i

AS day dawned on 4 November, the set-piece battles of Alamein were finished. Montgomery could justly claim that his forecast of a twelve-day dogfight, to crumble the Panzer Army's fixed defences, had proved true.¹ It was perhaps fortunate that the British armour, in spite of its repeated attempts, had not managed to break out earlier as the planning had envisaged, for this failure had prolonged the battle of attrition in the form in which the Eighth Army had the advantage. When, after the false start interrupted by Hitler's order, Rommel at last managed to get his army moving on the now unavoidable withdrawal, it soon became clear that, had the Panzer Army fallen back earlier when it still had cohesion and control, the British advance might have been slow and laborious. Montgomery has indicated in his writings that such an advance was in his mind, an advance consisting of bringing his superior weight of tanks and artillery methodically against each bound of withdrawal taken up by Rommel and, in fact, such was his method later. But in the initial stages of the enemy withdrawal, the inherent weaknesses in the Eighth Army became obvious. The British armour, as Montgomery had feared, ‘swanned’ about the desert, out of coordinated control in several fruitless encircling movements, while powerful armoured columns were at times held up by weak German rearguards which resisted only because they had no petrol for further withdrawal.

As one army fell back in some confusion and the other followed up across a desert noteworthy for its lack of easily recognisable landmarks, it is only to be expected that records of movement and event should be hazy in details of time and place. Many of the Panzer Army's surviving records are reconstructions made after the

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originals were destroyed, deliberately or by battle, and cannot easily be correlated with the Eighth Army's accounts of running fights and rearguard actions.

The day broke with a ground mist hiding much of the front. Though news of the occupation of Tell el Aqqaqir had been passed around, no one on the British side knew whether the mist would lift to disclose the congestion in the SUPERCHARGE salient to enemy fire.

When the mist dispersed shortly after the sun arose, it became obvious that the enemy had gone except for some distant guns on the north-west which fired on Australian patrols and sent some random rounds towards 6 Brigade and the Maori positions. The German records disclose that on the northern flank 90 Light Division, under orders to prevent a breakthrough along the coastal road, had placed rearguards about Sidi Abd el Rahman while its main body withdrew on Ghazal. South of the road and covering a front of about five miles, 21 Panzer Division mustered possibly twenty tanks in battle order. Next, on an inconspicuous rise known as Tell el Mansfra, the Africa Corps Headquarters Battle Group (Kampfstaffel), with no more than ten ‘runners’ at the most, sat slightly in advance of its neighbours. Some six or seven miles to the west of Tell el Aqqaqir, 15 Panzer Division had as many as 27 ‘runners’ and the 17 survivors of Littorio Division. Still further south, and probably to the west of Africa Corps' north-south line, Ariete had joined the survivors of Trieste, the two divisions coming under 20 Italian Corps and mustering probably over 100 tanks, many of which, however, were in immediate need of repairs and maintenance.¹ To the south of this armoured front, troops of Trento and Bologna divisions of 21 Italian Corps were supposed to be holding a position by Sidi Ibeid but, without transport, ammunition, or stores, were in fact in complete disorder.

Montgomery's provisional plan of the previous day had been for the New Zealand Division with its attached armour, under command of 30 Corps, to follow the route taken by the armoured cars of the Royals and South Africans in a wide encircling movement round the south of Aqqaqir to gain the Fuka escarpment pass some 45 miles to the west, while 10 Corps' armour made a shorter and sharper wheel of 10 to 15 miles to cut the coast road about Ghazal. In this way he hoped to bottle up the rearguard, in which he assumed

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the panzer forces would play the major part, against the coast while the New Zealanders cut off the fleeing remnants of the infantry. Lumsden, whether with Montgomery's agreement or not is uncertain, had intimated to his divisional commanders that they might be directed on Fuka but, during the night, as the attacks towards Aqqaqir were proceeding, he issued an instruction for an advance merely to outflank the enemy without specific directions. All the evidence shows that, up to this time, no one in the Eighth Army had an inkling of the disorganisation caused by Hitler's order and Rommel's indecision in disobeying it, or of the low fighting state to which the Panzer Army had fallen. The resistance met by 9 Armoured Brigade in the SUPERCHARGE operation was still fresh in the armour's memory.

