Lions at Dawn

Chapter 28

On the Morning of January 12, 1943 O’Connor began his advance on Tripoli. Wimberly’s 51st Highland Division led off the ceremonies, the 2nd and 5th Seaforth Battalions advancing up the coast road behind the recon battalion. At this point, the main road turned inland at Homs before branching, with one road bending north again to the coast, and a second heading southeast to Tarhuna. Rather than taking either road, he sent the lead brigade of the 51st up a secondary road that still hugged the coast towards the defensive positions of the Italian Littorio Armored Division.

Much to their own surprise, they caught the Italians napping that morning. The enemy had only probed at the line with light recon elements for the last two weeks, and the appearance of the British recon battalion seemed nothing more to the Italians. When it was suddenly followed by waves of infantry, rushing forward with fixed bayonets, chaos rippled through the outer shell of the defense, and the unprepared tank companies began a hasty retreat.

Some men were still sleeping under their light M14 tanks. Others were just getting up to get morning fires started to shake off the desert cold and begin breakfast. The last thing they expected were the big Scottish infantrymen, raging in with bad intent. Behind them, the brigade artillery had followed the troops and was now starting to send a rain of 25-pounder shells over the leading edge of the infantry attack, concentrating much of that fire on the heights of Hill 151. That low nob was about 10 kilometers inland from the coast, and directly astride the main road which had bent that way again towards the village of Nagazza beyond.

The advance was harried only by German planes, and there were several incidents where the columns were strafed as they pressed forward. O’Connor’s problem was that the German operation in Syria and Iraq had siphoned off a good part of the Western Desert Air Force. Four wings, two other fighter groups, and a bomber wing were all assigned to operations in that sector, leaving him with only two dedicated fighter wings and two bomber wings, one the American 12th Bombardment Group on loan to the RAF. While those bombers could fly from fields around Benghazi, his air superiority assets had far too few fields close enough to allow for quick turnaround.

There was only the one good strip at Misrata, another at Bene Walid, and two more near Sirte, all well behind the front. It became necessary to establish two highway strip sites along the main coast road, one at Zliten, and the forward strip at Homs, but these could service only one squadron each of no more than 12 to 16 planes. So the early going saw Rommel enjoying something he had not had for a very long time—a slight advantage in the fighter duels contesting the airspace over the battlefield. His own fields were very close, west of Tarhuna, and numerous fields near Tripoli.

Recon reports from the Luftwaffe were flooding in, and he could see what O’Connor was up to, a fast armored force probing south of Tarhuna, and a big push forming up on the coast. Initial reports from the Littorio Division were just frantic enough to prompt him to get on the telephone to General Randow with the 15th Panzer Division.

“You had better get a regiment of Panzergrenadiers behind Negazza,” he said. “Our Italian friends seem to be a bit shaky.”

“I have the 104th in position to move immediately,” said Randow, “and my motorcycle recon battalion has already reached that village.”

“Good, but keep the rest of your division around Castelverde. Things may get interesting soon.”

Rommel was looking at the big gap between that southern force probing towards Tarhuna, and the push near the coast. The ground just south and east of Tarhuna was very open, well suited to mobile operations, and he had Bismarck’s 21st Panzer Division sitting in road column like an arrow aimed right at that void in the enemy position.

Funck’s 7th Panzer is at Tarhuna as I wanted, he thought. What if I did fire that arrow? I would have two good panzer divisions right in that gap. If I order the 90th Light up to grapple with this southern force, then I might turn those two divisions northwest for the coast.

His instinct was to attack, not to simply sit in the favorable position he had occupied. He wanted to fight his enemy with sword and shield, and it was very like him to consider committing his reserve 21st Panzer Division to a bold attack like this, right at the outset. How might O’Connor operate to counter that?

The report he got next enlightened him a bit. 1/7th Recon of Funck’s division had been well to the south of Tarhuna in that gap. When he saw the skies heating up with aerial duels, an enterprising Lieutenant Huber decided to get to the highest ground he could find, which was hill 402, about 12 kilometers south of Tarhuna. From that position he could clearly see a second division advancing up the road, and it looked like infantry.

So that southern group of enemy forces is stronger than I thought, Rommel mused, his eyes playing over the map in his field tent. That will most likely be their 7th Armored Division on their extreme left, and they are supporting it with an infantry division.

Now he resisted the urge to do two things he might have done at once in the older days. His reflex was to shoot that arrow immediately, and instead he decided to wait. The second was to forego the urge to leap onto a Storch and get up for a look at the battlefield himself. There were still too many fighter duels underway, and prudence argued against any aerial sortie at that moment. The old Rommel might have thrown caution to the wind, but this man was now chastened and wizened by much experience.

This was all an aftereffect of the mellowing of his temperament during the last year when he had been forced onto the defensive so many times, his offensive plans checked by that damnable heavy British armor. He wanted to ascertain where it was, or whether it was even present, and he did not think his enemy would hold that card for long if this was the big push he thought it was. So Rommel waited for his opponent to make his next move, cautiously eyeing the Knight and Bishop O’Connor was already developing on his flank. He was content to move a single pawn with that order to General Randow, a measure of restraint that he seldom showed in the past. His other pieces would remain in his camp, behind the serried row of his pawns, the 164th Light, which held the high ground between the coast and Tarhuna.

