Chapter 2: A Hazardous Project
REST and recreation, refitting, reorganisation and training were quick-acting specifics in the revival of the Division at Baggush. There were 5000 trained men in the reinforcement pool at Maadi to fill gaps in the ranks. Reorganisation was eased by the fact that the administrative portions of the units and formations had escaped comparatively lightly in the recent fighting. Casualties among the officers1 and non-commissioned officers, however, had been heavy. But the Division, at this period, was fortunate in the wealth of material available for promotion. Nevertheless, time was required to make the selections and to accustom the promoted officers and non-commissioned officers to their new responsibilities. The tactical lessons of the campaign had to be assimilated and put into practice. The two months’ period suggested by General Freyberg for the restoration of the Division was not too long.
Excitement was aroused by the return of officers and men who had been taken prisoner but who had escaped and made their way back to the Division, some after many vicissitudes. This excitement reached a peak early in January with the capture of Bardia by the South Africans and the recovery of about 800 New Zealanders, mostly from 5 Brigade. The recaptured men reported that all the officers who had been taken with them, including Brigadier Hargest,2 the brigade commander, and Brigadier Miles,3 the commander of the New Zealand Artillery, had been shipped away by the enemy. Among the returning officers were Lieutenant-Colonels Dittner,4 of
28 (Maori) Battalion, and Kippenberger,5 20 Battalion, who had separately escaped after their capture in the New Zealand medical centre near Point 175. The latter on his arrival at Baggush found some compensation for his wounds and trials in General Freyberg’s greeting: ‘You’re a brigadier!’
The sick and wounded of the recovered prisoners were sent to hospital and the remainder to Maadi.
Innocuous rumour and gossip based on the war communiques and commentaries, scraps from the intelligence reports and letters from New Zealand also varied the routine. The Pacific war aroused the keenest interest and was the basis of many rumours concerning the Division’s future. These were coloured by the Government’s request for experienced officers and non-commissioned officers for the home defence forces then being rapidly expanded. Brigadier Barrowclough, DSO,6 commanding 6 Brigade, was specially asked for to command a division. Other senior officers released at this time and later were Brigadier Wilder and Lieutenant-Colonels Andrew, VC,7 Dittmer, Satterthwaite8 and Duff.9
The transfer of these officers meant more to the Division than occasion for gossip or colour for rumour. Added to the loss of other senior officers in Cyrenaica, their departure created anxiety for the Division’s efficiency in command and staff.
In Divisional Headquarters, Lieutenant-Colonel C. E. Weir10 moved up from the command of 6 Field Regiment to become CRA and a brigadier in place of Brigadier Miles. The three field regiments and the anti-tank and light anti-aircraft regiments all had new commanding officers. In the infantry, Lieutenant-Colonel
Kippenberger succeeded to the command of 5 Brigade and Colonel Clifton11 to 6 Brigade. Of the ten infantry battalions, no fewer than seven had new commanding officers. In its command structure the Division was thus to some extent immature in spite of the battle experience of the officers who had assumed greater responsibilities and duties.12
This immaturity applied also to many of the units. In the artillery, 6 Field Regiment had suffered extremely heavy casualties at Sidi Rezegh and Belhamed, and new officers and other ranks far outnumbered the old hands. To a slightly lesser extent this was also the case with 7 Anti-Tank Regiment. In 4 Infantry Brigade, 18 Battalion’s losses had not been severe and 19 Battalion had come out of the campaign almost intact. The 20th Battalion, now commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Burrows,13 on the other hand, had been practically destroyed at Belhamed. It was rebuilt with a team of new officers, some 600 reinforcements and a stiffening of about 150 old hands still to be found in Egypt. So also with 21 Battalion in 5 Brigade and 6 Brigade’s three units, 24, 25, and 26 Battalions. All were rebuilt on a nucleus of survivors and of officers and other ranks left out of battle.
