash up the trig capuzzo to cut off El Adam from its Supply base fourth armored Brigade smashed and routed them causing the armored cars to flee into the desert as this was happening isolated British Commanders now independently decided to strike back at the axis on their own and so small battle groups began to nibble at the axis formations and Supply columns doing fairly

significant damage in the process though ad hoc in nature these courageous actions started to turn the tide and thanks to radio problems roml had also lost communication with the 90th light division and therefore set off to go find it just as the first Army tank Brigade struck West and the Second armored Brigade hit the German right flank from the East supported by 22nd armored Brigade there were no anti-tank guns on the western flank and so the British valentin's managed to charge Into the Heart of the German rear areas which fled in their Wake On The

Other Side the British grants did considerable damage to the German trucks and one German infantry battalion had to be disbanded after losing 20 20 of its Soldiers the companies on the right let Rip with their 50mm pack guns I saw some of their shells bounce harmlessly off the grants on the other hand the enemy's replying fire was Grim his shell bursts among our infantry were particularly deadly I got my right gun into action it stopped one tank several others were burning but the bulk of them came on relentlessly now the tanks were right on top

of the front lines in the sector to my right I looked at Sergeant V's gun a British tank had driven straight at it And over it it was mangled vber himself had got away we met him 100 yards up a w with eight other survivors there was little left of the Battalion a shell from a grant tank hit General von ver Panza wounding him and he was replaced by Colonel cman from the division's artillery regiment naring ordered Colonel vs to set up his 88 mm guns and they managed to Halt the British tanks for a

time getting hit by artillery fire in return and the British actually Dominated this fight until a sandstorm forced an enter the combat the British would go on to lose one more gr tank when the crew accidentally set fire to it while Brewing some tea but the main thing now was that raml was cut off from his support to the South the arietti division having failed at bakim robbed some German Supply Columns of fuel and moved North to join raml but was stopped by the first Army tank Brigade so rl's main forces were now in the

heart of the British rear somewhat disjointed low on supplies with the British armor buzzing around them nobody knew where the Trieste division was and after their action with the fourth armored Brigade who were still trying to hurt them the axis had lost over a third of their tanks by midnight the seriousness of the German intelligence failures that had resulted in rl's underestimations of enemy strength and dispositions became apparent The principal cause of our failure was our underestimate of the strength of the British armored divisions the Advent of the new American Tank had torn great holes

in our ranks interestingly the eighth Army had suffered far fewer armor losses on the first day than the deutches Africa core but it had lost about 1/3 55 of its Grant tanks the reversal of Fortunes during the afternoon have been brought about far more by the independent action of British brigades Battalion company and even platoon commanders than by any coordinating action at divisional core or Army Commander level which on May 27th ushered in a period generally agreed to represent the Nader of British generalship during the Desert campaign it's no wonder that despite the early successes

roml was actually angry dissatisfied and worried at the end of the day taking out his anger on one of his tank commanders roml kicked him in The rear for daring to bring back a slightly damaged Panza claiming it needed repair his officers discussed the situation and his chief of staff Alfred gser suggested that they should withdraw and tell the high command that the operation had only been a reconnaissance in strength to save face but RL disagreed he was still hopeful that he could make things better the next day since the British command had shown themselves

to be incompetent in Deploying their armor he therefore ordered that the attack back North should continue still trying to stick to the original plan the British also couldn't accept that mvi had been captured and so assumed that he was just concentrating on waging the battle which would have been a good thing if he had but he wasn't they also understood that most of their tank forces had actually just Fallen back rather than been destroyed and technically only the Eighth hosas had actually been fully lost so far the third Indian infantry Brigade had also led the

battlefield so that was a total write off but otherwise most of the British forces were still in action at least in theory the fourth and 22nd armored brigades had been gutted though especially the former and the Desert Air Force had done practically nothing scared to intervene in case they hit their own troops six British fighter squadrons had also been withdrawn from Gambut as a precaution but since rl's forces were semi surrounded in the middle of their lines the British believed that they were in a good position Richie reported to orlet that rl's main attack had

indeed come from the south and orle admitted that Richie had been right and that he had been wrong still orle told Richie not to rule out another attack against the South Africans as the Germans like to use pincers to envelop their opponents and This effectively prevented Richie from employing everything he had against raml as he had to keep forces at the the gazala line just in case and with only out ofate updates coming in Richie had little choice but to play Things defensively for the moment had he had perfect knowledge of rl's situation then it

would have made sense to Counterattack but since he didn't know how bad roml had it he made the only decision he could to wait on the morning Of the 28th of May 1942 lumon wanted to attack the German concentration at cidra but hesitated when he realized that they had at least 155 panzas and his one division with 143 tanks wasn't going to be able to defeat this force on its own mvi and his division couldn't be called upon because they had been scattered so lumon adopted a defensive stance the 15th Panza division was shattered from

the previous day's action was now out of fuel and couldn't continue North as Intended only the 21st Panza division had sufficient supplies to do anything so after a battle with the eth Royal tank regiment in the morning which it swatted away with its 88 millimet guns roml ordered it to go north and try to reach the Coast Road Unfortunately they couldn't find a way down the escarment so they turned and took on the British position known as Commonwealth keep the small South African Garrison armed with six Italian anti-tank guns and some Spigot mortars that's a

rare one offered stubborn resistance But ultimately had no chance the position was quickly taken and rl's only real move of the day was over Lumsden hadn't realized that 21st Panza division had gone North and so did nothing at first Except watch the 15th Panza division get hit by bombers from the Desert Air Force roml did order the 90th light division to meet up with the arietti division at bur L harmet currently under attack by first Army Tank Brigade and so the fourth armored Brigade chased the 90th light division during this move doing reasonable damage to

it second armored Brigade then joined in the attack against the Italians hurting them some more before roml sent some 88 mm guns to stem the tide and these held off the British it has been argued that with rl's forces split up and without sufficient supplies why didn't all the British tank forces attack at once why did the 22nd armor Brigade do nothing why were the British only sending in one Brigade at a time well the given answer is that lumon didn't want to attack May 28th 1942 should have seen the annihilation of the Africa core

that it did not is less attributable to the Brilliance of raml than the hamfisted way the British generals fought the Battle the actions of first Armored Division were disappointing and it is difficult to understand the lack of drive it seems That General lumsden's Chief concern concern was to keep his armored Brigade out of action in case they came under seventh armored division's control now the division used its infantry in cooperation with its tanks but I disagree with the first point Carver makes it clear that Lumsden thought that he was facing both Panza divisions and was

calling upon norri to give him as many guns and units as possible and he had actually attacked but was held off By the 88s yes arguably he should have attacked with 2 armor Brigade as well but the fact is that he didn't know 21st Panza had gone North so it's understandable why he didn't move that unit anyway RL went out to visit the 15th Panza Division and shortly after he left his headquarters was overrun and Scattered by British armor with rl's windscreen getting smashed however he did finally get back in touch with The Trieste Division

which was clearing a gap through the minefields ahead of it along with the Bas division in its position this was good news because ral's supply lines were having to go around bakim and were vulnerable to British indiction so if supplies could go straight through the minefields that would shorten the distance and help protect them as well that evening General Richie was happy with how the battle had progressed so far and it helped that he was totally Out of touch with the reality on the ground orle shared Richie's optimism as ral's original plan had obviously failed

and the axis probably only had 250 operational tanks left but while the British may have had more tanks than RL orle still urged caution fearing that the Germans might have recovered from their initial setback and indeed they had Richie's estimate was a little optimistic RL had suffered about 200 tank losses so far Leaving 360 out of the original 560 left far more than the British estimate out of the original 849 tanks Richie had 330 left 240 Cruisers and 90 infantry tanks meaning that they had lost about 519 tanks they had lost almost as many tanks

as the axis had started with worse the axis now had more tanks than them as well and even though another 40 Cruisers and 30 infantry tanks would arrive the next day the British were clearly at a disadvantage AG at this moment at dawn On the 29th of May 1942 the Italian saata division attacked the South African position at Elm Hamer according to one eyewitness a mortar shell signaled the beginning of the attack after which the Italians Rose as one and charged forwards in a wave but then the South African artillery and machine guns opened up

and everything went wrong running into mines the Italian attack broke up and some of them wandered nor Northeast into the area where the second South African Brigade was only to be chewed up there as well after 15 minutes the Italian attack was over and the South Africans took 400 Italian soldiers and 13 officers prisoner just to make things worse for the axis as general cral was flying back to his forward headquarters in his Storch aircraft the flares that should have guided him weren't fired so he flew too far and British machine guns riddled his plane

with bullets destroying the engine and Killed the pilot cruell was in the back seat and just had to wait for his plane to somehow Land by itself behind British lines miraculously he survived the fall but he was captured fearing that an Italian General perhaps narini might take over Fon melan convinced Field Marshal Albert cering to take over the creal group and subordinate himself to roml a colonel general just to note Wikipedia says that cruel's pilot mistook British soldiers for Italians Landed and that's why they were captured but it's getting its information from a random American

newspaper that has nothing to do with North Africa and we all know how accurate American journalism is especially during the middle of a war with one dubious exception every single history book I have says cruell was shot down including RL with kitchen Mitchum and Morehead specifically saying his Pilot was was killed therefore Wikipedia is wrong yet Again his dead Pilot's blood was still splashed on his boots when I saw him at gambot anyway the supply situation was now desperate for roml roml found one of his Supply columns in a complete mess east of bur El

haret and so personally LED it through an area contested by the British getting shot at along the way he did succeed in reaching the 15th Panza division which helped but the supply crisis remained roml also understood that the grant tank was a problem even If the British weren't using them right and so these factors convinced him to abandon the original plan to protect against the grant it made sense to form an all round defensive Hedgehog position at the minefields while the Italians carved paths through the minefields shortening the distance that his Supply columns needed to