As far as can be ascertained, the orders on which the armoured divisions acted were for 1 and 10 Armoured Divisions, on right and left respectively, to probe west from the salient while 7 Armoured Division advanced to the south-west across Aqqaqir, prepared to swing north against the flank of any opposition met by the other formations.

Montgomery's desire to fight a tidy battle was this morning flouted by circumstances. By following the precept of concentrating his attack at one point, he had channelled all his mobile forces, with their massive attendant tails of support, administration and supply columns, along the tracks leading into and through the narrow salient. When word got around that the enemy had gone and the advance was starting, groups of vehicles tried to press forward to be in at the kill while others, obediently awaiting definite orders, blocked the tracks. The confusion and congestion, already bad, reached a peak this morning and it was only by the exertions of the control posts, aided by senior officers, that some sort of traffic order was gradually made out of the chaos as the day wore on.

One of the first to find his way clear of the confusion was General Freyberg who, fully convinced that the enemy had ‘cracked’, hurried out with a small reconnaissance group to test the route round the south of Aqqaqir. Impatient orders to get the divisional column following in his wake brought the news that 4 Light Armoured Brigade, due to take the lead, was still near Alamein station jostling for its share of the tracks; 5 Brigade was waiting at the base of the salient for the light armour to pass, while 9 Armoured and 6 Brigades were still in the defences on the north-west corner, the latter waiting for its transport which was held up in the rear.

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In the salient itself, all three armoured divisions¹ had begun to assemble at first light in columns which at points intersected each other. About 6.30 a.m. 11 Hussars led 7 Armoured Division towards Aqqaqir, but the need to sort units from the congestion in the morning mist, as well as patches of heavy going on the route, delayed progress so that it took nearly two hours for the head of the division to reach the ground won overnight by 5 Indian Brigade. Further north, 1 Armoured Division managed to get itself in some sort of order by the time the mist dispersed and then, about 7.45 a.m., 12 Lancers cautiously advanced due west at the head of 2 Armoured Brigade. On Lumsden's order, 10 Armoured Division began to assemble facing west on 1 Armoured Division's southern flank but did not move immediately. Shortly after eight o'clock the

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armoured cars of 2 Derbyshire Yeomanry, followed by the Royal Scots Greys of 4 Light Armoured Brigade, managed to thread their way out of the confusion to a point south-east of Aqqaqir, but here Freyberg held them back until the rest of his force could be organised.

Except for a little long-range artillery fire, all this initial movement by the British armour met with no organised opposition though increasing numbers of the enemy were encountered, most of whom, both German and Italian, had obviously missed the general withdrawal and, on the appearance of armoured cars and tanks, willingly surrendered.

The first clash with the enemy's new line came in the middle of the morning when 22 Armoured Brigade, leading 7 Armoured Division, had travelled some miles down the Rahman Track from Aqqaqir and then turned to the west. At the turn it came under 88-millimetre fire. As the brigade halted to deal with this fire, the divisional commander, Harding, ordered the rest of his column to keep going further south and swing round 22 Brigade's left flank. However, it soon become clear that the division was up against an extensive line of tanks backed by numerous guns, too strong to rush and too dangerous to leave menacing the division's line of advance. Harding therefore called up his field and anti-tank guns and settled down to a long-range duel. This enemy force seems to have been mainly the 100 or so tanks of Ariete Division with 20 Corps' artillery, including some 88s, to back them up. There may also have been a few surviving tanks of Trieste, while the seventeen tanks left to Littorio and positioned on 15 Panzer Division's right flank were possibly drawn into the battle. Numerous parties of Italian infantry as well as some of 164 Division, in process of re-forming before being distributed among the panzer formations, were also caught up in the battle. When Ariete reported the engagement to Africa Corps, a battalion group was sent by 15 Panzer Division to fill the gap between its right flank and the Italians. The role of 20 Italian Corps was to guard the Panzer Army's right flank against encirclement and, according to the German records, Rommel was at first confident that, with over 100 tanks, the Italians would fulfil their task.