All this involved many psychological adjustments. On the return from Cyrenaica the survivors moved into the dugouts they had occupied before the campaign. The dugouts, in which each man had his neatly cut bed in the wall, his patent stove, his ‘pin-ups’, might have been regarded in other circumstances as ‘home’. But now they created a mood of sadness. They contained too many reminders of friends who had not come back from the battle. Besides the vacant places, there was the listing of details concerning friends known to be missing, the collecting and packing of the effects of comrades who had been killed, and then the pitiable battalion musters of the first days when the remnants of companies lined up – ragged, aggressive, resentful of anything suggestive of ‘parade ground stuff’: all part and parcel of war. Many had experienced it before and would go through it again and again before they became hardened but never callous to it.
The absorption of the reinforcements was a study in individual and mass psychology. Veterans on the one side and reinforcements on the other were sufficiently numerous to make distinct classes. Each class was slightly resentful of the other. The reinforcements carried a chip on the shoulder when they were dubbed ‘Coconut Bombers’ because their service in Fiji had been bloodless. They felt the depression of the older hands, but could not share it. If any of them appeared to be stepping too easily into a dead comrade’s shoes, or oblivious of the honour done him in admission to the sacred ranks, he was coolly received. There was little that anybody could do about it except wait for the two groups to settle down together.
This settling-down process was hastened at the New Year with a celebration big enough to pass into tradition as the ‘Battle of Baggush’. At midnight on the last day of the year, pent feelings were loosed with a display of fireworks on a grand scale. German and Italian flares were fired in abundance. Machine-gun and rifle fire was almost continuous. The artillery added bass tones to the celebrations with their 25-pounders. So many Very lights, parachute flares, tracer bullets, and shells and weapons of all kinds heralded the New Year that adjacent Navy and Air Force commands made emergency calls asking if the Division was being attacked.
General Freyberg noted in his diary that it was a ‘regrettable waste of ammunition and enemy flares, etc., but, being New Year’s Eve, only to be expected.’ If, however, there was material waste, there was moral gain. All ranks, old and new, now had something in common. From that moment morale took a distinct upward turn.
Thus 1941 ended on a high note and gave way to 1942 with all the confident hopes associated with the change of the calendar. But, as so often happens, the New Year was to bring the unexpected.
Only three days after General Freyberg had advised the Government of the move to Syria, he was warned of another projected role for the Division. The enemy was then resisting stubbornly on the Gazala line in Cyrenaica, but Middle East Headquarters was confident of victory and thought that some time in February it would be possible to mount a battle for the key defensive area at El Agheila. The New Zealand Division would be required for this operation. Instead of going to Syria, the Division would move into General Headquarters Reserve at Maadi and the Combined Operations Training Centre at Kabrit, on the Suez Canal, to complete refitting and to train for its revised role.14
Agheila loomed large in the appreciations of Auchinleck and his staff. The remnants of Graziani’s Italian Army had escaped to the shelter of this naturally strong position the previous January. From Agheila, Afrika Korps and the reorganised Italians under Rommel had debouched on 30 March to recapture the whole of Cyrenaica except Tobruk and establish themselves on the frontier of Egypt. In the current operations the destruction of the enemy forces, especially of the armour, was given its customary place as the main objective of Eighth Army, but always in mind there was the additional objective of preventing a withdrawal to Agheila in organised strength.
The new strategic situation created by the entry of Japan into the war gave further importance to Agheila. While Auchinleck hoped to continue the offensive through Agheila to Tripoli, he was compelled to recognise that transfers and diversions of formations and equipment to the Far East might force him to halt at the western frontier of Cyrenaica. Therefore he was as anxious to secure Agheila as he judged the enemy would be to hold it. Agheila had to be traversed to invade Tripolitania. It was equally essential to control the area in order to hold Cyrenaica. Otherwise, Auchinleck feared, Eighth Army would have to retire to the Egyptian frontier if the enemy became strong enough to launch an offensive in force.15
Looking well ahead, Middle East Headquarters prepared a plan for the capture of Agheila and, in the middle of December, assigned troops and equipment for the project as well as for intermediate operations to clear Bardia and Halfaya and thus improve the administrative situation. The general idea was that a lightly equipped brigade group would be landed on the coast at Ras el Ali to the west of the enemy positions at Agheila, while a motorised brigade would move round the positions to the south and then turn north to join the seaborne forces in the enemy’s rear. The combined forces would then prevent reinforcements from reaching the enemy from Tripoli and close his only avenue of escape from a frontal attack to be made at the same time.