go he therefore ordered his divisions to converge in the area west of the night Bridge position this strategy makes more sense When you realize that RL didn't know that the 150th infantry Brigade supported by 30 Matilda tanks from first Army tank Brigade was sat at the gazala position where RL wanted to be and were able to dominate the gaps in the minefields that the Italians were trying to carve so roml would soon have to deal with the 150th Brigade if he was to secure this cauldron of his to fulfill rl's new orders the 21st Panza

division moved south from Commonwealth keep Seeing this foot's 7eventh Royal tank regiment moved into its path in order to block it and in a fool hearty attempt to stop them foot charged his slow moving infantry tanks at the Germans got seriously battered and then fell back a pointless waste of lives elsewhere the British also tried to launch an attack from the Knightsbridge area but this was plagued by poor coordination between the various commanders nari ordered miseri to send the weaken forth armored Brigade To join Lumsden but this had already been ordered back to L Adam

to act as a reserve allowing the 90th light division to move uncontested towards B Al haret as the arti division moved North to join the panzas they ran into the second armored Brigade who were moving West towards the 15th Panza division the 22nd armored Brigade should have been with the second but they were stopped by a sandstorm although one historian says they weren't even called for support Nonetheless there was an exchange of fire but for whatever reason the British decided not to stop to fight the Italians instead they continued until they found the 15th Panza

division which had been moving West as well but the panzas now turned about and coupled with the German anti-tank guns started a battle with the British obviously one British armored Brigade stood no chance against an entire German Panza division especially with the Italian Armored Division on their flank and this situation was made monumentally worse when the 21st Panza division appeared from the north hit on three flanks by panzas pack anti-tank guns and 88 mm flat guns the British Crusader tanks were quickly annihilated the grants were surprisingly tough nuts to crack though and their 75 mm

guns hammered the German panzas in return the 22nd armored Brigade finally moved up to support and the battle continued for the rest of the Day as a sandstorm hindered visibility but in the evening the British withdrew East and the Germans fell back to the West ending the battle and forming rl's cauldron overnight plant says that although it wasn't realized at the time this defeat was the decisive point of the battle of gazala and it had been a close run thing because the Panza divisions reported that their ammunition was exhausted Ed had the British been more

vigorous in The previous days it's possible that the panzas would have been out of ammunition and the battle would have been won but by the end of the day both sides were exhausted the British were still optimistic misinterpreting rl's move as a desperate attempt to retreat and so the axis tanks appeared to be pinned against the Mine Fields and rapidly running out of supplies he was only a matter of time the British thought until Ral exhausted his ammunition at which Point they would win roml was now firmly ensconced even trapped by some definitions in what

quickly became known as de hexen Castle The Cauldron this was his back to the wall moment in this battle which would forever Define him as a military commander Richie wanted to use his artillery to hammer the Germans while the British tanks and motorized infantry intercepted access supply lines so eager worthy that both he and orac began discussing the idea of using got's Infantry to strike South and cut off RL entirely once RL was destroyed orle said they would then begin an advance to maili and Benghazi quite rightly the British commanders were thinking big but the

basis of their hopes which were that the enemy armor was cornered and wasting away was soon to be shattered on the morning of the 30th of May 1942 fifth Panza regiment and some engineers and infantry moved West to City mua to try and open a Supply route through the Minefields shortly thereafter they ran into British infantry supported by both anti-tank guns and Matilda tanks and 11 panzas were left burning on the battlefield the mission was therefore called off for now and it was at this moment that RL realized where the 150th Brigade was and note

roml was in trouble but he had no intention of escaping West he just wanted to open supply routes through the m Fields yet oring L and Richie didn't see it that way today I Have not sufficient information to say whether or not the enemy is trying to draw off but everything is aiming at stopping the Gap through which he might escape and all is ready to cling to him continually I hope shortly to get more ground information message just in enemy appears to be trying to break out west through Minefield pray he does not Escape

we will watch out for the dangers of a rebound Nori wanted to strike from the nightsbridge area toward the Minefields hoping to cut rl's supply lines once more he reported to Richie that his forces were doing very well which was simply not true Lumsden was also determined to get through to the 150th Brigade and believing that the Germans were retreating he sent the ninth Lancers the queen bays and the third country of London yry against the AA Ridge this was guarded by the arietti division Plus 90 anti-tank guns supported by some 88 mm into flat

guns So the British were smashed long before they reached the ridge the result was hardly surprising but according to their regimental history General Lumsden who had been present for most of the time thought they had done Jolly well 22nd armored Brigade spent the day skirmishing against axis forces to the southeast of nightsbridge as this soldier from the second Royal gloustershire haar's recounts the subsequent days and nights in The Cauldron were sheer hell those who managed fall 4 hours sleep at night were lucky by the time Cruz had withdrawn to Liga refueled reloaded and did some

maintenance it was midnight guards had to be mounted and first light was at 4:00 a.m. then it was off again to face the hon for a 16-hour day of course this is where the Germans may have had an advantage because they were supposedly on the drug pertin which kept them more awake and alert sleep deprivation aside The fourth armored Brigade chased a bunch of tanks southwards which later turned out to be about 60 Italian Vehicles all of which were captured by the British the Desert Air Force did strike at the axis transports but lost 13

of their fighters to the BF 109's and macki 202s the 201st guards Brigade also decided to send a jock column westwards but it ran into an anti-tank screen set up by the 21st Panza division who hit them hard and they lost 5 25 Pounders 7 Six pounders and 157 men all for nothing these attacks effectively exhausted 30 cor's offensive power both the second and 22nd armored brigades were reduced to one battalion worth of Tanks each and these were busy reconsolidating their forces after the previous defeats so overall not a great day for the British lumon

realized that his tanks weren't going to get through the axis anti-tank screens until the British infantry and Engineers had cleared the route first And so the 10th Indian infantry Brigade made its way from gambot to reinforce the effort this famous picture was taken on the 31st of May 1942 so I wanted to show it and identify who was in it from left to right we have Brigadier George ersin 13th cor's Chief of Staff generals norri Richie got and then someone else I don't know who the person is on the right but presumably it's 30 cor's

Chief of Staff which would make him Brigadier George stin hattan on the morning of the 31st of May Richie and his core commanders wanted to try and Implement Orin Le's offensive plan operation limmerick the attack to the west but got and Nori said that the British armor would have to remain in the Knightsbridge area in order to prevent RL from striking East and so nothing could be done for now and apart from renton's Seventh motor Brigade which managed to get supplies through to the French AB bakim something they would do Three more times between now

and the 7th of June the British didn't do anything on this day Richie reported to walking like that he was trying to get to the 150th Brigade but in reality he was doing nothing of the sort and didn't even know how serious the situation was for Hayden's Brigade roml asked Brigadier Hayden if he would like to start surrender negotiations but Hayden formly declined and so German artillery opened up and the 90th flight division Attacked atted they didn't get very far and took heavy casualties so the panzas were called in for support but Hayden's six Pounders

and both his anti-aircraft guns also resisted strongly preventing the Germans from taking more than some of the forward positions the fight continued all day and with just five Valentine tanks left the pockets shrank Back The Trieste division also had to go at the green Howards but didn't get anywhere showing that the British Infantry had their together it was mainly the British armored forces that were lacking at this stage Hayden's stubbornness meant that supplies didn't get through to RL all day and his men and their prisoners were having to ration everything including water they were only

given half a cup of water per day prompting roml to tell a complaining British major that if they didn't get a convoy through that evening he would have to ask Richie for terms he even Said that the major could deliver the message to Richie himself self and yes roml was almost forced to surrender we could spare little for our prisoners who were mostly men of the third Indian motor Brigade even our own troops surreptitiously tapped water from radiators to drink we were in a really desperate position our backs against the Minefield no food no water

no petrol very little ammunition in another 24 hours we should have had to surrender at The last moment supplies did get through to RL and he didn't have to surrender but it's worth emphasizing that this was a nearr run thing only water and ammunition arrived on the 31st and food only came through on the next day with one book describing the men as half starved by that point so had the British been more decisive or had Hayden somehow held out longer this could have been a disaster for the axis as is so often the case

in Warfare a badly bungled Operation did not end up as a complete debark thanks to a truly astonishing display of military incompetence on the part of the adversary on the 1st of June 1942 stokers and artillery pounded the 150th infantry Brigade and the British Desert Air Force took the day off despite not really doing anything due to sandstorms and fears of hitting their own troops they had lost 50 of their original 250 aircraft by this point this prompted air Vice Marshall coningham to call for Replacements and they did receive some additional Spitfires yet it's hard

not to conclude that the Desert Air Force was simply not performing well finally Ultra intelligence had informed the British that ruml wasn't withdrawing but was in fact holding them off with an anti-tank screen while he recovered his composure and got through the minefields Richie had organized an attack but it wasn't ready by the 1st of June and some Of of the forces couldn't be used at all as hoped the 69th Brigade was supposed to have struck South but unable to pull units out of the defense line This ended up being called off then the 10th

Indian infantry Brigade only received its orders at the last minute and also wasn't able to reach the battlefield in time so movi called off the attack and the British did nothing again and because the British tanks weren't putting that much pressure on rl's Northern or Eastern flanks this meant that RL was able to take troops including the entire 21st Panza division from his outer pocket and Shi them to attack the 150th infantry Brigade at one crucial moment rml took personal command of the leading infantry platoon possibly the first time a military formation of so small

a size was taken into action by so high ranking an officer the British resisted for as long as they could and managed to wound General's Galer r chief Of staff and vesal his operations Chief as well as some other Battalion commanders bought Brigadier Hayden was killed by an artillery shell and the surviving men ran out of ammunition when roml ordered his own forces to wave White flags of the British to indicate that they would accept Prisoners the exhausted British soldiers decided to surrender and the 150th infantry Brigade ceased to be on the morning of the