In the meantime, 2 Armoured Brigade of 1 Armoured Division had advanced slowly due west from the SUPERCHARGE salient and was heading for the rise at Tell el Mansfra, where Africa Corps' Kampfstaffel, of a few tanks and anti-tank guns, was filling the gap between the two panzer divisions. With the Corps Commander, von Thoma, present in person, the battle group put up an exceedingly fierce resistance in which several British tanks were knocked out, including that of 1 Armoured Division's commander, Briggs,

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who then halted his armour while he called up his field artillery to suppress the enemy's fire. Under both tank and field-gun fire, the enemy resistance broke, five tanks and a few guns managing to withdraw, according to the German records. The corps commander was taken prisoner, along with several hundred German gunners and infantrymen who were sheltering in nearby trenches. Though the engagement ceased and von Thoma was captured shortly after midday, 2 Armoured Brigade does not appear to have advanced much further in the afternoon, possibly through meeting fire from the panzer divisions on its flanks.

Gatehouse's 10 Armoured Division, comprising 8 Armoured Brigade and 133 Lorried Infantry Brigade, had meanwhile assembled during the morning and, having extricated itself from the confusion in the salient, reached the Rahman Track just to the south of 1 Armoured Division's line of advance by midday. Lumsden then decided that, as both 1 and 7 Divisions seemed likely to be held up, Gatehouse should attempt an encircling movement to the south, though this meant that his columns would have to cut across the routes being used by 7 Armoured Division and the New Zealanders. However, enemy dive-bombers put in one of their rare appearances this day, causing the division to disperse in some confusion, and it was late in the afternoon before 8 Armoured Brigade set off down the Rahman Track. Then, coming in sight of 22 Brigade's battle off to the west, the brigade halted to reconnoitre and finally laagered for the night about three miles west of the track.

By the end of the 4th, therefore, the three armoured divisions of 10 Corps had advanced only a few miles west of the line gained in SUPERCHARGE. Unaware of the true state of the Panzer Army, Lumsden was in fact following the original policy laid down by Montgomery in which the armour, after breaking out, was to position itself to invite armoured counter-attack. It was on this policy that the shallow outflanking movements of the armour were based.

Had the Africa Corps stayed to fight to the last, this method would have paid off. But what the Eighth Army could not, and did not, know was that, shortly after von Thoma's capture, Rommel's common sense finally overrode his loyalty to Hitler. Although neither 21 nor 15 Panzer Division had been directly engaged, reports of massed tanks facing them and attacking 20 Italian Corps on the southern flank caused him to issue in mid-afternoon an order that there was no longer any need to hold out to the last man or to permit unnecessary sacrifice, an order which may have reflected his personal feelings over the loss of von Thoma. He then issued detailed instructions for a withdrawal at dusk to a first bound on a line running south from Daba, where the formations were to set

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out strong rearguards to cover further retreat to the Fuka area. Both these bounds were for assembly and reorganisation, with no suggestion of prepared lines of defence. It is clear that Rommel was waiting to see what he could salvage of his army and what the British would do, and he hoped, or believed, that they would follow up as cautiously as was their custom.

However, there was one man in the Eighth Army who was impatient for bold action. Having gone forward and personally seen the quantities of guns, vehicles and equipment both destroyed and abandoned, and the groups of dispirited prisoners accumulating in ever increasing numbers, Freyberg was sure that the enemy was on the point of slipping away and was fretting to get his divisional column on the move. Whether he expected to carry out the major encirclement of the Panzer Army unaided is unlikely, but he certainly hoped to block its retreat in time to allow 10 Corps to finish it off. His orders from 30 Corps were for a fast advance, avoiding engagements, on a line south-west from the salient to Sidi Ibeid, and thence north-west along the old Barrel route to the Fuka escarpment and north to Fuka itself, a total distance of some 60 miles. He was warned that at Fuka he might be cut off and have to be supplied by sea, a warning that illustrates the thinking of the time.