A New Zealand brigade group (later the 5th) was cast for the role of the landing force and the 22nd (Guards) Motorised Brigade, accompanied by Headquarters New Zealand Division, was assigned the encircling move through the desert. The desert column was to be commanded by Freyberg.
Credit for the plan, known successively as ‘Acrobat Minimus’, ‘Blood Orange’ and ‘Graduate’, was claimed by Combined Training Centre at Kabrit. The plan may have been inspired by Mr Churchill’s constant urgings that the enemy’s long
communications along the North African coast were vulnerable to amphibious operations,16 and to the natural desire of the Training Centre to see its theories and teachings expressed. Like most plas for placing forces astride the enemy’s communications it had superficial attractions.
When, however, the project was submitted to General Freyberg he did his utmost to dissuade Middle East Headquarters from pursuing it. In his view, the plan had nothing to commend it. It was based, he thought, on too scant information and faulty appreciation of the enemy’s strength and resourcefulness. Freyberg told Middle East Headquarters that they did not know what reserves Rommel had behind Agheila and that, in any case, it would be a simple matter for Rommel to turn on the landing force and destroy it.
It would seem obvious that General Freyberg, holding such views, should refuse the assignment. He could do so within the terms of his ‘charter’. Alternatively, he could use his right to refer the matter to the Government for its decision. The obvious course, however, was not open to him. Certainly it was not one to be taken at that early stage of the project. Nor, at that stage, could he give the Government all the information and advice it would need in reaching a decision. There were, however, other factors which, consciously or subconsciously, would weigh with any commander of Freyberg’s experience and sense of responsibility. Of these, perhaps the most important was morale.17
General Freyberg’s decision could enhance or weaken the morale of Eighth Army. If Middle East Headquarters abandoned the operation because of his refusal to undertake it rather than because of the merits of his arguments against it, the fact was almost certain to become known and, with repetition, to become distorted. The army in the field might rejoice in the decision; it might also lose confidence in a high command apparently willing to be dictated to by a subordinate.
There would have been an even worse effect on the British divisions in Eighth Army if there were the slightest suspicion that the New Zealanders had the right to pick and choose their tasks; that they were willing to accept the easy and spectacular and leave the difficult and hazardous to others. Already there was some discontent among the British troops concerning the publicity given to the Dominions’ forces in operations in which British units had
played an equal part. After the capture of Bardia in January 1942 a battalion of the Royal Armoured Corps, which had been particularly valorous in five assaults on the enemy in one day, heard in the official report and comments by the BBC all the credit being given to Dominion troops. The absence of even passing reference to the role of the British tank crews provoked, among other remarks, the ironical comment: ‘The worst part of the Statute of Westminster is that the United Kingdom did not acquire Dominion status.’
The New Zealand Division, too, would resent any suggestion that it would not essay dangerous operations. Again, the high reputation of the New Zealanders in two world wars would be undermined if, in spite of Freyberg’s misgivings, another division accomplished the mission. It could also be argued that refusal to comply with the Commander-in-Chief’s plans would not be in keeping with the Dominion’s policy of full co-operation with Britain, a policy precisely stated by the Prime Minister, Mr Savage, in September 1939: ‘Where she goes, we go.’
Strategically, it was highly desirable that the enemy should be prised out of Agheila at the earliest moment and the way cleared for an advance into Tripolitania. And, on the vital tactical side, it was a matter of opinion whether the project was feasible or not. Against Freyberg’s doubts and apprehensions, Middle East Headquarters could array the views of other experienced officers whose judgment had to be respected.