2nd of June 1942 Richie received Confirmation that the 150th infantry Brigade had been destroyed but he still believed RL was surrounded that the British still had the advantage and that all he had to do was order G's 13th core to strike South if this happened RL would be doomed he thought but while roml was still in trouble he had now regained the initiative more supplies had gten through the minefields and he wasn't willing to just sit there and wait for the British to destroy him With his tanks holding The Cauldron RL sent The Trieste and

90th light division South with the ultimate objective of capturing bur hackim from the French these were hit along the way by the RAF slowing their progress burning their vehicles and Downing several L raer aircraft in the area as well as over the next few days all this boosted French morale prompting the French General to thank the RAF for their efforts at the same time roml also sent the 21st Panza Division to towards elet at Tamar in the north Nori sent fourth armored Brigade to intercept but in a sandstorm the two British tank battalions became separated

and the fifth Royal tank regiment ended up in combat alone the German panzas suddenly appeared right in front of them with one German Squadron rolling right past the leading British tanks before the British had time to respond but they did and both sides started firing at Point Blank Range we began firing my Troop officer was the first to be hit and set on fire it was a case of firing into the enemy tanks as fast as you could and there wasn't much chance of jinking forward or back because the tanks all along our line were

beginning to burn the Germans destroyed 12 18 or 19 tanks depending on the source and killed the commander of the fifth Royal tank regiment leaving the unit with just a handful of Tanks left there's no record of German losses and again there Was no major attack on the axis cauldron wasting another day what you're about to hear is the story of one of the worst military disasters in British history and mightly annoyed y be for even rml was frustrated by the sheare incompetence that the British displayed in this engagement it's easy to describe what happened

but deciding who was to blame has been a controversial issue ever since so for that reason I think it's necessary to really dive into the Details with this section especially since a lot of the early histories were very one-sided on the 3rd of June 1942 Richie informed oring leac that the 150th infantry Brigade had been destroyed but he cushioned the blow by saying that they still had the initiative and that things were getting better they really weren't though and orle saw that roml had actually punctured the heart of the British Gazala allines still orle gave

Richie the benefit of the doubt thinking that perhaps Richie had more up toate information than Orin did in Cairo but he also told Richie not to lose the initiative well unwilling to attack the Germans and realizing that the Italians were the softer Target both orac and Richie thought that an offensive by 13th core perhaps with the tanks from 30th core was the best way to go some of their forces could take bir tamrad While Others could strike South and cut off rl's forces once more however before issuing the orders Richie decided to hold a war

council with his commanders to gain a consensus but everyone disagreed with Richie Nori and mvi were against the idea of using their tanks because they were busy fighting raml supposedly this meant that the strike South would have to be conducted purely by got's 13th core but one of got's divisional Commanders was against the plan and nobody should be surprised to learn that P was anything but recepted to this adventure forcing the British to rethink their plans desperate to do something thing or anything major general Briggs of the fifth Indian division was asked if he could

move up to the front and strike through the British and South African lines and advanced to Tamimi which was Miles Away General Briggs wrote that though the fifth Indian Division was supposed to be in general Reserve at the start of rl's offensive in fact every Brigade and some battalions even have been taken out of his control and placed directly under one of the two cores or under the armored divisions in this worldl poool battle brigades were swapped from one command to another Briggs called his own headquarters ahq on ice and was occasionally given formations to

look after for a day at a time it was not Till roml had established himself in our minefields had overrun 150th Brigade and was threatening bur hackim that I was called in I had to collect the division plan recognizer and attack within 36 hours I never thought harder in my life life the plan was unworkable and so Briggs suggested an alternative which Richie and got agreed with Briggs said that it would be better to go south around bur hackim and then strike to toimi instead I genuinely don't know how This was meant to be the

easier option which then suggests were not being given the true account of what was being planned but Briggs did explain that this would allow him to keep his division together as one whereas apparently that wouldn't happen if he just went straight to Tamimi again it doesn't really make sense well anyway someone then went to do the calculations and realized that it was logistically impossible to send this Division around the southern flank and so this entire plan was off the cards as well but even if they had wanted to do that sending a tankless Infantry Division

unprotected around rl's flank was probably not a good idea so why they even considered this is beyond all comprehension and despite later implying that he hadn't suggested this miseri then offered yet another alternative plan of action he said that their best and only option was to crush the axis Cauldron in a simple head-on attack which they should have done days ago so a new plan operation abedine was hatched whereby 30 core would strike West from Knightsbridge using infantry these would clear the anti-tank screen for the tanks who would then follow up and at the same

time 13th Court would strike the cidra Ridge and then later Advance on to Mimi apparently as you can tell there are several problems with the sources but also several problems with the plan and It's at this bit where the histories really diverge from one another they all agree that there was a splitting command but their explanation doesn't make sense and there's contradictions all the way down so I'm going to try my best to make sense of it here what is 100% certain is that Richie gave the order for operation abedine but the attacks went in

separately again I have sent my orders for tomorrow but I know my core commanders will hold a tea party on them And whether they will comply with my exact intentions is questionable this sad and revealing remark badly reflects on Nori and got who by by now seem to have forgotten the precepts of discipline fundamental to any army in my absence the whole plan was changed to a frontal attack against roml in his prepared position and we were not to be a complete division after all command of the operation would alternate between fifth Indian Division and

seventh Armored Division according to the formations which were chiefly engaged in reality there was little coordination between the two division commanders Briggs and mury after the initial attack and there divisions just operated separately leading to disaster as we'll see we also know that GA refused to participate in the advance this was either because he thought his headquarters wasn't suited to the task of commanding the tank forces or because He thought that the Infantry would Advance like they did in the first world war and get slaughtered either way GA wasn't really involved here but what happened

with Nori is more difficult to figure out One Source says that Nori was just bypassed by Richie and was left out of the chain of command suggesting that Richie was to blame another source says that Richie left his subordinance to run the show meaning that he wasn't in charge and therefore wasn't to blame and Other sources say that norri wasn't bypassed but that he for whatever reason delegated command to Briggs and mury and just didn't take ownership of the plan resulting in disaster so none of the sources are in agreement when it comes to Nori

when when we have a contradiction that indicates that something is not right usually a distortion of history or a lie and because operation abedine ends up being the worst tank battle in British history It makes sense that whoever was in charge of this plan doesn't want to be blamed for the worst tank attack in British history so isn't it strange that all the sources just so happen to contradict each other when it comes to whether norri was or was not in command and considering that the 22nd armored Brigade was taken off lumon and given to

mury and that this order couldn't have come from Lumsden because why would he give tanks to mvi whom he Hated this indicates that Nori was taking active steps to implement the plan we also know n's headquarters radio of the eth Army on the 4th of June saying commanders concerned in abedine full of beans and happy so while Briggs and mie might have planned out the details nari was active in the operational planning as well does it really make sense then that he just so happened to not be in charge of the operation when it was

Launched there's no reason for Richie to take command of this attack this was what his core Commander should have been doing there's also no reason for Richie to bypass norri and then not take command of the the attack so it wasn't Richie's fight he may take responsibility for the disaster because he's the Army Commander but his core Commander should have been doing the planning logically this leaves us with two options norri was in command but Later pretended that he wasn't in which case the fault lies with him or Nori delegated to Briggs and mury which

split the command and thus resulted in disaster in which case the fault lies with Nori either way norri is definitely to blame here and it's interesting because most of the history books especially the early ones pin the blame on Richie I just don't understand why they wouldn't call out Nori whose family are Rich Barons currently active in the British and New Zealand governments with Nori himself becoming a politician and governor in South Australia and later New Zealand suggesting that politics may have been a factor as to why they avoided pitting the blame on Nori so

Nori was was in charge and norri did a poor job in coordinating the various arms with the result that the British infantry and tanks would go in separately once more giving the axis a Clear Advantage this was in addition to the fact that the British tank force was already in a dire State at this point and just not up to the task plus the British erroneously thought that the 15th Panza division was with the 90 of light division at bur hackim which it wasn't so this attack operation abdine was just not going to work and

as these discussions were going on the axis had gotten through the Mine Fields making RL Supply situation significantly easier in Addition the 90 of light and Trieste divisions had reached the French AB bur haakim and began using their 105 mm artillery guns to Shell the position which the French couldn't respond to because their 75 mm artillery guns had a shorter range luckily the French trenches and gun positions were under ground making it difficult for the German artillery and stokers to even find them let alone hit them so when roml asked kig if he wanted to

surrender Coneg didn't even bother to answer him nothing much happened on the 4th of June 1942 except that RL wanted to salvage some abandoned tanks near ber El harmed and therefore opened a gap in the minefields in the area as Von melan his new chief of operations would later describe this was a great great Stroke of Luck which will become incredibly important shortly RL could also tell that the British were gearing up for an attack and prepared his forces Accordingly so at 0250 hours on the 5th of June 1942 operation abedine Richie's attack on The

Cauldron began and it immediately went wrong the opening after to the Reb barage hit empty ground because the British had mistakenly thought that the German and Italian lines were further east than they actually were which also meant that the 10th Indian infantry Brigade reached their objective without much trouble again because they had Advanced into empty ground then they ran into the arati division which resisted fiercely but took a beating and were driven off aav Ridge however the Germans counterattacked halting the Indian infantry and throwing some back well as agreed the 156 tanks of 22nd armored