Perhaps my many setbacks here have sobered me, he thought to himself, thinking he might be losing his edge. We shall see.

O’Connor decided to go all out that first day and continue pressing the attack by 51st Highland into the late afternoon, determined to keep the fighting going into the evening if necessary. He wanted to get through that gap on the coast where the high ground began to rise slowly towards Tarhuna to the southwest.

He had been behind the lines at the old ruin site of Sidi Surur, but he could not hear the battle there, so he wanted to get forward. He had Brigadier Todd’s 1st Tank Brigade with him as his Army reserve, and he rode with them all that morning into the afternoon, moving forward to the heights of Ras Ahmed, about mid-way on the road from Homs to Tarhuna. There he met with General Briggs of the 1st Armored Division, which was moving astride that road as he had planned.

“Just got our first look at the Germans,” said Briggs. “The armored car battalion pushed down the road from Ras Ahmed, and there’s a Jerry MG unit here, at Gasar Da’uun about eight klicks on. Shall I push them out?”

“Please do,” said O’Connor. “I’ll want this hill beyond that town as well, number 422. I’ve got 23rd Armored Brigade off to your northeast up the road to Homs. So I think I can safely send your division on to Tarhuna now. Southforce is flanking that position to the west. I haven’t heard anything from Horrocks down there yet, but no news is good news.”

“What about the coast road?” asked Briggs.

“Wimberly’s got Hill 151 overlooking the Wadi. That’s where the Italians have holed up. He’s making another push in the morning, and I’ll have two brigades from the 44th Home Counties Division up behind him by noon. Rommel’s a sly one today. He’s letting the Italians hold that coast road, but you know damn well that he’ll have a good reserve behind them. Yet he hasn’t shown me his panzers yet. He’s just sitting up on that high ground to either side of Tarhuna, like Wellington at Waterloo.”

Briggs didn’t like the sound of that, for he knew they were already up against veteran German troops, very well led. Giving them the benefit of good terrain on defense was one more straw in their favor.

“Don’t worry,” said O’Connor. “23rd Armored is ready to move, and that’s my hammer that will break the Italians, just you wait.”

By dawn Briggs had chased the German MG battalion out of Gasar Da’uun, and he had scouts up on Hill 422. That gave him an eyeful, and now he could report that there were enemy tanks due west on the road, battalion strength.

“They look to be screening Tarhuna at this point,” he said on the radio. “Do you want me to ruffle their feathers?”

“Make it so. I’ll have a brigade of the Northumbrian Division come up to support you from the south.”

Like an encroaching tide rising relentlessly towards that imposing high ground, the 8th Army was slowly making contact with the defense Rommel had put in place. The gap that Rommel had seen the previous day was now filling with elements of Briggs’ division, and that of Nichols with the Northumbrians. This was going to join Horrocks’ Southforce with Briggs in the center, and a discernable front was now forming on the battlefield.

O’Connor would soon learn that 7th Armored had found a German airfield that had been set up well south of the road through Tarhuna, and they were already after it with their leading tank battalions.

That was the field at Suq al Jum’ah, and it was the southernmost anchor of Rommel’s infantry positions, defended by Obersturmfuhrer Ramcke and a kampfgruppe of his tough parachute units. This was the one airmobile force that had not yet received orders to withdraw to a friendly port for shipment to Toulon. Those orders had been issued, but when Rommel saw them, he simply tore them up and put them to the fire. He would later claim he never received them if OKW got after him about it. In the meantime, he had a veteran parachute regiment at his disposal until OKW could sort the matter out.

KG Ramcke was holding the rightmost flank of his line, from the airfield south, screening the height of Hill 542, and the stony pass at Ras Al Abar beyond it. If Horrocks could get through that, he would have effectively turned Rommel’s line. From there the ground descended towards the plain of Tripoli, a heavily cultivated region that approached the great city from the south. The paras were in good positions, and they held their ground, the British tanks stopping to pour on fire. Soon the Germans got support from a battalion of artillery from the 90th Light Division, and then the recon battalion and Panzerabwehr Battalion 605 came up to put in a counterattack.

General Marcks of the 90th Light had his headquarters right there at Ras Al Abar, and he was committing his division reserve to try and hold that line. From there, his men were dug in all the way to the Tarhuna road, where the 50th Northumbrian Division was only now deploying two more brigades. Behind them, on that road, was Bismarck’s 21st Panzer Division, poised like a steel arrow in a crossbow. Rommel had pulled back the bolt, was taking aim, and now he decided to fire.

Before he did anything, he sent a message to General Randow, telling him to bring any uncommitted unit of his 15th Panzer Division to Tarhuna immediately. There were several highland roads he could take, one through Sidi Salem, and another through Ras er Rumia about eight kilometers further east. Then he fired his crossbow and sent von Bismarck into action. He had identified the location of most every major formation in the 8th Army. Now Rommel wanted to mass the fire and steel of all three panzer divisions against one sector of the advancing enemy force, and attempt to achieve a decisive advantage there. Funck was already holding Tarhuna, now the other two divisions would join to create a strong mailed fist.