General Freyberg had a test question he used as an aid in reaching a decision when he doubted the worth or feasibility of an operation. ‘If the New Zealand Division does not accept the assignment, will some other division which cannot refuse be ordered to undertake it?’ If the answer were in the affirmative, the New Zealanders should accept the task and do their best to ensure success.18
Reflection on these factors persuaded Freyberg that he could not refuse the assignment and orders were issued for the moves to Maadi and Kabrit. His apprehensions were not allayed, but he could still press Middle East Headquarters not to go on with the project as planned. He could also supervise the detailed planning, particularly co-operation among the three services and the provision of air cover.
Throughout the remainder of December and in early January Freyberg urged his views on Middle East Headquarters, asking questions, examining the answers and raising still further objections. Finally, at the request of the Commander-in-Chief, he referred the matter to the Government. The Government asked for details, but when a fuller explanation was submitted to Middle East
Headquarters for approval its transmission was refused on the grounds that the secret might be endangered. The Minister of Defence then informed Freyberg that if it was impossible to consult the Government for security reasons or the necessity for immediate action, the Government would rely on his judgment.19
Thus the matter stood until the final planning conference, which was attended by about thirty officers from the three services. At this conference Freyberg was so forthright in his comments and so argumentative that at length Admiral Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief Eastern Mediterranean Fleet, beckoned him out of the room. Cunningham advised him not to worry. He said he had told Middle East Headquarters that the Navy would not go into the Gulf of Sirte unless air cover for twenty-four hours was guaranteed. As the aircraft were not available ‘the show was off’ so far as the Navy was concerned.20
But unknown to the planners and completely unexpected by them, a more decisive factor was to make an end to the project. ‘On the 21st January the improbable occurred, and without warning the Axis forces began to advance.’21 Rommel once more was on the rampage into Cyrenaica. Neither the New Zealanders nor any other British troops except captives were to see Agheila until nearly a year later.
Doubts and discussions concerning the Division’s participation in the Ras el Ali project did not hold up the moves and training incidental to the operation.
On 4 January 5 Brigade, the last of the brigades to return to Baggush from the battle area, with 28 (Maori) Battalion attached, moved to Kabrit. Under the direction of the Combined Training Centre, units practised the details of landing operations item by item, including rowing, use of scaling ladders, embarking in and disembarking from assault landing craft, assembling and loading handcarts, and the art of crossing beach wire defences.
From these elementary practices the brigade moved to combined training exercises under the direction of Divisional Headquarters, which had followed the brigade from Baggush and had been established at Fayid, on the west side of Great Bitter Lake. The object was to practise the brigade in landing on a beach in darkness against light opposition, as well as in the use of air support and signals. Using a Glen ship moored in Great Bitter Lake as brigade headquarters, the units embarked in various types of assault craft
at the Kabrit landing stage in the early hours of the morning. Just before dawn landings were made on assigned beaches, and at dawn the Royal Air Force bombed targets ahead of the landing parties.
The training of the brigade culminated in the first week in February in a landing operation in the Red Sea. The men thought the exercise was mainly for the benefit of the Combined Training Centre, which had not previously attempted the landing of a full brigade. Actually it was a full-dress rehearsal for the assault at Ras el Ali which had not then been abandoned. The exercise was watched by General Auchinleck.
At the jetties at Fanara and Fayid four Glen ships – Saint Essylt, Glengyle, Princess Marguerite and Derwentdale – were loaded with guns, vehicles and men, and on 4 February they sailed in convoy to Port Tewfik. Next morning the ships moved into the Gulf of Suez to a point opposite Ras el Sudr on the east coast. At 11 a.m. the first waves of assaulting troops reached the beach. They were followed by heavier landing craft with guns and vehicles. Beachheads and communications were established.
The principal errors reported in a generally successful exercise were the grounding of a tank landing craft too far out for the guns to be unloaded and the failure for some time of communications with the mobile tank column. Units bedded down in the positions they were holding and next morning re-embarked in preparation for a similar exercise by night.