Brigade came forward and raced through the Indian infantry into a wall of anti-tank guns which then opened fire on the British armor the only reason they were not annihilated was that the shells Raised so much dust that the Gunners could not see their targets the survivors of this hail of shells shared off to the north chased by the eighth Panza regiment and other elements the 22nd armored Brigade ran into another line of guns from the 21st Panza division where they were engaged Again by The panzas Heavy loss were incurred and it's probably about this time

that the commander of the second Royal Gloster hosas Colonel Burley was killed And because the tanks have been told by mvi not to help the Infantry since in his words the Infantry were self-protecting the remaining tanks of 22nd armored Brigade withdrew behind the Infantry leaving the Infantry to Bear the Bruns of the German panzas and Italian armor which then charged into them because they were meant to be on the attack the British two Pounders weren't dug in and so were quickly knocked out resulting in the units Getting rolled over by the axis tanks the survivors

fell back and to add to the misery in the North 32nd army tank Brigade drove into a Minefield and then was hit by intense anti-tank Fire coming from the CRA Ridge a whopping 50 of it 70 infantry tanks were destroyed with the remaining 20 withdrawing from the battlefield from the Tactical point of view this was one of the most ridiculous attacks of the campaign both the seventh armed and fifth Indian divisions Realized that they were losing the battle but because Richie had failed to assign someone to coordinate both divisions supposedly the commanders separately came to

the decision that they had to keep fighting in order to support the other division thus the battle continued and losses piled up then the second armored Brigade with its one battalion of armor was placed under seventh armor Division and moved South at first but then fell back when it Received several contradictory orders that he didn't know what to do with so they just went around in circles as the rest of the British Force took a pummeling roml meanwhile assessed the situation and believed correctly that his Northern flank was safe so he propped up his Eastern

flank with the arietti and 21st Panza divisions and personally led the 15th Panza division through the newly carved Gap in the minefields to the Southwest 15th Panza Division overwhelmed the lone British Battalion at bur El harmet then linked up with forces coming from the bur hackim area before raml LED this United Force northwestwards scattering or wiping out numerous British units destroying the British command and control and cementing his dominance on the battlefield mury was captured again but escaped again and 21st Panza division also came South trapping three Indian battalions four artillery Regiments and the support

group of 22nd armored Brigade at the AA Ridge as plant says this was one of the few double envelopments in Modern Warfare and as Barnett says it had taken four days for the British to plan the attack and half a day for romal to launch a stunning Counterattack our Left Flank had evidently not been guarded its protection was such an obvious necessity that it never occurred to me personally To ask what that protection was I assumed that my ninth Brigade and 10th Brigade would not be asked to advance 5 to8 miles into the enemy positions

without adequate steps having been taken to protect the southern flank the RAF had also failed to help once again turning down numerous requests by the Army units for support on a day which saw at least 110 British tanks one infantry Brigade and four field artillery regiments get destroyed what's Possibly the most surprising thing about this was just how upset RL was at the British even roml couldn't believe that the British had wasted their men as they had why hadn't they sent in everything they had he asked why hadn't they coordinated their units what is the

use of having overall superiority if one allows one's formations to be smashed piece by piece by an enemy who in each separate action is able to concentrate Superior strength at the decisive point And historian Barry pit in his excellent Crucible of War series highly recommended spends half a page just ripping into the British commanders saying that got and Nori were emasculated and subsequently lost confidence in themselves the men also lost confidence with their commanders which pit says is a state of mind that persisted until during or even after the Second Battle of L Al in

so this wasn't just a tactical mistake this was the Final nail in the coffin for British morale and it had massive implications going forward love him or hate him and I don't particularly like the guy but this is why Montgomery was important he came down like a ton of bricks on the desert commanders he wiped the Slate clean and he didn't commit to battle until he was ready the British had learned through error and defeat that if you send your unprepared forces into an ad hoc battle Against the best that the Germans had to offer

while they were at their Peak you would get slaughtered so why was Monty slow and methodical because when the British weren't slow and methodical they got operation crusaded or operation abdin that's why and yes I'm jumping ahead here but this is why I wanted to start the North African campaign series from the very beginning so that you could see why the British Drew certain conclusions And why Monty was the way he was but back to the battle the only real successful action on this day for the British was that the seventh motor Brigade along with

the fourth South African armored car regiment Advanced Northwest into the rear of the axis formations at bur hackim wiping out numerous trucks several tanks a bunch of other equipment and captured a truck full of German they even took rotunda matif planted Mines on the axis supply routes and then fell back it begs the question of what could have been achieved if this Force had had tank support at the same time the first South African Brigade attacked the Italian trento division doing significant damage to it and to RL supply lines and it was during this action

that Sergeant Quentin SMI won the first of only five Victoria crosses given to South African soldiers after he single-handedly took out two enemy Positions while wounded this is General P pinning the medal to his chest but in reality by the morning of the 6th of June 1942 there was little left for the British the few remaining British Battalion still attempting to hold the cauldron's ring mostly from the fifth Indian division were now attacked one by one and overwhelmed only a few subunits managed to get away intact as the British armor now all under M's command

tried but were unable to intervene Neither could the Desert Air Force which was once again hindered by a low Flying Cloud and the lack of a bomb line Beyond which they could safely engage even though the first hurricane 2D tank destroyer aircraft arrived on this day only the axis Supply columns were actually attacked fourth armored Brigade found a British major the sole survivor of the support group of 22nd armored Brigade which was was trying to rescue so now roml was definitely in command of The battlefield and Richie couldn't inform orle of the losses because he

didn't yet realize the extent of the disaster in fact 30 core reported that they had had a successful day second armored Brigade had a very good party yesterday evening and 22nd armored Brigade did very well today fourth armored Brigade seemed to be having a good party only the friendship B hackim were really offering decent resistance at this point and roml wanted to take it Before attacking the main gazala positions from the rear so The Trieste and 90th light divisions supported by the L raffer were doing their best to take the position but failed once more

still out of the picture Richie told Orin laac he had ordered the seventh motor Brigade to go around bur hackim and attack the axis supply lines at the same time he had ordered gaun to Launch a fullscale attack to the West with the first South African division but gots Had to talk to Pina at 1,400 hours and again 1700 hours to try and get him to do something which even the South African historians have to admit was because P wasn't playing ball what's not mentioned by the South Africans is that P wasn't happy with this

plan and refused to cooperate saying he wasn't going to risk his division attacking a superior Force G suggested instead that one Brigade be used to raid South but Pina again dismissed this saying that he Didn't have time to prepare one and so nothing happened on this day however it was finally agreed that an attack would go in on the next day yes P had finally been persuaded to act it was only at 0700 hours on the 7th of June 19 1942 that norri finally sent a personal signal to Richie telling him what had happened 2

days previously this signal was received at 0940 hours meaning that despite some authors saying otherwise it's not really possible to blame Richie For being over optimistic up until this moment in addition shortly after receiving this message oring let's Chief of Staff General Thomas corber arrived at Richie's headquarters to discuss the situation therefore it's also unfair to conclude that Richie was hiding information from orac as many historians like to do it's also worth remembering that General Cunningham was dismissed when he got pessimistic and started advocating a Withdrawal during operation Crusader Cunningham was replaced by Richie who

knew what would happen if he repeated Cunningham's mistakes so this placed Richie in a very delicate position whereby he had to remain optimistic in spite of the facts and he had to not Advocate a withdrawal even though he would soon need to do so this tricky situation helps explain the subsequent events and could be the reason why Richie started to test the waters when It came to a withdrawal Richie knew he would have to withdraw the French from the bur hacken position since holding it made no sense now as rumel had opened supply routes through

the minefields but Orin advised against a withdrawal still thinking of conducting an attack to the West so kig was left to hold on alone but this could be interpreted as a test from Richie to see if he could get away with a small tactical withdrawal without making it Seem like he had lost his nerve if it was that test had failed because oring like denied but perhaps the seed of withdrawal had been planted in orin's mind conik though need not worry because he was about to be saved you see on the 7th of June 1942

P finally attacked well sort of the three companys siiz detachments he sent out to scout the terrain ahead and raid axis positions didn't get very far and these useless Penny packet units suffered the Loss of 280 men of course the South African historians don't see it the way that everybody else does General P's proposals were perhaps an improvement on the Army plan which apparently required his single division to make an immediate large-scale attack upon three others in well prepared positions and they were certainly more explicit and less hazardous than those of core but their fatal

weakness lay in the size of the forces prescribed the operation was to Be carried out by single companies from each infantry battalion spread over 15 miles of desert in nine independent attacks none of which could be supported adequately by artillery fire while I agree that Richie and got's initial plans were over ambitious P wasn't facing three divisions he faced two weak Italian divisions which were more the size of regiments and one German Brigade so both sides were probably about equal in numbers but obviously the Italian Infantry weren't the most motivated soldiers in the world which

is why got was upset that P had even tried General got expressed considerable bitterness at General P's failure and told both British and Dominion officers that he was absolutely convinced that the South African division could have broken through and turned the Northern end of the enemy's position he maintained that P would not cooperate and made only a half-hearted attempt in order to prove That the task was impossible had G been given briggs' Indian division as originally hoped plus a brigade of tank this could have been a very one-sided fight as it was P was probably

correct not to take this too seriously still he did let his own troops down by not adequately planning or supporting his raids something even the South African historians admit so it's no wonder most historians take a dim view of p patently p was in the wrong job and in the wrong Army he and his division were becoming a liability Elsewhere on this day fourth armored Brigade reinforced by sixth Royal tank regiment did try to attack the Germans again but couldn't get past the 88 mm Flack and 50 mm pack guns renton's seventh motor Brigade managed

one last time to get supplies through to the French at bakim but from now on the French were on their own on the 8th of June 1942 seventh motor Brigade and the fourth South African Armored Cars once Again struck in into the rear of the axis forces destroying numerous trucks freeing British prisoners and capturing axis ones Richie also ordered got to strike at the axis supply lines and this time a mixed British and South African force of Tanks armored cars and infantry in Bren carriers struck at the Italian held position at B12 the Italians had

no chance and 25 officers and 340 other men were taken prisoner showing that had P actually taken his attack seriously he Could have done a lot of damage to the Italians at least by the wiping out of Italian battalions in 10th and 21st cores the front was being increasingly thinned out so that penetration by enemy armored vehicles westwards into the area of our supply lines became very much easier it's probably because of this threat to the rear plus the loss of stooker hitting the French that caused castling to scream at RL ordering him to bring