It was the same plan he had the impulse to put in play earlier, only now his patience had paid him good dividends. There would be no surprises. He knew where his enemy was. Now it was time for the primary principles of mechanized warfare to come into play—speed, concentration of force, and all out shock in the attack. He put in a call to the Luftwaffe, asking for any Stuka support that might be available. Then he telephoned General Funck and ordered him to attack south with any force he deemed sufficient to engage the Northumbrian Division.

General John Sebastian Nichols had served ably in the first war, where he came to be called “Crasher” by his fellow officers for his headstrong application of force whenever he attacked. He was already one of the heroes of this war, having fought in Syria and Iraq with “Habforce” in the race to relieve the beleaguered British airfield at Habbaniyah. After that he had moved to the 151st Brigade of the 50th Division when it arrived in the Middle East. Now he had been bumped up to division command.

Crasher Nichols was about to have a very bad day. His division had come up in column, deploying its three brigades, but a series of escarpments had served as a breakwater as he advanced. He ended up with one brigade north and east of that terrain, and the other two in hand to the south and west. The lone brigade, the 150th, had already run right into Funck’s Panzergrenadiers dug in south of Tarhuna, and now the Germans were counterattacking there. I/25th Panzer Battalion went right around them, pushing between the 150th and that high escarpment, and overrunning the 74th Royal Artillery that was just getting set up.

Now, as the crossbow fired, the 1st Battalion of von Bismarck’s 5th Panzer Regiment came bolting up the road, saw the breakthrough already underway, and followed it. As if instinctively knowing how to best support one another, Funck and von Bismarck had masterfully chosen the one spot in the advancing enemy line that was most vulnerable. Unable to contain himself any longer, Rommel leapt to a staff car and ordered the driver to get him forward up that road, pressing hard through the dust of 21st Panzer Division.

Rommel was on the attack.

On the road from Homs to Tarhuna, General Briggs was set to advance on that screen of tanks when, to his surprise, they surged forward to attack him. Cool in battle, Briggs regrouped his lighter armored cars and pulled them back, sending up two battalions of tanks, the Bays and 10th Hussars, both equipped with the new M4 Medium tank from the Americans. He had his 1st Armored Division deployed in a horseshoe formation, and the action was right at the bend. It looked to be a situation he could easily control, but what the General did not realize was that the German tank battalion was nothing more than a spoiling attack.

While Briggs was setting up his artillery, screening his left with light MG troops, setting out his AT guns, mustering his armored cars, that German tank battalion had been sent only to thumb his nose and to get him to do exactly that. The German attack there was a delaying force, a holding force, meant only to gain the attention of Briggs and his division, for the real attack was much farther west, and due south of Tarhuna.

Confusion is one of the worst enemies on any battlefield. In spite of frenetic radio communications all over the airwaves, no one really knew exactly what was happening in all that smoke and dust; who was holding, who was really seizing the day. Officers stood on the highest ground they could find, eyes puckered in the cups of their field glasses, trying to see what was happening, assess its importance, and determine what to do.

General Nichols could hear the distress from his 150th Brigade, which had met an unhappy fate when it was overrun and captured at Gazala in the old history. Now it seemed that Fate was tapping its shoulder yet again, with Panzergrenadiers to its front, and enemy tanks breaking through and sweeping past its left flank. Those tanks and the high escarpment were now between that brigade and the remainder of its division. In effect, it was being cut off, and was now struggling to extricate itself from the enemy attack, falling back on Hill 402.

Nichols got on the radio himself, ringing up his commanding officer, General Horrocks. “I’ve a bit of a situation on my hands. 150 Brigade is cut off on my right, and Jerry is throwing the kitchen sink at me. I’ll have to pull my other two brigades back, and that’s going to expose your right flank.”

An armored cavalryman through and through, Horrocks knew that his attack against KG Ramcke for that airfield had to be suspended immediately. “Alright,” he shouted, one eye on the map, his hand holding the earpiece to his head. “I’ll throw a right cross your way, and swing round Point 7.”

That was the small ruined outpost site of G’sar Teniza, right at the southernmost tip of those hilly escarpments that were bisecting Nichol’s division. Horrocks reasoned that the Germans had found a weak point in the line and they were ‘pulling a Rommel’ on Nichols, so he was going to move like quicksilver with his 7th Armored Division, boldly to his right and rear. He had it in mind to swing right below those escarpments, and possibly catch the enemy breakthrough on the flank.

That airfield could wait.

Chapter 29

Speed, concentration and shock—those were the hallmarks of the deadly art of blitzkrieg that the Germans had set loose upon the world in 1940. It was a craft that Rommel had mastered long ago, but one he had been forced to forsake in the face of an invincible foe that had forced him to adopt WWI style tactics, relying on terrain, wire, mines, artillery. He had been fearful of even committing his precious panzers to any offensive operation, and even now, after the decisive check he forced upon the British near Mersa Brega, the shadow of his earlier defeats at Bir el Khamsa, Tobruk, and the Gazala Line still darkened his way. Yet at heart, he was a gambler, willing to risk all for the sake of grasping the one moment in a battle that could turn it from a grueling battle of attrition, to one of maneuver, dash and bravado, dramatic advances that were sure to draw the Führer’s eye. For that he needed his old high art of the blitzkrieg—speed, concentration and shock.