In spite of his impatience, Freyberg had first to assemble his force, a task made no easier by the congestion on the salient routes. The Division's order of battle, with the approximate positions of the various components early on the 4th, was as follows:

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(Note: Four platoons of 4 NZ Res MT Coy were needed to make the infantry of 5 Bde mobile, and three platoons of 6 NZ Res MT Coy had to drive through the salient to pick up 6 Bde's infantry.)

The Division's original orders were for 4 Light Armoured Brigade to deploy at 8.30 a.m. on the east of Tell el Aqqaqir, ready to advance to Sidi Ibeid. The Warwickshire Yeomanry Composite Regiment of 9 Armoured Brigade with the Divisional Cavalry was to assemble by nine o'clock and await orders, while Main Headquarters, the Reserve Group and 5 Brigade were to be ready to move by ten o'clock and 6 Brigade by midday.

As earlier related, some of 4 Light Armoured Brigade reached its deployment area on time, but the whole of the brigade was not assembled until after ten o'clock. Freyberg meanwhile had been trying without much success to get information on the progress of 10 Corps, but he at least knew from his own reconnaissance that 7 Armoured Division had met opposition close to his proposed line of advance. Some time after 10.30 a.m. he sent the armoured cars of the Derbyshire Yeomanry to find a route round the south of the battle and later despatched the tanks of the Royal Scots Greys.

Gradually throughout the day the various groups of the New Zealand force assembled and threaded their ways through the congestion and the gaps in the minefields before opening out into widely

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dispersed desert formation. In his diary Freyberg described the gaps as

feet deep morasses of dust which spouted up in front of and into the vehicles. By this date thousands of vehicles and hundreds of guns and tanks had pounded the loose fine-grained surface of this part of the desert into something resembling discoloured flour. What will it be like if it rains? 9 Armd Bde and 5 Bde moved up and the congestion of vehicles in the forward area would have done credit to Piccadilly. Fortunately the RAF ruled the skies. Div [Headquarters] moved up at 1100 hours and squeezed into the crush….¹

Though many of the divisional groups moved up along Boomerang and Square tracks, it is uncertain exactly where they broke out into the open, but their guiding sign was the black diamond used to mark the Diamond track which led into 6 Brigade's defences. From somewhere near the end of this track a party of New Zealand divisional provosts with engineers had set off early to find a minefree route, which led in a southerly direction round the east of Aqqaqir and then turned north-west along the path of the reconnaissance group of 4 Light Armoured Brigade. At first these ‘Diamond signs’, of black painted tin set on iron pickets, were placed at frequent intervals, but once in the open one sign sufficed for every 700 yards. Thus marked, the Diamond Track eventually stretched from Alamein to Tripoli.

Shortly after midday 4 Light Armoured Brigade reported to Divisional Headquarters that the Greys in the lead had halted against opposition. At this time Freyberg was holding a conference with his brigadiers, but before the conference broke up the Greys had signalled that they had taken the surrender of 300 prisoners with 11 guns. It would appear that, on swinging round the south of the Italian tanks which 7 Armoured Division was engaging and then turning to the north-west, the Greys had come under fire from the 20 Corps artillery sited behind the tank line. The artillery had put up a token fight, but had soon ceased fire once the Greys worked round to the rear.

At the divisional conference Gentry of 6 Brigade proposed an all-night advance to reach Fuka by the early hours of the morning, asserting that the men of the Division had waited for three years for such a victory as was now offered and would willingly endure the strain of a long night drive. Kippenberger of 5 Brigade was more cautious, fearing that in the dark and unknown going, the formations might become separated and be left in some confusion by morning. Freyberg himself was full of confidence that the enemy was on the point of breaking and, though 7 Armoured Division was still fighting not far away, he decided to get his column clear of

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the confusion and the fighting, and out into the open desert where concentration would be easier. He therefore set off with his Tactical Headquarters to catch up with the light armour, leaving orders for the rest of the force to follow as soon as possible. Main Headquarters, the Reserve Group, 5 Brigade and 9 Armoured Brigade cleared the minefields by late afternoon but 6 Brigade, having to wait for its transport to negotiate the congestion in the salient, did not get going until 6 p.m.