Panza forces from the north down To Bur hackim to finish the job RL was against this idea thinking that panzas weren't suited to attack a position surrounded by mindes so instead he personally led a strong Grenadier force from the 15th Panza division South to bakim along with the reinforced hecka group coupled with artillery strikes the L waffer also launched the heaviest attack so far on the position which cut the signal lines from con's command to the forward positions then the German Attacks went in infantry from Cleveland's division assaulted the French positions held by Colonial troops

from Chad and the Congo these resisted against attack after attack for several hours and only slowly gave ground the Desert Air Force finally got their act together and sent out the most sties in a single day in support of the French and even attempted to drop supplies for the Garrison although the parachutes didn't open so the supplies got smashed But several French anti-tank guns were lost and an ammunition dump was blown up and ammunition was running low when the fighting stopped that evening although French morale remained High knowing that the eyes of the world were

watching them the French troops were exhausted and so kig asked for reinforcements and relief well the British didn't have strong enough forces on the ground to get through to the French so Richie warned conic that he might have to evacuate the Position soon on the 9th of June Bur hackim was hit by air and artillery strikes once more and the Desert Air Force resumed their former incompetence and mostly didn't take to the skies citing exhaustion and the belief that the Army had everything in hand this was unfortunate because a stooker attack then came in and

destroyed the remaining Reserve stocks of rations some British units outside the pocket did harass the enemy to distract them causing the 90th FL division to pull forces away to deal with the threat but otherwise the pressure remained on the French RL had also arrived to oversee the situation and the axis managed to push into the pocket destroying more artillery and anti-tank guns they broke into the perimeter twice and were thrown back both times but then The High Ground was seized by the Germans signaling that the battle was entering the final stage the French had a

choice they could sit there And eventually get destroyed or they could Escape so that evening mvi asked kig if he wanted to get out and kunig said yes saying that if transports could get close enough to their position to allow the evacuation of their wounded the French would make a break for it but because the transports weren't able to move off immediately that meant holding on until the next day well on the 10th of June the RAF were kept at Bay by the axis Fighters as stooker struck bakim Once again more attacks went in and

even broke through the French lines B counterattacks prevented the pocket from collapsing in the evening the French had fought almost to the last round so Richie gave kunik the order to break out that evening French Engineers carved a gap in the minefields to their West yes the West which is actually where the seventh motor Brigade had managed to get to with a large Convoy of Lor's in toe so the free French left two companies Behind to make it appear as if they were still there and made their way through the Gap in the mines unfortunately

the Germans spotted them and artillery and machine guns rattled forcing the French to fight their way out but they managed to make it to the rendevu point where they were driven away and Al of the original 3,600 men 2,700 men got out most of them wounded the guide for the headquarter column missed his way and was blown up Three times on unexpected minefields and lived tell the tale among the survivors was an English woman Susan Travers who was konig's driver and mistress she was the only woman to become an officer in the Foreign Legion the

defense of bakim had been a solid effort on the part of the French and had caused the axis numerous problems especially with supplies they were forced to abandon it in the end but this really was a decent victory for the French play there says That by holding the position for as long as they did the French gave the British an invaluable opportunity to recover from their defeat against RL but pit reminds us that richy did nothing with this time except to feed Oran with an over optimistic assessment of the situation yes they had caught their

breath and repaired some tanks but that was it RL had about the same number of Tanks as they did now although he had lost about a third of his infantry which Was bad especially since two fresh Indian brigades had arrived on the battlefield despite reinforcements things had gotten worse for the British G completely fell out with p and while he had managed to form a line between the gazala minefields and the chroma using some South African infantry relations had soured the condition of the two remaining armored brigades was Dreadful and apart from the low tank

numbers the men sensed that the battle Was lost morale plummeted especially when the survivors of the previous tank actions were stupidly ordered to take the tanks off the less experienced Crews of first armored Brigade which resulted in bitter disputes and even more contempt towards the leadership all the armored brigades had changed divisions at least twice which was unsettling and led to administrative difficulties there was also a huge shortage of artillery since seven field Regiments have been lost by this point so the British were definitely on the back foot now orle was anxious fearful of rl's

next move even though he knew the armor was in a dire State he believed that the British had to keep roml engaged in order to prevent him from recovering his own losses so he hoped that roml would attack them exhaust himself in the process and give them an opportunity to Counterattack by having the 13th core strike roml in the Rear however this was fantasy and both got and Nori started to object against Richie's proposals leading to further breakdown in command and control the scene was set up for yet another British catastrophy on the 11th of

June 1942 the main British defense line near gazala still hadn't been cracked open yes RL was behind these lines but the fact that they still maned them shows that RL hadn't had it all his own way and by this point the axis were in a dire shape Too 15th Panza division had started with three infantry battalions and was now down to two weak ones they only had 667 men or 35% of their original infantry RL ordered the 21st Panza division to move towards the cidra ridge to draw the British into a trap while the 15th

Panza Trieste and 90th light divisions moved towards L Adam threatening the British flank seeing this norri concluded that the axis was spread out and could be smashed he therefore had the seventh Motor Brigade and some Indian colon harassed the 90 of light while the fourth armored Brigade moved to The High Ground Northeast of the 15th Panza division to counter it thus on the 12th of June 1942 Nori wanted mvi to take the fourth armored Brigade and attacked the 15th pan division from the West while the second armored Brigade attacked them from the north as this

was happening lumsdon would command the 22nd armored and 32nd armored brigades and hold off The arietti and 21st pan the divisions this wasn't a bad plan but the British troops were no longer in the right frame of mind to conduct it and the British command were also in disagreement with each other fourth armored Brigade belonged to mury and second armored Brigade belong to Lumsden Lumsden didn't want his Brigade in mv's hands and both Brigade commanders were also in disagreement with the plan Richard didn't want to come off The High Ground and Briggs just wanted to

go back to Lumsden so unable to get them to cooperate mvi decided to go see Nori in hopes that his Superior could resolve the dispute but after leaving his headquarters he ran into German forces near El Adam had to hide in a well and was once again out of touch with what was going on thus at The crucial moment the British just sat there doing nothing Well misery had a radio with him and probably as a last ditch effort he Ordered the two brigades to attack unfortunately this message was intercepted by RL who now knew

that the fourth armored Brigade was unwilling to come off The High Ground naring therefore sent the 15th Panza division to attack it which it did reluctantly the German Panza Crews were fatigued by this point and so the attack was little more than a light probe which the British resisted easily but by noon Nori had realized that mury was missing and So placed Lumsden in charge of all the tanks it took time for lumson to take over and so the British had done nothing by 1530 hours Lumsden ordered the 22nd armor Brigade to move up from

the Knightsbridge position but at the same time roml ordered the 21st Panza and Italian divisions to move up from the west and attack the fourth Army Brigade in support of the 15th Panza division so at 1535 hours both sides started to engage because British morale was so Poor at this stage and there was anger and hatred against each other and their superiors this resulted in a paralysis of command organization and willingness to fight they therefore had no chance when the 21st Panza Division and the Italians slammed into the rear of fourth armored Brigade destroying 20

tanks in less than 10 minutes in a short space of time both the second and fourth armor brigades were surrounded by panzas and hit by the German anti-tank guns it was A Slaughter for about an hour until the 22nd armor Brigade Drew off a portion of 21st Panza division opening a gap through which the other brigades could Escape second armed Brigade linked up with the 22nd but the fourth fled further and actually disappeared over the ramalin scart with just 15 tanks left the Knightsbridge area was now a Salient in an axis sea and having just

lost somewhere between between 105 and 138 tanks in the space of an afternoon Lumon at least realized that the British tanks had lost this battle he only had enough tanks to defend with now but a communication problem prevented him from talking to Nori who was still thinking of taking offensive action lomon was placed under got's command but there were no Communications with God either showing just how bad the British command problem was right now in this instance Richie had done his best to concentrate his armor it was Mury Lumsden and norri who somehow messed this

all up but only receiving reports about 24 hours after the events were taking place Richie was totally oblivious to what was happening so when orle flew to e Army's headquarters to speak to him in person he found a calm and collected staff who didn't show any indication that a disaster was unfolding at the front oring like there for flew back to Cairo to tell London atmosphere here good no undue optimism and Realities of situation are being face calmly and resolutely morale of troops appears excellent but obviously everything wasn't good and morale had collapsed this just

shows how important open and honest Communications are between subordinates and superiors as well as in general all efficient forms of organization require the effective communication of knowledge in any failure or disruption of that communication results in chaos which is Exactly what was happening for the British and just to add salt of the wound that evening the biggest Air Battle during gazala occurred and a whopping two German planes were shot down for the loss of five British Fighters clearly air power wasn't at all decisive in this battle although stukas also dive bombed roml and the 15th

Panza division by mistake so in some cases it was a hindrance more than a help on the 13th of June 1942 dust storms prevented Most of the planes from taking off so there was no action in the air on this day either rl's plan now was for the 90th light division to engage the Indians at ladam as a distraction while the 15th Panza division drove over one Ridge and the 21st Panza division thrust over another to surround the Knightsbridge position well the Germans were exhausted at this point and the attacks went in reluctantly still the

21st Panzer Division did strike against The British and South African Garrison at the Riel Ridge which rightfully begged for armor support second and fourth armor brigades were sent to help but they couldn't get through the German screens so the Western portion of the ridge was taken by the Germans and the last of the South African guns on the ridge were destroyed in the subsequent tank Clash leftenant Colonel foot of the seventh Royal tank regiment LED repeated charges in his Matilda under a hail of 88 mm shell fire he lost 13 tanks but won a Victoria