Funck’s 7th had jabbed the cumbersome British 1st Armored Division on the nose as it came up the road from Homs to Tarhuna. Rommel’s crossbow had fired, and now the whole of von Bismarck’s 21st Panzer was through a narrow three kilometer gap in the line and breaking out into the open ground beyond. 15th Panzer had been moving all night along the narrow mountain roads through the high country, snaking their way inexorably south. They would emerge east of Tarhuna, some twelve kilometers from the town, and they would swing right around the horseshoe formation Briggs had pointed their way, using the speed of their faster Leopards and Lions relative to the Valentines, Cromwells, and American M4s.

The ill-fated 150th Brigade would now find itself surrounded on all sides in the swirling chaos of that dark desert night. The battalions were still trying to withdraw to the rear, but ran right into Rommel’s 501st Heavy Tiger Battalion. They were cut off, confused as to what was happening, lost in the silt and shadow of that terrible night.

Yet Horrocks’ instincts before dusk had set him on the right course. He knew approximately where the 150th Brigade had been advancing, and therefore knew the location of the enemy breakthrough. Now he was moving with all the speed he could muster, pulling 7th Armored Division out of its attack on that airfield, and racing for the pass behind him that would lead to the flank of the presumed enemy thrust. It extended from the ruin of Gsar Teniza below that escarpment, through a low depression to the solitary spike of Hill 357, called Tummet by the locals.

The Germans had seen the gap, looking ahead in this mad game of chess, and there they had posted their AT battalion and the Pioneers of 21st Panzer Division as a blocking force. Brigadier Roddick’s 4th Light Armored Brigade was leading, with mostly M5 light tanks, a few medium Grants, and several dozen armored cars. They pushed up to the ruins, sent in infantry to occupy them, and then called for artillery to range in on the German AT guns.

Roberts 22nd Armored Brigade was on their right, closer to Tummet. They had the medium Grants, with a few Crusader IIIs, but found no enemy had as yet reached that hill. The map indicated a road up ahead to the east, and Roberts had little doubt that the Germans were using it that night. It would be two more long hours, with both sides feeling their way forward in the darkness towards the barest hint of a soft red glow on the far horizon.

As dawn broke on the 14th of January, the Lions were raging east towards that rising sun. The entire 150th Infantry Brigade had been overrun and bypassed by the concentrated sweep of Rommel’s mobile forces. The 15th Panzer was around Briggs’ horseshoe formation and already flanking the 1st Armored Division. Horrocks and General John Harding had moved the 7th Armored smartly, and by now it was engaged with defensive units the Germans had assigned to cover the pass between the ruins and Tummet. Further east, Funck’s Lions at dawn were on the prowl.

The question now was where they might be going? It was 40 kilometers to the coast road, across open desert broken occasionally by studded hills, long abandoned shrine sites, the occasional bir, and a network of wrinkled wadis. It was here, at his moment of triumphant breakthrough, that the Desert Fox had to be very wily.

Rommel had been up on Hill 410, about 10 klicks west of Tarhuna. From that height he could see the wide swath of dust that marked the progress of his bold enveloping maneuver, and clearly make out the vast horseshoe of the British 1st Armored. He was receiving reports from his leading units and learned that 15th Panzer had a battalion of tanks, its recon element, and the pioneer battalion well past the lowermost end of that horseshoe. It was time to change their direction and turn them north towards the road to Homs.

Well south of that sector, three companies of the 1st Battalion 25th Panzer Regiment in Funck’s division were free to follow the road south and east if they wished. It would dog the long winding course of a deep wadi for over 35 kilometers, and then lead to a broken region of rugged hills, more wadis, and ragged escarpments. Even there it would be another 40 kilometers to the coast, and by the time those panzers got there, they would be out of fuel and over 100 kilometers from any supporting supply units.

No, thought Rommel. The action at Mersa Brega taught me that this British Army is simply too large to try and bag it like that. If I order such a move, O’Connor will do exactly what he did in that battle. He’ll stubbornly hold his ground, and dare me to try and get to the coast. And he undoubtedly has one or even two more infantry divisions back there in reserve. We’ve seen nothing of the Indian division, or the South Africans. So what I must do now is fight these armored divisions and wreck them. We don’t want the coast road. We want to hurt them again, just as we did at Mersa Brega. It’s time to fight. I’ve got the two British Armored divisions isolated from one another. Perhaps I can destroy both!

He got on the radio and sent out another coded order for the 90th Light to advance on the remaining two brigades of the Northumbrian division. KG Ramcke was ordered to go with them, and he had the special units of Sonderverband 288 on his extreme southern flank to move into action as well.

As the morning wore on to mid-day, the situation changed. O’Connor did have a reserve division at hand, the 4th Indian, and it had been motoring up from a point well south of Misrata on an inland track that ran parallel to the coast road, finally reaching the front. Randow’s 15th Panzer was turning Brooks’ flank from the south, when the Central Indian Horse came up on a company of his 8th Panzer Regiment. The full division was not far behind it, advancing on two roads in column of march.

It was too late to stop the turning attack, which had already surged north to find the artillery park and headquarters of Brooks’ division. It was a wild hour, with the Brigade HQ of Fischer’s 22nd Armored dug in on Hill 422, and the division headquarters itself under direct attack. Four battalions of artillery were in that area, and some had to depress their barrels to engage the German tanks at near point blank range. The road to Homs and the coast was cut when a company of Lions stormed into the hamlet of Gasar Da’uun, but O’Connor was only 7 kilometers from the action up on the higher promontory of Hill 455. There he had a very good view of the battle, and he could also see that his reserve division was about to make a most timely arrival.