Carrying eight days' water and rations, 360 rounds for each field gun, and petrol for 200 miles, the New Zealand vehicles, though heavily laden, made good progress once they drew clear of the powdered sand of the battle area and reached the hard sand along the Barrel Track. Of the journey, Freyberg, riding on the outside of his Stuart tank, entered in his diary:

… we began to pass through enemy positions and tanks of the Panzer Divisions which will fight no more, burning transport, and large calibre guns. It was a change much appreciated to speed across open desert away from the dust heap of the Alamein front. As the Div swept south-westwards the guns of the tanks and arty were in action to the north where the British armour were fighting the Panzer rearguard. 4 Lt Armd Bde was ahead. Behind them marching apparently quite cheerfully were columns of PWs with a solitary armoured car or truck as an escort, carrying a few wounded and a single guard armed with a Tommy gun. We passed an infantry [? artillery] position almost intact with guns in position and ammunition boxes empty….¹

During this afternoon, 22 Armoured Brigade continued its action against the Italian 20 Corps until dark but it is hard to say how this battle really went. The German records, including Rommel's own account, give the impression that Ariete Division, fighting gallantly to the last tank, was completely surrounded and annihilated. Yet 22 Armoured Brigade claimed only 29 tanks destroyed and 450 prisoners, against a loss of one tank and a few casualties, while events next day indicate that quite a large part of the Italian force managed to disengage overnight. The Italian stand at least deterred 10 Corps from the encircling movement Lumsden had proposed and allowed Africa Corps an unimpeded withdrawal overnight.

Some ten miles past Sidi Ibeid and 15 miles due south of Daba, Freyberg halted 4 Light Armoured Brigade as dusk was falling, to allow the rest of the divisional force to catch up. Though the commander, Brigadier Roddick, wanted to carry on to the Fuka escarpment, Freyberg had learnt through 30 Corps of an intercepted message that 15 Panzer Division was also making its way to Fuka.

Liaison officers were sent back to find the other formations and, by the use of wirelessed directions and flares, 5 Brigade was guided

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to the laager by midnight. No sooner had this brigade halted than a minor battle ensued at the tail of its long column. A party of Germans approached one of the rear vehicles apparently to ascertain if the column was friendly or hostile, and the signals officer in the truck did his best to make them believe he was Italian. As the enemy moved off apparently satisfied, this officer went forward on foot to warn 23 Battalion ahead, but before he could regain his truck firing broke out and a rather wild battle ensued. The mortar platoon of 23 Battalion took the initial brunt of the fighting, first using rifles and then getting their mortars into action against fire from automatic weapons, and probably from a light anti-tank or infantry gun which accounted for one of the mortars. Carriers and 4 Light Armoured Brigade's tanks, as well as infantry of 23 and 28 Battalions, then joined in, upon which the enemy withdrew, taking eight men of the Divisional Signals with them as prisoners, and though chased by several vehicles, got clean away. It was later estimated that the enemy party was about seventy strong, probably a group of Ramcke parachutists searching for transport or petrol. The alarm brought some indiscriminate firing, even Divisional Headquarters some distance away coming under fire, and casualties were recorded as 8 men killed, 5 missing, 26 wounded and 8 taken prisoner; of these last, seven subsequently were recaptured or escaped. The enemy left 17 bodies behind.

Freyberg had been under pressure from Roddick and other enthusiastic members of his staff to continue the advance through the night, but this small battle convinced him of the need to get his force concentrated and organised before going any further and he decided to wait for the rest of the force. The firing had set alight an ammunition truck belonging to 23 Battalion and this continued to blaze for some hours, providing a handy beacon for 9 Armoured Brigade and 4 Field Regiment when they drew near the divisional laager. It was still burning when, only two hours before dawn, the head of 6 Brigade's column arrived.

Montgomery's intentions for the night of 4–5 November were for 1 and 7 Armoured Divisions to keep the enemy facing them in engagement while the New Zealand column continued to Fuka, and 10 Armoured Division, following inside the New Zealand wheel, cut the coast road halfway between Daba and Fuka. However, the evening reconnaissance reports of vehicles massed in retreat between these two places, and other indications, convinced him that the opposition to the armour was likely to fade away overnight and he accordingly told Lumsden to push on boldly everywhere, using the Royals and South African armoured cars to act as a delaying force

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on the Fuka escarpment until the New Zealand column could get there.