Cross for his actions even though he was captured not long after and didn't learn about his medal until he escaped to Switzerland in 1944 for the first time the Germans observed British tankers abandoning intact armored fighting Vehicles steuart tanks and surrendering the battle which had begun so badly for us was now taking an increasingly favorable turn all this we owed to the courage of the German and Italian soldiers eighth Army was now on the brink of collapse and still didn't know what was going on only noting in their diary that both sides had suffered losses

it was obvious that the nightsbridge position was threatened on both flanks and that the British forces were too weak to resist so lumson asked got if he could withdraw the guard's Brigade got said yes and the 201st God's Brigade fell back to a chroma The Garrison of nightsbridge was withdrawn under the cover of Darkness with no more serious casualties than the loss of one six pound a gun one carrier and a 7B tin of Cooper's Oxford marmalade which a guards officer described by his colleagues as temporarily unbalanced in the excitement of his departure had considered

unessential and drained out on the sand after the catastrophic loss of the marmalade and now learning that the British only had 70 tanks left Richie realized that the entire Southern flank was on the brink of collapse this was awkward because orle had informed London that they were on the backf but that they would continue to fight so on the morning of the 14th of June Churchill replied your decision to fight it out to the end is most quarterly endorsed we shall sustain you whatever the result Retreat would be fatal this is a business not only

of armor but of willpower God bless you all now this is Where there's a major problem with the sources which has caused massive distortions and debates ever since so let me just outline the problem after the battle Richie chose not to defend himself or his actions and this gave a golden opportunity for everyone else to blame Richie for the defeat and I'm not saying that Richie wasn't the to blame at all of course he was but it's clear that he wasn't the only one at fault we've already heard how norri and mury Passed the blame

onto others or pretended that they didn't do things when they actually did and the same thing applies to Orin leac oring Le allowed Richie to take the blame for this battle which meant that Orin Le was only at fault for putting Richie in charge well one of the narratives that emerged from this was that Richie wanted to retreat and wasn't telling orle what his intentions were this narrative says that orle was left in the dark Richie Went rogue and Orin Le isn't to blame but Carver who was a major in this battle but later became

a field Marshal wrote a book called dilemas of the Desert War where he showed that Orin Le did know what Richie was up to and exposed all the problems with the primary in secondary sources I could sit here and go through it all but it would get complicated very quickly and take too long so just to give one example Orin Le staff officers were visiting Richie throughout this period and then flying back to see Orin leac and yet supposingly not one of them told orlac what was going on or mention that Richie was disobeying his

orders it is astonishing that if Richie's critics are to be believed GHQ still had no idea that got's two divisions had been ordered back to the frontier when Davey had spent most of the day at headquarters 8th Army and had to quote Playfair the latest information in Addition the pro orle narrative also doesn't make sense because it contradicts the idea that oring leg had to hold Richie's hand which is a narrative it also subscribes to so Richie was indecisive inexperienced liked to conduct War councils to gain consensus showing that he was a timid commander and

oring like was helping him throughout the battle yet all of a sudden Richie miraculously gained the confidence to go Rogue and make controversial decisions without anyone's input and on top of that nobody at eth Army's headquarters thought to telephone Orin laac and warn him about Richie which they had done with conningham during operation Crusader the staff at a Army's headquarters had decided Ed to cut the telephone cables to prevent Cunningham from ordering a withdrawal and yet none of that happened this time around and to give another example according to the Pro orle sources when Richie

told orl that the two divisions on the gazar line had to retreat orle was surprised and disagree with Richie apparently he said that the two divisions on the gazala line had to stay where they were Richie then just went against Orin Le's orders apparently but if they had stayed where they were like this narrative once these two divisions would have been trapped and destroyed so the narrative makes it out As if orle didn't want to retreat which makes zero sense in the circumstances had Richie followed this narrative's orders this would have been an even bigger

disaster and of course there's evidence against the idea that orac even gave this order so this Pro orac narrative just doesn't work therefore while this isn't a certainty and does go against a lot of the books especially the older ones I'm going to favor the idea that orac and Richie were on the Same page and that orct knew what Richie was up to so they both wanted to withdraw and they were both working together in harmony thus back to the map since the axis would probably thrust North which was what roml was planning on doing

Richie realized that two entire British divisions would be trapped on the gazala line if they didn't withdraw now so in a guarded telephone conversation at 0900 hours on the 14th of June 1942 plus other Communications Later Richie told oril that he would have to withdraw the Infantry from the gazala line and that a withdrawal from these positions couldn't stop at a chroma or to Brooke they would have to go all the way back to the Egyptian Frontier orac and Richie agreed that these divisions should Retreat to the frontier but until that happened orle said that

the rest of the forces should hold a line from Alam Hamer to Acoma and then Southeast to El Adam and bur El Gubby Richie's order to G at 102 hours said that the first South African division was to retreat via the Coast Road to to Brook and Beyond but since the Coast Road could only support the traffic of a single division the British 50th division would have to break out to the Southwest through the Italian 10th core at which point they would move South of bur hackim and then head to the frontier yes the 50th

division was instructed to attack Through the enemy forces in order to withdraw and obviously problematic idea and in order to make things go smoothly the 50th division would start it withdrawal at 6:00 p.m. in the evening of the 14th and the South Africans would start their retreat at first light in the morning of the 15th the reason for the delay was so that the 50th division could fall back along the coast road if the attack South didn't go well however there was a problem p played the Diplomatic card throughout the campaign entirely to his Advantage

he did not accept orders and viewed them as no more than the opening position in a debate P didn't like this withdrawal plan and protested it why should his division stay put and potentially risk getting surrounded he asked why should his division withdraw in the daylight whereas the British got to withdraw in the dark and in hindsight Pino was correct as we'll see shortly a staggered Withdrawal was actually bad for the South Africans and so the plan was changed rather than set off one after the other both divisions would go at the same time 6:00

p.m. on the evening of the 14th although some rear guards would hold their positions until 900 p.m. throughout the day roml was trying to push North but was unable to do so because the British had blocked him and his troops were too exhausted to continue however the threat to the coast Road was there so contrary to the agreed plan the first South African Brigade started moving out of its positions at the gazala line early in the afternoon several hours earlier than the agreed time of 600 p.m. as they made it down to the coast road

down the allotted pass they got into a traffic jam and then were hit by stokers adding to the chaos discipline broke down and the Convoy broke apart with trucks streaming to to Brook in a panicked flight not knowing The full situation oring Le sent Richie a message that Richie only received received at 1,600 or 1,800 hours depending on the source orac now told Richie to hold to Brook and to do so Richie should use the Infantry withdrawing from the gazar line to hold the acroma line this went against everything they had agreed upon previously since

the original plan was to hold the line from T Brook to L Adam to Bel Hamed not the acroma line and by The time Richie received Orin Le's order Richie had already ordered the two divisions to withdraw to the frontier the first South African Brigade had already left and it was far too late to change the orders he had already given now there were genuine communication problems between Richie and orac at this point and even though it has been argued otherwise I agree with Carver that it simply wasn't practical to delay the withdrawal to clarify

the situation even If he could have issued the stop order and even if SC could have persuaded P to not withdraw to the frontier which is doubtful the reality is that delaying the withdrawal would have been a disaster as we'll see shortly so Richie did the right thing to not delay Richie then went to speak to General got but the traditional reason for this meeting seems a bit wishy-washy supposedly it was to ask got whether he thought to Brook could hold Under Siege but this doesn't make any sense because got wasn't fully informed of the

situation didn't know the condition of the dubrook defenses and was distracted by his own withdraw so why would Richie ask G about to Brook surely it would have been better to ask the general who was currently holding to Brook which was General Clopper of the second South African division pit speculates that Richie didn't inform God that Orin L wanted the Infantry to hold The acroma line but I think that was actually the real purpose of this meeting to see if it was possible for got to stop the Infantry at that line got probably told Richie

it was too late for that his divisions were withdrawing to the frontier however got supposedly reinsured Richie saying that t Brook could hold and that the rest of the units should get back to the frontier regroup and Counterattack to relieve to Brooke again after speaking to got Richie telephoned Cairo hoping to speak with orlac unfortunately he didn't get through to orlac and instead spoke to the deputy director of operations Richie told him that he would do his best but didn't think that the acroma to L Adam line was feasible and he wanted permission from oring

lag to either abandon to Brooke or be invested in it if they were forced to retreat to the frontier and this is important if you look at what he tells the deputy Director of operations Richie is more focused on the acroma to L Adam line and is only interested in whether to Brook could hold Under Siege if that line cannot be held coupled with Orin Le's message later that evening which we'll see shortly this supports the idea that Richie's conversation with got was over where the infantry divisions should stop their withdrawal while these discussions were

going on the Germans moved North 15th Panza division was stopped by the Garrison at Point 187 which was supported by the 22nd armored Brigade and various AR3 units and the 21st Panzer Division also came to a halt at elet at Tamar minefields blocked the way but once these were cleared in the afternoon the two Panza divisions crashed through the British infantry who were forced to abandon their heavy equipment in order to escape having made a breach the Germans widened it and by The end of the day had reached the area east of Commonwealth keep they

could see the po road down the escarment and in theory they could have gone further but they were so totally exhausted after 18 days of combat that they physically couldn't in fact when the Garrison of Commonwealth keep retreated some elements went down the escarment but others went straight towards the acroma line above the escarment well they actually drove right past a bunch of Sleeping Germans on their way and managed to get to safety it was fortunate that the Germans were so exhausted because because the two other South African brigades and the 50th division now began

their withdrawal as well rear guards stayed behind to Shield The Retreat led by Brigadier dto and at first all seemed to be going smoothly the 50th division successfully burst through the Italian lines to the South and after a long track where they shed Off a lot of equipment the men made it to safety although the division could no longer be considered battle worthy the exception for this breakout was leftenant Colonel Percy ninth Battalion plus other elements which failed to get through because the Italians had finally woken up and blocked their path so instead Percy joined

the first South African division in their withdrawal to the north just before midnight Orin sent Richie a message that wasn't decied Until the afternoon of the next day due to genuine communication issues this message told Richie that no portion of the eighth Army was to be surrounded into Brook it said that the eighth Army was to remain a mobile Army and the acroma line was to be held our forces will not be invested into Brooke and your army is to remain a mobile field Army not hearing about this until the next day Richie told Orin