At this date, however, Middle East Headquarters was convinced by events in Cyrenaica that the enemy’s emergence from the Agheila stronghold was more than a reconnaissance in force. By 4 February the advanced divisions of Eighth Army had been forced back to the Gazala- Bir Hacheim line. The Ras el Ali operation, therefore, was cancelled and the Division was given another new role.
Apart fom General Freyberg, perhaps no one in the Division was more relieved by the abandonment of the landing than Brigadier Kippenberger, who had assumed command of 5 Brigade on 17 January in succession to Brigadier Wilder, who was returning to New Zealand for duty. Kippenberger had disliked the project from its inception and, although he was urged to the task by General Freyberg, privately doubted whether Freyberg would permit it to go on.22 In December 1942 when he studied the ground at Ras el Ali he became firmly convinced that the operation would have been disastrous, for the simple reason that landing craft would have grounded some distance off shore and no tanks, guns, or vehicles could have been landed. This information was supplied by a naval officer unloading supplies at the single small jetty at Ras el Ali.
While 5 Brigade was doing its advanced training and 4 Brigade was performing elementary landing exercises at Kabrit, 6 Brigade and groups from the base units at Maadi under Brigadier Falconer23 took part in an incident which was seriously to disturb AngloEgyptian relations in the post-war years.
At the beginning of February the New Zealanders moved into Cairo for security duty. Contact was made with British and South African forces similarly employed and brigade battle headquarters was established in the leave and transit camp at Abbassia. The 24th Battalion was lodged at Abbassia, the 25th at Kasr-el-Nil Barracks, and the 26th was quartered in the Citadel.
All ranks were vaguely aware of a crisis in the affairs of the Egyptian Government, but most contented themselves with the official explanation for such a display of force. This was that the crisis might precipitate demonstrations and rioting, which could not be allowed to get out of hand to prejudice the security of the British forces.
The 24th Battalion’s announced role was to prevent mobs from crossing the main railway bridge, to maintain order in Sharia Shubra, and to disperse demonstrators forming elsewhere in the Shubra area. The 25th Battalion had orders to patrol part of Sharias Abbas and Bulac and to prevent mobs from assembling in and breaking out of the Bulac area.
In the evening of 4 February a New Zealand detachment some 800 strong, under Lieutenant-Colonel Gray,24 joined British and South African troops in enclosing Abdin Palace where King Farouk was in residence. By nine o’clock the palace was completely surrounded by infantry shoulder to shoulder, with carriers, light machine guns and rifles. Light tanks were deployed in the palace yard and further tanks and artillery in Abdin Square, opposite the main entrance to the palace. Orders were given that no Egyptians were to be allowed to enter or leave the palace until the cordon was withdrawn.
These operations were prepared and carried out with such secrecy that no hitch occurred. All orders were given verbally and contained only enough information to permit commanders and junior officers to carry out the roles assigned to them. The mounted and
dismounted bodyguard whose barracks adjoined the palace did not offer any opposition.
Shortly after nine o’clock the British Ambassador, Sir Miles Lampson, accompanied by military representatives, had audience with King Farouk. Upon his withdrawal the cordon about the palace was also withdrawn. Later, the units deployed elsewhere in the city returned to their camps.
No official record of the Ambassador’s audience with the King was issued in London or Cairo nor, in the post-war years, was any effort made to challenge or contradict highly coloured and somewhat dramatic accounts which purported to be records in the first person of the meeting. The background and the result of the audience, however, are not in dispute.
Early in January trouble arose between King Farouk and the Prime Minister, Hussein Sirry Pasha, when the Government broke off diplomatic relations with Vichy France. Although the King did not object to the Government’s decision, he challenged the method in which it had been made. He claimed he had not been consulted and that the Royal prerogative had been infringed. The disagreement appeared to be capable of settlement, but the King pressed the affair to the point of demanding the resignation of the Foreign Minister, Salim Samy Pasha. The Prime Minister interpreted this as an effort to undermine his position and, although he was conciliatory, he made it known at the end of the month that he no longer enjoyed the King’s confidence. On 2 February his Government resigned.