Randow was going to smash the southern arm of the horseshoe position, but soon find his own flank seriously compromised by the arrival of the 4th Indian Division. It was this sort of rollicking chaos that was now taking hold, as units emerged from the smoke and dust of the battle, blundered into other units, some friendly, some enemy.

Meanwhile, the action on the coast road took a turn for the worse for the Italians when the combined weight of 51st Highland, the two brigades of 44th Home County, and the heavy tanks of 23rd Armored Brigade finally broke the their defense. Littorio was shattered, its battalions falling back and struggling to regroup. The town of Negazza was overrun, and even the two battalions of Randow’s Panzergrenadiers were forced to withdraw. The British were now through the narrow defile and advancing onto the widening coastal plain on the road to Castelverde.

When Rommel got the news, he swore… The Italians again. Yet, like a good chess player, he had kept a piece or two in reserve himself. The Trento Motorized Division was east of Tripoli where it had been improving defenses and digging an anti-tank ditch. He immediately gave it orders to advance along the coast road through Castelverde to reinforce that flank. He would not see all that he had won with his panzer divisions lost in an hour by the Italians, but he had no German troops available to answer the crisis. The Trento Division had proved reliable in the past, and he hoped they could at least put a cork in the bottle and buy him some time.

Reports were coming in faster than O’Connor could read them, but he was most eager to learn what was happening far to the south with Horrocks. There, the turning attack had run into the bulk of 21st Panzer and was getting nowhere, and now O’Connor gave the order for Southforce to plan a withdrawal.

“Our tanks are damn near empty,” said Horrocks on the radio. “I’ve got some fuel trucks up, but it will take me several hours to get things moving again.”

“What happened to the Northumbrians?”

“I’ve two of his brigades in hand, along with my own motorized infantry brigade. Jerry has brought up the 90th Light against them, but we’re holding. Stores for the artillery are running low, and the men need water.”

“Well get them out of there. It was my fault, Joe. I simply deployed you too far south and Rommel ran right into the gap between you and Briggs. You had the good sense to move east as you did, but the Germans just got there first. We’ve got the 4th Indian Division up now, and if you can move south and east, you should make contact with them tomorrow. After that, we’ll see where things stand and try to sort it all out. We couldn’t win through, but they aren’t pushing me back to Mersa Brega either. No, I’ll stand my ground and force Rommel to accept a stalemate here.”

Horrocks thought that the inverse might be true, but he said nothing more. The arrival of the 4th Indian had, indeed, closed off any possibility that Rommel could turn for the coast, and with that any chance for a real dramatic victory. As before at Mersa Brega, the two armies could clash and hurt one another, but neither was really strong enough to decisively beat the other.

On the 15th, Rommel shifted Randow’s division north to reinforce his attack on Briggs’ 1st Armored, and had good results. That was the last day of hard fighting, as both sides were running low on fuel, ammo, and other supplies. A three day fight was about all either Army could carry forward, though when Monty had made this advance in the real history, he had dumped ten days supplies in his forward depot, and even then, could proceed with only half his army at any one time. He prevailed because in that telling of events, Rommel’s morale was at its lowest ebb of the war. Had Kinlan and his brigade been there, they might have made all the difference, but now it was an even playing field for both sides, and the Germans actually had the edge where armor was concerned—not in numbers but certainly in the quality of their tank designs.

O’Connor had ten days supply in hand at the outset of the battle, but he had thrown far more divisions at the enemy than Monty did, and so it was all burned up much faster. 7th Armored found the fuel and water trucks it had been waiting for nowhere in sight. Harding’s inability to move left him in a precarious position, and he found he had to rely on the three brigades of infantry to hold out in a stubborn cauldron and await further developments.

4th Indian Division eventually came up and it was occupying the ground between the two British armored divisions. General Briggs finally realized how badly beat up his division was, and began to try and extricate himself and fall back along the road to Homs. His situation was so bad, that O’Connor was forced to withdraw 23rd Armored from the coastal attack and begin moving it towards Briggs. Aside from that sector on the coast against the two Italian Armored divisions, the British had been decisively checked everywhere else on the field. Now the removal of that armor, and the arrival of the Trento Division on the other side, would see that advance halted as well.

Stalemate….

Rommel was more than satisfied with his achievement. He had held the Tarhuna position, largely destroyed the 150th Infantry Brigade of the Northumbrian Division, stopped both British Armored divisions, hurting each one in the process, and also managed to stabilize the coastal sector. It was a victory as far as he could see things, though not the decisive battle he might have hoped for in earlier years. The memory of Bir el Khamsa still haunted him, but he noted that in all these actions, there had been no sign of that unbeatable British heavy armor.

Perhaps the rumors are true, he thought. It was said that unit was at Tobruk when all those ammunition and fuel ships exploded. Perhaps it was badly damaged in that mishap. In any case, it was not here, and in fact, there’s been no sign of those monsters for some time. By now the one I sent to Tripoli for shipment to Toulon should have arrived. I wonder what our tank engineers will think of it when they get a look at it?