like that he didn't like the idea of holding the Acroma line explaining it would stretch his forces too thin and they would be isolated and cut off what's important about this particular message is that Richie mentions he spoke with or orle staff officer who had been with him recently this proves that Orin Le knew exactly what Richie was doing and that he must have been in agreement with him about the withdrawal somehow Churchill got wined that the British were withdrawing to the frontier so he asked Orin leac to what position does Richie want to withdraw

the gazala troops presume there is no question in any case of giving up TR Brook as long as TR Brook is held no serious enemy advance into Egypt as possible we went through all this in April 1941 do not understand what you mean by withdrawing to Old frer chief of the general staff agrees with all this every time Churchill intervened things got worse and Churchill was intervening again so as usual Catastrophe would soon follow this signal contradicting policy long agreed marks the true cause and beginning of the resounding disaster of T Brook in the morning

of the 15th of June 1942 orinet replied to Churchill stating that he would hold the acroma El guby area and then it wouldn't be a fortified line as such but he would prevent the axis from moving east of it although I do not intend that eighth Army should be besieged into Brooke I have no intention Whatever of giving up to Brooke just to point out orle did say in this message that the two divisions from gazala would help hold the acroma line however that does not mean that there was some sort of disagreement between Richie

and orac over where these divisions should withdraw too at this point oret most likly thought that he had time to withdraw them to the frontier reconstitute and then send them back to hold the line before RL smashed the Other forces considering that orac would congratulate Richie the next day which he wouldn't do if he had disobeyed his orders we know that this is the correct interpretation of this message anyway in the early hours of the 15th of June 1942 First South African division's Vehicles were racing down the Coast Road in a giant mess getting shelled

by the Panza divisions after the's headquarters made it to safety a battalion of German infantry and six Panza Mark 3s moved Onto the Coast Road cutting off the rear guards Percy and his Battalion plus some South Africans managed to fight their way through the German screen destroying most of the German tanks in the process but the majority of the South African rear guards were leaderless and so were quickly captured it's worth highlighting the fact that Richie had made the right decision if he hadn't ordered got to pull out when he did roml would have cut

off the first South African division in The west there's a chance P could have escaped South like the 50th division did but that probably would have resulted in in his division losing its heavy equipment so this was still a good decision equally P had also been right to reject his initial orders and insist that his division Escape earlier than instructed yes the retreat was chaotic and he did lose some units and took casualties but the vast majority of his division got out had they delayed any Longer they would have had to fight their way out

which they may have been able to do but in the chaos of the retreat this would have been difficult so overall in regards to making the initial decision and then timing this Retreat richy and P were correct however RL himself makes an incredibly good point the first South African division would have been better going south with the British 50th division since Not only would all of it Have escaped but it could have done significant damage to rl's rear areas which is what the 50th division had done also by going south the British wouldn't have needed

to form a line from 160 to AC chroma and get their armor infantry and artillery destroyed in peacemeal Penny packets yet again the reason P didn't go south was because P had been reluctant to do so in the previous weeks so while P was correct to insist on withdrawing when he did his overall Reluctance to engage the Axis or cooperate with the British command was a detriment to the Allied cause but surprisingly Von melan suggests that roml had also made a mistake here he says he should have used all the mobile units including the Italians

in his thrust North to cut the Coast Road and he's surprised he didn't do that it looks like he had to go his rear though which is why he didn't do it I'm also going to point out that there may have Been a better option for RL assuming his lead Logistics could have done it instead of going straight North to cut the Coast Road West of to Brook maybe RL could have raced East and cut the Coast Road off on the other side of T Brook instead he was about to do this anyway and the

only question is could he have done it now I'm not saying this definitely was a mistake or that this was definitely a viable option I don't know for sure but it's something to Consider anyway when he found out that his two divisions had gone to sleep just short of the Coast Road and had let the enemy get away roml raged at his subordinates after the Outburst though he composed himself and then issued further instructions 15th Panza division guarded the acroma area while the 21st Panza division moved South to Knightsbridge with instructions to go for ELA

after that the 90th light division was sent to L Adam again where It mounted three attacks that failed in the face of the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade and the 21st Panza division was stopped as well by one Indian Battalion who managed to knock out several panzas with their two Pounders at 1930 hours As norri Told Richie that he thought that he could hold L Adam the 115th motorized Infantry Regiment plus some panzas reinforced the 21st Panza Division and overwhelmed the lone Indian Battalion 700 Indians most of them wounded Surrendered opening the road to the east

overall roml was pleased writing a letter to his wife saying that the battle had been won and that the British were breaking up this wasn't entirely true the British infantry were largely intact but it's true that the battle had been won the way was now open for RL to surround to Brook and it was just a matter of time now on the British side leftenant General corber Orin Le chief of staff was ordered to visit Richie's Headquarters and discover what Richie was up to this was the same guy who had been a couple of days

previously but for some reason fails to mention this supposedly Richie and Cori got into a heated argument because Richie wasn't following orin's orders we thumped the desk and shouted at each other it was most unpleasant the problem with this is that Richie replied to orle just before midnight saying that the two gazala Divisions were falling back to the frontier and said that Orin Le's line was being held by several units contradicting Corbett's account again orank also told Richie well done the next day in reply to this even though he was supposedly told by Corbett that

Richie was disobeying him so no Corbett's thumping desk idea is suspect and orle was fully in agreement with Richie on the 16th of June 1942 the Italians and the 15th Panza division Captured 6,000 British prisoners as they fell back towards to Brook entire convoys of undamaged trucks fell into German hands while many other vehicles were left to burn and with the Italians arriving the 15th Panza division was able to start its move towards de Brook as roml urged the other divisions to keep pushing East the 21st Panza division took El Duda at noon then avoiding

most of the 20th Indian infantry Brigade they went South to City R supported at first by nearby jock columns from fourth armored Brigade the first Battalion of the sixth Raj PU rifles resisted until the artillery ammunition ran out and the tanks retreated to replenish at which point the Indians were overwhelmed and captured knowing that repairs were being conducted Richie still hoped he could get his armored formations back in Action soon for a possible Counterattack until this happened he Ordered the creation of jot Columns of mixed artillery tank and infantry formations to stab at the enemy

as much as possible these weren't strong enough to make a significant impact but at least they were doing something Richie's intention at this stage was to hold L Adam and he made this clear to norri and mury in the afternoon Richie stressed the importance of holding Al Adam but told norri that if the local situation dictated it then Al Adam could be Abandoned but nari was now saying that he didn't have enough armor to defend L Adam all Bhed Nori spoke to Missi who said a complete withdrawal to the frontier was now necessary Reed commander

of the 29th Indian infantry Brigade wanted to hold for another 24 hours but after speaking to mie Reed evacuated al- Adam at midnight the Desert Air Force was not informed about this Retreat until the next day and its airfields near gamot were protected only By the positions at Bhed had Bhed fallen or had the axis raided further gambot and the Desert Air Force could have been overrun as the British aircraft shuttled to and fro the rearming and refueling parties could hear the burst of their own bombs falling among the enemy's foremost troops the reason they

weren't informed was because neither was the eighth Army Headquarters which also reported at midnight that L Adam was still being Held in fact Richie wouldn't find out about this withdrawal until the afternoon of the next day meanwhile orinet replied to Churchill's previous query saying that Richie was putting Garrison into Brooke to hold it which should only be temporary since the ladam area would be the jumping off point for relief of to Brook thus Churchill had his wish and paved the way for one of the greatest single disasters ever suffered by the British in the Middle

East and Mediterranean in the second world war he later attempted to shift the blame from himself to orlac with a disingenuousness only qualified by the weakness of his argument Churchill basically said he thought the defenses at to Brook had been maintained and that he didn't know that Orin LA and Richie were thinking of abandoning to Brook before this point but this is nonsense everyone on the British side including Churchill had previously agreed that to Brook would not be held in fact orleck had informed Churchill of this point on the 19th of January 1942 so why

would Churchill State the opposite or assume that the defenses were maintained it's because it's just an excuse Churchill had changed his mind at the last moment and the commanders in the field were left to hodg Podge some sort of defense and again Churchill had intervened and made the situation worse with Orin Le's instructions Richie Decided that the second South African division would remain into Brook that a Siege would be accepted and that the port facilities and the stores of goods that were there would not be destroyed South African general klopper would be in charge and

he was optimistic about the situation and believed he could hold the port meanwhile most of the stores from the British main base at Bhed have been removed except for a million rations and a million and a half gallons Of petrol Richie ordered that the petrol be poured into the sand and so that night the men of the base half poisoned themselves from the fumes and rotted their boots in order to get rid of the petrol due to repairs and Replacements on the 17th of June 1942 the fourth armored Brigade had managed to gather 90 tanks

for a Counterattack many of which still had holes in them with these holy tanks Missouri ordered Richards to move to the area between City Rai and El Adam In order to attack the Germans near Bhed in the flank Richards wasn't happy because the terrain in this area was unsuitable and in fact the previous commander of the Brigade Gate House had also not wanted to move through this terrain during operation Crusader for the exact same reason nonetheless obeying their orders fourth armored Brigade started moving towards City Rai thinking that the area was still in British hands

it wasn't the 21st Panza Division set up a tank and anti-tank screen as the fifth Panza regiment from 15th Panza division moved off to their right wing that afternoon as the sun blinded them to what was ahead the British rolled straight into the better part of two Panza divisions worse they were split into three groups and went in peace meal yet again for reasons that aren't clear most of their artillery had been dispersed into jck columns leaving the British tanks to fight as usual without any crucial support the few artillery guns that had remained with

the tanks packed up and left the tanks to it giving them a taste of their own medicine for all the times the tanks had previously abandoned the Infantry and artillery as you can imagine this then ended up being a very one-sided fight and after this beating Richards withdrew South to a field maintenance center and the Germans disengaged two British Armored divisions had been reduced to one Brigade which now had just 58 tanks in it another 32 were either left burning on the back field were damaged or had broken down which is why Richards went to

the field maintenance center regardless as pit says 30 core had ceased to exist and it was apparently for this particular action which would lead to General mury getting sacked it was the first in a series of sackings that would shake the eighth Army over The next few weeks the panzas now raced North that evening and were between the the Indians and the Airfield at Bhed which was still being used by the Desert Air Force with nothing to protect them a marshall conningham ordered the evacuation of gambot and most aircraft seem to have gotten away bought