Hussein Sirry Pasha had been loyal to the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, and the British Government, therefore, was concerned with his fate. The interest quickened when it was learned that the King was negotiating with politicians who might not be so favourable in observing the terms of the treaty. Consequently, on 4 February the British Ambassador, on instructions from London, entered the palace for the audience at which he persuaded the King to send for Nahas Pasha, leader of the Wafdist Party, to form a Government. The display of armed force was to support the Ambassador in his representations.
Nahas Pasha accepted the King’s commission and, as the decision received popular acclaim, no further trouble was expected and the troops were withdrawn from Cairo.
The occurrence passed into Egyptian history as the ‘Incident of 1942’. It loomed large in demands by Egypt after the war that Britain should withdraw her garrison of the Suez Canal zone and for the removal from the treaty of the clauses giving Britain rights
of occupation. Egyptian Governments contended that it was not consistent with the independence and dignity of Egypt that foreign troops should have occupation rights. When the British Government denied that these rights prejudiced Egypt’s independence, pointed reference was made to the ‘Incident of 1942’ as an example of direct interference with Egypt’s internal affairs.
Rommel’s advance from Agheila was halted on the Gazala- Bir Hacheim line. General Auchinleck ordered Eighth Army to make a stand there to preserve Tobruk as a forward supply base. He hoped to fight a decisive battle on the Gazala line and to convert the British retreat into another offensive. As an insurance against misfortune, the defences of Tobruk and of the frontier at Sollum and Halfaya were to be strengthened.
Headquarters New Zealand Division was then at Fayid, 4 Brigade at Kabrit, 5 Brigade on Great Bitter Lake and 6 Brigade at Maadi. The Divisional Cavalry Regiment, which had carried on with 2 South African Division in Cyrenaica, had rejoined the Division and was refitting at Maadi. The only units still to rejoin the Division were companies of the Army Service Corps serving British formations of the Eighth Army. One of the companies, 4 Reserve Mechanical Transport, had the ill-luck to be in a convoy which ran into the enemy advancing from Agheila. The New Zealanders had men of the 1st Battalion Welch Regiment in twelve trucks and were taking them forward from Benghazi. The convoy was surrounded. The New Zealanders destroyed their trucks and, with the British troops, set out on foot in small groups in an attempt to slip through the enemy columns. Only four of the New Zealanders escaped, although another, Driver Oswald Martin,25 later organised an escape from a prison compound near Benghazi and got through to the British lines in April.
On 6 February General Freyberg cabled the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser,26 that he had received orders for the Division to move to the desert for a full operational role, the move to be completed by the 22nd. The Division was to relieve troops coming out to rest and refit. Equipment was being made up completely in the next two days and the Division was up to strength in officers and men and in good condition. Freyberg said he expected a defensive role but this depended on the Commander-in-Chief’s future policy, which had not yet been divulged to him.27
Syria & Lebanon
The Government’s response was swift and left no doubt of its feelings in the matter. ‘While we must accept the position,’ Freyberg was advised the following day, ‘we are most disappointed that circumstances now apparently require further operations by the New Zealand Division so soon after its recent heavy losses. We assume that nothing but the serious nature of the emergency has necessitated this step, and we would wish this communication to be shown to the Commander-in-Chief.’28
At the same time the Government took up the matter with Mr Churchill.29 After repeating the information received from Freyberg and stating that ‘we have of course told him that we must accept the position’, Mr Fraser said that ‘ill-informed comments emanating recently from America and elsewhere concerning the very large forces retained inactive in the United Kingdom as compared with the needs elsewhere, the despatch of American troops to Northern Ireland, and the use of Dominion forces in the Middle East have been taken up with some force in this Dominion and were indeed reflected, with some degree of embarrassment to us, at the secret session of Parliament yesterday.’
Mr Fraser recalled that the Division had had a full share of heavy fighting and had suffered grievous losses. ‘I greatly fear,’ he continued, ‘that their renewed employment will add weight to this point of view, especially since their employment now will be misrepresented here as an indication that their last campaign was useless and that the job must be done again. Indeed, point may well be added to a demand that the New Zealand forces should be returned to the Pacific area to meet the danger nearer home. ... Such consensus of sentiments may have mischievous results.’