For now, I’ve stopped O’Connor here again, just as I did at Mersa Brega. He claimed a victory there because I gave up the Buerat line. I don’t think he can claim one here. This position at Tarhuna is very strong. In fact, given this little victory here, I think I could hold it indefinitely. The Italians will be pleased, particularly Bastico and Cavallero. They undoubtedly promised Mussolini they would save Tripoli, and they were quite a nuisance when I decided to move here from the Buerat line. Well, I’ve save Tripoli for them. O’Connor will be a month or more trying to recover from this. If I had the troops Hitler pulled out for his campaigns elsewhere, I’d finish this O’Connor off once and for all. As it stands, I’ve enough force in hand to stop him, but cannot really push him back unless he chooses to go.

That’s the way it will be here for a time, two desert rams butting heads, and neither one gaining any real advantage. As always, it will come down to logistics again in a situation like this. I’ve got good lines of communication to Tripoli, but one day, the Allies will realize that they have a navy in the Med, and they’ll move to try and interdict our sea lanes in a more forceful manner! That leaves me with a most uncomfortable feeling.

We held a local advantage in the air here, but only because so much of the Western Desert Air Force is in Syria and Lebanon. I wonder how that little campaign is proceeding?

Ah well, time to rest. First I will make my report to Kesselring so he can throw Hitler a bone and say we stopped O’Connor cold. Then I owe my Lucie a letter with a little more hope in it than those I was sending her earlier. When I retreated from Gazala to Mersa Brega, I had the feeling all was lost here in North Africa.

Things have changed.

Chapter 30

Rommel was soon surprised to learn that Kesselring wanted him to file that report in person, and so he flew to Tunis on the morning of January 15 to meet with von Arnim. He offered a handshake to his opposite number in 5th Panzer Army, but found it cold, easily seeing the resentment in von Arnim’s eyes.

This Silesian Peacock looks down on me, thought Rommel. I’ve been fighting here for two years, and now he thinks he will trump me simply because they have called his Korps a Panzer Army. Yes, von Arnim has always been an insider, graduating from the most prestigious schools, currying favor with the old guard, and looking down on anyone else he deems unworthy. I’m sure he took great satisfaction with my setbacks last year, and I suppose he thinks he can do better here. Yet he never had the Führer’s ear like I had, and frankly, he hasn’t swallowed an ounce of victory here. I have fought time and again, and often won, even against daunting odds.

“Gentlemen,” said Kesselring, his discerning eye perceiving the frosty relationship between the two men. He would have to play the arbiter and referee here, and expected a tense and heated discussion. “I asked you here, Herr General, so that we can reach a mutual understanding on how we plan to conduct operations. As you know, the Americans have made some surprising moves of late, racing all the way to the Tunisian border. That was most unexpected, and it found us ill-prepared to adequately respond. Meanwhile, your hard fought victory on the Tarhuna line may have bought us an interval of calm on that front. Now we must decide how to address what will soon become the battle for Tunisia.”

At least he has the decency to give credit when due and use the word victory, thought Rommel. “What are you proposing?” he said, knowing that Kesselring would have already determined what he wanted here.

“To be forthright,” said Kesselring, “I believe we must first redress what I consider an imbalance in the present force allocations. At Tarhuna, you hold a front of no more than fifty miles with three Panzer divisions, two German infantry divisions, and at least three decent Italian divisions.”

“Not to mention Ramcke’s Parachute Regiment,” said von Arnim. “That is a unit that was ordered to report to Tunis over two weeks ago.”

“What?” Rommel played the fool. “I received no such order.”

“Nonsense,” said von Arnim. “Or have you been so busy seeing to your collection of medals that you over look dispatches from OKW these days, and think you can just get away with it?”

“I have overlooked nothing,” said Rommel. “I tell you no such order ever came to me. If it was sent, then it was lost in transit.” He stuck to the lie, for he knew it could never be flanked.

“Never mind that,” Kesselring intervened. “Whether you received it or not, the order stands, and it comes directly from the Führer. So that unit must move immediately to Sfax. I will arrange shipping to get it up to Tunis, and from there it goes to Toulon, along with all the rest of Student’s Korps.”

“What is going on?” asked Rommel.

“We don’t know precisely, but Goring has been very busy of late collecting JU-52s in Greece.”

Rommel proffered a wan smile. “Crete,” he said flatly. “Someone has some unfinished business to attend to there. Well, it may be too late for that. Those troops could have made a world of difference here. If Goring throws them at Crete, what will they do but sit there, assuming they can even take the place.”

“That is not for us to decide,” said Kesselring. “And while we are on the topic of unit transfers, let me continue. While you hold a fifty mile front with eight divisions, von Arnim has little more than half that many to hold a line that extends from Bone on the northern coast all the way south to Gafsa and beyond—over 200 miles. We must redress that imbalance immediately. I will want, at the very least, one panzer division sent to southern Tunisia immediately. Then I would also prefer a German infantry division, either one will do, but if you cannot part with them, then you must send me two more Italian divisions.”

“What? You want 30% of my Army?”