15 operational aircraft plus a load of supplies of oil and petrol fell into German hands norri ordered the 20th Indian Brigade to fall back from belh And they started moving Northeast towards the Coast Road the South African torians point out that had they instead retreated into to brog they would have found the road clear and could have helped the Garrison there but they didn't they retreated East well overnight into the 18th of June the Germans drove North and the 21st Panza division reached the Coast Road just after midnight and the coast itself just before 1:00

a.m. the two remaining Battalions of 20th Indian infantry Brigade retreated straight into the fifth Panza regiment a couple of hours later and were captured the Brigade was no more with only their artillery and some of the survivors managing to get out raml had captured huge quantities of supplies including tons of axis ammunition which had remained in the places they had abandoned them during operation Crusader T Brook was now surrounded for a third time one St Operation Compass second after rl's first offensive in the desert and finally now as well with with a disaster unfolding before

them oring Le flew to se Richie on the 18th GS was placed in command of all the forces at the front except for de Brook which was given its own command on the eth Army and it was decided that 30 core headquarters was to be pulled out of the line to Matra for reserve and training tasks fourth armored Brigade spent this day and the Next the 19th reorganizing and repairing before falling back to the frontier While most of the First South African British 50th and 10th Indian divisions would fall back to the frontier oring L

also dictated that two brigades from each would try to help to Brook and prevent RL from reaching the Egyptian Frontier proving what we said earlier about these divisions reconstituting before being put back into the line however it does show that the British had little left with which to relieve to Brook and it would effectively signal the end of the battle of Gaz AA although they didn't realize it at the time roml wanted to attack to Brook immediately to not give the British time to organize an effective defense or relief operation cering also wanted to Brook

dealt with so he could turn his lwaa on molta and the Italians were just as eager as well thus on the 18th of June 1942 roml issued the orders For the attack onto Brook which would begin on the 20th of June we'll hear about that attack in the near future future the Battle of gazala featured one of the most concentrated tank battles in history in late May 1942 1 and a half th000 tanks battled it out in the area south of Knightsbridge but despite having several advantages rl's initial flanking attack was not as well executed

as hoped and incurred horrendous losses the 90th light division only had 1,000 Combat troops left by the end of the battle and it other two Panza divisions had something similar because the Africa Corp only had 2,500 infantry left after to Brook only 44 panzas and 14 Italian tanks remained out of the original 560 AIS tanks while the arietti and Trieste divisions had about 2,500 infantry left as well in other words RL had actually lost the majority of his tanks and a lot of his infantry in this battle as well as to Brooke unto n monus

was the kind Of operation that clearly should have begun with shaping attacks against some of the more exposed positions to better understand the British defenses and make it more difficult for Richie to assess where the main blow was falling yet roml was unwilling to consider a more methodical approach to battle and refused even to maintain any mobile reserves rl's plan had been superficial in a lot of ways it should have failed had the British had their act together It probably would have failed yes RL LED from the front allowing him to decisively influence the battle

unlike the British commanders who were miles behind the front and were out of touch half the time but roml had thrown away a victory during operation Crusader and had nearly lost this battle too he had certainly lost the majority of his tanks and there was a great degree of recklessness in rl's style of command so really gazala wasn't won by rl's genius It was lost by British incompetence this is meant to be rl's best battle it's the battle that defined him and you can find account saying that gazala was rl's most impressive victory in North

Africa but at best it was a pck victory if you think about it rl's not that great a commander he was decisive but he also made mistakes and his plans were often flawed the reason Ral did so well wasn't so much because he was a genius It was because the British sucked and by developing the RL myth the British could excuse their own incompetence by saying RL was this amazing Commander when he really wasn't maybe he wasn't a terrible Commander but he was nothing special post to Brook the British had lost 33,000 of their original

100,000 men to 2,000 vehicles and 6,400 tons of supplies the exact number of Tanks lost by the British is hard to say because some were repaired and sent back into Action but of the 573 Cruiser tanks they originally had plus the 145 from first armored Brigade that arrived during the battle plus more sent from Egypt they were left with about 58 on the 18th of June and of the original 276 infantry tanks they were left with 20 on the 14th of June and probably most of these ended up into Brook where they were subsequently lost

so the British lost at least 936 tanks in total but probably more than that despite these losses it's True that the new Grant tanks had performed a lot better than the other British tanks and had done a lot of damage to rl's panzas even if they all got took out the six pound anti-tank guns had also done their job well certainly better than the 2 pound okay there weren't enough of these new guns or tanks but if the British had employed them properly this battle could have ended so differently one Grant had been hit no

fewer than 31 times with the Only damage being caused by 250 mm hits on the front visors and a rear hit by a 37 mm another had been hit 12 times with no penetrations the main problem was that the armor as a whole just didn't perform well at all they didn't cooperate with the Infantry or artillery and didn't cooperate with themselves the armor brigades and battalions continue to fight separately leading to them getting destroyed peac mail on numerous Occasions even to the exasperation of raml and the reason why it didn't perform well was because of

bad leadership the approximate cause of the eighth Army's misuse of its armored assets was ineffectual leadership from the top Orin Le Richie down to the core commanders got Nori and divisional commanders mvi Lumsden none of these men had any deep experience or understanding of armored operations or even how to properly organize a combined arms Operation involving two or more brigades the seventh motor and third Indian brigades Were Meant to have been the Infantry element of the seventh Armored Division yet were scattered about the desert and generally didn't cooperate with the tanks and the motorized Brigade

of the first Armored Division the 101st GS Brigade sat in the Knightsbridge area for most of the battle not being used in cooperation with the tanks and this was because their leaders didn't know what They were doing mvi was just terrible he spent more time running hiding or being captured than he did leading his troops and while movi gets a lot of the criticism from the books really Lumsden must take a decent share of the blame too he just wasn't an effective Commander uncooperative and was unwilling to commit his tanks when they were needed when

he did send in his tanks they went in feebly and haphazardly such as against the Italians On AA Ridge on the 30th of May lumon seemed more concerned about retaining his command and not cooperating with miseri then fighting the battle and both mvi and lumon plus norri all ignored the signs that Raman was advancing around bur haakim because they thought they knew better better than Richie before operation abedine the British armor had based in the glow of wal's campaign and operation Crusader despite its many setbacks had been a success but after Operation abedine the reputation

of the armor sank from one low point to the next until Montgomery changed everything at Alam Hala again we can see how important Montgomery was going to be and I think part of the reason the British armored organization was so bad was because the British armored units including the first Armored Division had their origins in the Cavalry tradition horses an outdated form of warfare were not the same as tanks yet the attitudes And ideas of the Cavalry had stuck around far longer than they should have done this wasn't the 17th 18th or even 19th century

this was the 20th century and yet the British armor was roaming about the battle in the the same way the Cavalry had at watero and at watero the Cavalry and infantry also didn't cooperate which is why the cavy got destroyed there too at gazala they sealed up their troops in or behind the Minefield in a series of isolated forts Or boxes these boxes faced Four Square ready to meet attack from any direction it was the old idea of the British square at watero adapted to Modern fast armored fighting even the idea of having a split

between Cruiser I.E Cavalry and infantry tanks doesn't make any sense and really is a remnant of this old Cavalry tradition because they saw themselves as cavalrymen in tank form they didn't want to cooperate with the Infantry or artillery and so they didn't And that's why they got destroyed the principal aim of the British should have been to have brought all the armor they had into action at one and the same time they should never have allowed themselves to be duped into dividing their forces before the Battle mobile Warfare in the desert has often and rightly

been compared with a battle at Sea where it is equally wrong to attack peacemeal and leave half the fleet in Port during the battle the British Failure was due purely and simply to the inability of their command to concentrate and coordinate the armored and motorized brigades and just to add to this the Desert Air Force also performed poorly it was difficult for the desert Air Force to Aid eth army with direct support because of the fluid and Confused nature of the fighting its contribution to the action was more the bombing of supply lines and the

chasing away of enemy aircraft Richie however Has traditionally taken most of the blame for the defeat at gazala and he certainly should take some of it amongst numerous criticisms perhaps the biggest were that he lacked experience shouldn't have been made an army commander in the first place and his planned counter attacks were a disaster although certainly not entirely his fault oring L kept Richie in place because it would have been awkward to have replaced him after the Crusader Victory so aing L Does take blame for that but richy can be blamed for not willingly stepping

down prior to the Battle of gazala if he had stepped aside maybe a more competent Commander like Montgomery could have taken over which is why he didn't step down because orac wouldn't have wanted that orac is also at fault for insisting that rl's main attack would be against the gazala line not around the South the consequence was that the commanders dismissed the reports showing rl's tanks Were in the South were reluctant to commit their armored brigades into action and ultimately resulted in the peac meal annihilation of the British units while it's possible to just pin

the blame on Richie and many have in reality Orin mistakes placed Richie in a terrible position and undermined his authority the subordinate commanders also made huge mistakes again thanks to orin's input but also their own incompetence so it is wrong to just Blame Richie and let orle off the Hulk gazala would cast a long Shadow over the North African campaign it led to the fall of tpro the British retreat to El alamag the battles that took place there numerous sackings Montgomery and the cautiousness that the British were later known for we'll be covering all these

battles and more in the future so be sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and check out these other videos here thanks for Watching bye for now