Mr Fraser added that to counter any such propaganda and to allay any possible public feeling, he would be most grateful if Mr Churchill would let him have, as far as possible for public use, a full statement of the number of troops then held in the United Kingdom and the reasons for their retention – ‘ reasons which I do not for a moment suggest are not completely conclusive.’
Mr Churchill immediately supplied the information sought.30 He said that only shortage of shipping held troops in Britain, but that every month for more than a year past the equivalent of one New Zealand division had been sent from Britain to the Middle East. He was anxious to get the Australian and New Zealand troops into the Japanese theatre, and ‘night and day we work to find more tonnage: all is continually filled.’
‘Do not allow anyone therefore,’ he said, ‘to reproach the Mother Country with an undue regard for her own security.’31
In the event, the New Zealand Division was not called for further operations in the desert. Concurrent with Mr Churchill’s reply another message was received from Freyberg stating: ‘Our proposed move forward was due to the fact that some of the formations which took part in the more recent operations in Western Cyrenaica will have to be replaced and brought back to refit. ... The Commander-in-Chief. ... sympathises with the point of view expressed in your telegram and has now altered his plans by bringing in another division in our place. There will be a short time-lag ... and to tide over this period he has asked me to place the 5th Brigade Group at the disposal of Eighth Army. I have agreed to this course.’32
The Government accepted Freyberg’s decision, and on 11 February the brigade group, brought up to strength in transport by drawing on other formations, moved back to the desert by rail and road. It comprised:
Headquarters 5 Infantry Brigade
21, 22, and 23 Battalions
5 Field Regiment
7 Field Company
32 Anti-Tank Battery
42 Light Anti-Aircraft Battery
4 Company, 27 (Machine Gun) Battalion
5 Field Ambulance
2 Section Ordnance Workshops
C Section Ordnance Field Park
5 Brigade Group Army Service Corps detachment
6 Reserve Mechanical Transport Company
Brigadier Kippenberger was ordered to report to Eighth Army near Gambut, where he was further instructed to place the group with the utmost despatch at the disposal of Lieutenant-General ‘Strafer’ Gott,33 commanding 13 Corps, who in turn ordered him to prepare and occupy a brigade box, ‘an unhappy device
fashionable at that time,’34 at El Adem. The box, or strongpoint, was to be part of the defence in depth of the Gazala- Bir Hacheim line and was to cover the Corps’ main artery, the Trigh Capuzzo, against raids and attempts by the enemy to establish himself in rear of Eighth Army’s forward positions and the El Adem airfield.
All units were on the position by 16 February, and they dug, wired, and mined mutually supporting battalion boxes within a group perimeter of 14,000 yards. In ten days the engineers put down 16,944 mines, of which 13,000 were lifted from the outer defences of Tobruk. The mines were lifted with full authority as it had been decided that Tobruk would not be held if the enemy broke through the Gazala- Bir Hacheim line. This particular weakening of the mine defences of Tobruk was thought in the Division, and elsewhere, to have been a factor in the rapid fall of the fortress in the following June.
On the completion of the defences at El Adem, a mobile column was formed to operate in the triangle Acroma- Tobruk- Sidi Rezegh. It was to hunt raiding parties and harass armoured groups should they break into the box. The column was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Russell,35 22 Battalion, and comprised a battery of the field artillery, a detachment of 44 Royal Tank Regiment in Valentine tanks, a carrier platoon, an infantry company, anti-tank and antiaircraft troops, a machine-gun platoon and a signals detachment. The column acquired considerable skill in its exercises but its role was not taken seriously by the brigade commander.36
The brigade remained at El Adem until 22 March, when it was relieved by South African units. The box was later referred to by 29 Indian Brigade, which occupied it effectively in the June fighting, as being ‘particularly strong’.37 The diary of 90 Light Division for the period 12–16 June also made references to the strength of the position.
Blank page