“Your math is correct,” said von Arnim. “Frankly, as I see things, the eight division force should be here in Tunisia, and not in Tripolitania. Then you can try holding your fifty miles with four divisions, and see how you fare. I’m up against eleven Allied divisions here, and I believe you are contending with no more than seven or eight divisions in the British 8th Army. It’s a miracle I have been able to keep Eisenhower from rolling right in to Tunis, and if he does that, this whole affair is over—for the both of us.”

Rommel’s eyes narrowed. He had expected this. They were going to continue to pick apart his Panzer Army Afrika, which was really not anything more than a good strong Korps by any standard he knew. Yet the imbalance Kesselring was pointing out was plain enough to see. In fact, he had considered a daring new plan himself, and now he decided to propose it.”

“Suppose I sent you three good German divisions instead of two,” he said calmly, much to the surprise of both the other men. “And suppose this Field Marshall comes along with the bargain.” He looked at von Arnim now, knowing the mention of his leg up in rank would rankle him.

Kesselring smiled. “What do you suggest?”

Now Rommel leaned over the map table. “As you have seen,” he began, “the position at Tarhuna is very strong, but I can count no more than five or six supply ships that have made it down to Tripoli in the last two weeks. Goring has most of the Luftwaffe up north in Tunisia and Sicily, which is why I was quite surprised that the few fighter squadrons I had in hand did so well. This big operation into Syria and Iraq again was the reason for that. It caught the Allies off guard, and they have used their Western Desert Air Force to redress the initial imbalance on the ground in Syria. But that will not be the case for long. Bombers are already revisiting Tripoli daily, which is why I get most all of my supplies by Siebel Ferry along the coast now, which has become a long, drawn out affair. So aside from consoling the Italians with the thought that they still have part of a colony in North Africa, why do we need Tripoli?”

“My thinking exactly,” said Kesselring. “In fact, I have spoken with both Bastico and Cavallero lately, and sounded out this idea to gauge their initial reaction. Face it, Libya is a lost cause, notwithstanding your gallant efforts there, Herr Field Marshall. Logistically, the distances were simply too imposing to keep your army adequately supported. It’s a miracle that you prevailed as long as you did, particularly against that new heavy armor that the British introduced. Strange that we have seen nothing of the kind here, and I hope to god we never do. That said, I suggested Tunisia might be a much better prospect for the Italians, and both Bastico and Cavallero agreed. They said Mussolini has always had his eye on Tunisia, and that he is fed up with the entire situation in Libya. After all, the Italians have taken the real beating there. They’ve thrown whole armies on the fire, and seen them burn, for what they were worth. So I think Mussolini would support a general withdrawal from Tripolitania. Is that what you propose?”

“I do,” said Rommel enthusiastically. “There is good ground from Ben Gardane through Medinine, Mareth and Gabes. That ground is one of the most defensible positions in all of North Africa, even better than my present position at Tarhuna. I suggest I withdraw there immediately. I can position my Italian Korps at Medinine, backstop it with one good German infantry division and possibly one of my Panzer divisions. That would allow me to then lead a decent Panzer Korps into southern Tunisia to cooperate with you, von Arnim. The Mareth line is our Thermopylae. We can retire there in stages if heavily pushed by O’Connor, making our last stand there opposite Gabes. The badlands west of that port will make it very difficult for them to flank that position. They’ll simply have to power through, which will take time. And I can use that time to smash the Americans, allowing von Arnim to concentrate his smaller force on stopping Montgomery.”

“Then you propose to operate in Tunisia yourself?”

“I believe I was clear on that,” said Rommel.

Von Arnim noted that Rommel gave without yielding anything with this proposal. He would retain command of all the divisions he brought into Tunisia, and nothing would go to strengthen 5th Panzer Army directly. Yet even with that arrangement, his situation would be infinitely better than it was now, where it was only time, supplies, and the winter mud that was preventing Patton from pushing all the way to Sfax. He knew that with Conrath’s division added to Fisher’s 10th Panzer, he might put in one good counterattack, but Patton still had all of six divisions, outnumbering him three to one in the south.

“What if I joined you in this attack,” he said quietly, giving Rommel a cautious look. “I have positioned my mobile units here, near Medkour and Kassem. The Americans have stopped to consolidate their position along the rail line from Constantine to Tebessa. If Patton gets up more fuel and supplies for another move, and if he attempts to make a run for Sfax as we believe, then it was my plan to strike due south towards Ain Beida again to cut him off. We still hold Tebessa, but they are massing troops to take that soon. If you can move quickly, up through the pass at Faid and through Sebeitla, then we can coordinate the offensive together.”

“That is agreeable… Assuming we have a clear understanding of who is in command. We cannot be working at cross purposes. We will need to centralize command in one head, and given the fact that I am the ranking officer here, the choice should be obvious.”

That didn’t sit well with von Arnim. “We determined to force you to send me two divisions, and now here you are ready to take over nominal command of the two I already have! This is not acceptable to me.”

Kesselring could see that this difference of personalities would not do well on the battlefield. Before von Arnim could voice his objection, he spoke up, hoping to end the battle between these two men here and now so they could fight as one coordinated team.

“It is clear that you rank von Arnim,” he said to Rommel, “but not me. I also hold the Field Marshall’s baton, and Hitler has appointed me Oberbefehlshaber Süd, commander of all German forces in the south within this theater. Therefore, if the two of you cannot agree, then I have no recourse other than to assume authority for operational command myself. This will mean that both of you will receive and execute orders directly from me. Understood? We have enough to do while fighting the British and Americans. We cannot fight yet another battle amongst ourselves. Von Arnim?”

“Agreed,” said the General.

“Herr Rommel?”

The Field Marshall took a long breath. He had been running the show for the last two years in Africa, all under the organizational control of the Italians, though he largely did what he pleased. That independence had been curtailed only by Hitler himself, but he also remembered those times when Kesselring had been a strong ally and advocate for him. He would get a great deal of what he wanted if this plan were carried out, and finally be done with Libya once and for all. So he decided to agree.

“Very well,” he said stolidly. “Assuming Hitler approves this arrangement, I will agree.”

“That will be the sticking point,” said Kesselring. “Getting Hitler to approve your withdrawal from Tripolitania may not be easy. In this, I plan to rely heavily on Mussolini himself. I think I’ve convinced him of the merits of settling in at Tunisia as opposed to continuing to fight for Libya. Let us see what we can do.”

Much was different in this telling of events. Here Rommel was not the broken spirit he had been in the old history, his health failing, beset with wracking headaches, sores on his lips and feet, and more jittery than he had ever been. His morale had sunk to an abyss, and retreat seemed his only answer. He had lost the respect of the Italians, who summarily sought to replace him with one of their own Generals.

This time, Rommel had the highly successful holding actions at both Mersa Brega and Tarhuna under his belt. He had not faced the nemesis of the British Heavy Brigade in either battle, save the small force he encountered near Mersa Brega. He had regained a measure of his old warfighting ability, like a boxer fading in the late rounds, laying on the ropes, and then suddenly finding the strength to punch in flurries and keep his opponent at bay.

And this time the Italians were of another mind entirely. They had seen one division after another swallowed in the abyss of Libya, and now Goring’s supply system reforms had rendered Tripoli a little used port. Their own navy no longer wanted to risk the much lengthier sea route to Tripoli, all of 600 miles from Naples through the Strait of Messina. Those convoys had been relatively safe under the protection of friendly air cover from Sicily and Malta. It was only the last 100 miles that found them subjected to withering attack by Allied bombers out of Benghazi, and now from rapidly organized air fields around Sirte.

Now most everything went through Tunis, and then by lighter and Siebel Ferry down the coast, or by rail lines south to Sousse and Sfax, and even Gabes. Giving up Tripoli was not without its negative effects. The port and airfields there would surely be put to good use by the Allies, who would now hold two good ports from which they might attack Malta or Sicily. In the end, the decision would rest with Hitler, and several factors would affect that outcome.

First off, there had been no debacle at Stalingrad. In fact, Volgograd was now largely controlled by German troops, though Soviet resistance there continued. Secondly, the massive Operation Uranus and Saturn offensives staged by the Soviets had already played themselves out, and Zhukov had even thrown in another planet with Operation Jupiter and his attempt to retake Kursk. Manstein had been able to stop the Russian offensive, and now Model’s 2nd Panzer Armee had been withdrawn from the pocket it had been trapped in for over a month, those units had provided the fodder for new operations that were now the apple of the Fuhrer’s eye.

Hitler marked the progress of the Brandenburg Division down the Euphrates with renewed spirits. His forces in Syria had seized Aleppo, and were now closing in on Homs and Palmyra. The Brandenburgers had swept swiftly through Ar Raqqah and were now closing on Dier Zour. They even had advanced patrols within 30 kilometers of the Iraqi border. The prospect of flanking the British in the Middle East was a dazzling idea in his mind now, and he entertained notions of driving through Baghdad all the way to Basrah. He was also restlessly anticipating the launching of Operation Merkur against Crete, which he fancied as an outer castle wall that would protect the Aegean Sea, and the straits near Istanbul beyond that he now relied on as the life line for Operation Phoenix.

So when Kesselring made his appeal, he couched the whole plan as a strategic rebalancing of forces aimed at dealing the Allies in Algeria a decisive check. He even went so far as to suggest that if Rommel could be permitted to reinforce Tunisia, then he could entertain thoughts of a renewed offensive aimed at driving the Allies out of Algeria altogether. Hitler was largely amenable to the plan, but then Rommel’s own victory at Tarhouna became an obstacle. The Führer seized upon it as evidence that Tripolitania could still be defended, and ordered the line at Tarhuna to be held. He even issued orders that the 337th Infantry Division, a unit that had fought in Spain, could now be sent to North Africa to bolster the defense at Tarhuna, leaving Rommel free to reinforce Tunisia as the three Generals there saw fit.

Then he also did something that would affect the balance of power in the west a great deal. When Goring came to him with increasing complaints about the diminishing power of his Luftwaffe forces in the West, Hitler told him that he still had three months before the Spring thaw in Russia, and told him he was therefore free to transfer any aircraft he desired to bolster operations elsewhere. Up until now it had been II Fliegerkorps in North Africa, reinforced by X Fliegerkorps from Greece. Now Goring was free to move anything else.

He chose Luftflotte IV, commanded by Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, and cherrypicked the most effective squadrons available, rushing them to the West in a desperate effort to counter the rising power of the Allied Air forces. While this was only supposed to be a short term “loan,” those units would never see the skies above Russia again…