As the night wore on, Lumsden issued a number of orders, presumably based on information sent back by his divisions. He told 1 Armoured Division to stay in engagement with the enemy ahead while 7 Armoured Division, having reported its victory over the Italian armour, drove for the high ground south-east of Daba. Then 10 Armoured Division was to cut the road between Daba and Fuka with its 8 Armoured Brigade, but its lorried infantry was to take up a position south of Daba. Just before dawn, and before the armour broke night laager, Lumsden changed these plans, instructing Gatehouse to send his lorried infantry direct to the Fuka escarpment pass, where it would be joined as soon as possible by 8 Armoured Brigade, while 1 Armoured Division moved directly to Daba with 7 Armoured Division on its left. As Lumsden gave many instructions in face-to-face discussion or conversation over the wireless, not officially recorded, it is possible that there were further variations of his orders.

No clear exposition of 10 Corps' plans reached Freyberg and it was only later in the day that he learnt of them through contact with the armoured formations themselves. Accordingly, as the sky lightened early on the 5th, he sent 4 Light Armoured Brigade to lead his column, ignorant that he was sharing the rush to the Fuka escarpment with three armoured car regiments¹ as well as the lorried infantry and armoured brigades of 10 Armoured Division.

Montgomery's misgivings about what might occur if his mobile forces passed beyond centralised control now began to prove well founded. Some time during this morning he told Lumsden to take the New Zealand column under 10 Corps' command, but Freyberg did not receive news of this change until some hours later. At 10.40 a.m. he was in receipt of a 30 Corps order repeating the Fuka assignment, and adding the extra task of sending a detachment to the Qasaba landing grounds that lay some 15 to 20 miles further west.

Much had happened before this order arrived for, only an hour after setting out from the night laager, the Greys encountered an enemy force reported to include twenty German tanks. This must have been the panzer regiment of 15 Panzer Division which had been travelling only a few miles ahead on the same course as that taken by the New Zealanders. According to the Africa Corps message log, the division had up to twenty-seven runners on the 4th and suffered no casualties by battle overnight, but this day it

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began a rearguard action soon after daylight. About midday (Eighth Army time) it reported to Africa Corps that its strength was down to 8 tanks in running order, 200 infantry, 4 anti-tank, 12 field, and no heavy anti-aircraft guns, i.e., 88-millimetre.¹ How much of the panzer division's losses were due to battle and how much to mechanical failures or lack of petrol is uncertain for the Greys claimed only six or seven of the German tanks, including two captured intact.

While the Greys were in action some vehicles appeared on the south of the New Zealand column and opened fire when the commander of 4 Field Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart,² left the column to identify them. When the tanks of 9 Armoured Brigade returned the fire, most of the vehicles drove off at high speed, leaving two trucks behind from which Colonel Stewart took the surrender of about sixty men. About the same time 1 King's Royal Rifle Corps, the motorised infantry of 4 Light Armoured Brigade, turning to the north to investigate a body of men and vehicles, was met by numerous white flags. Among several hundred Italian and German infantrymen and gunners captured here, the riflemen found the commander of Trento Division with most of his senior officers and staff.

By the middle of the day the New Zealand column was stretching out over several miles of the desert. After the enemy facing the Greys had broken off the engagement and retired, the armoured cars took over the lead and were close to the point where the Barrel Track swung north towards the escarpment pass. About this time enemy aircraft swept down the column to drop a few bombs on 5 Brigade. Several men were wounded but the Bofors gunners got quickly into action, claiming hits on two Messerschmitts.

Just a few miles east of the pass, the leading vehicles, with which General Freyberg himself was then travelling, were halted by shell-fire. Reconnaissance established that this shelling came from two enemy groups. One of them, probably Voss Group of armoured cars, artillery and possibly a few tanks, was close to the lip of the escarpment pass, and the other, of 15 Panzer Division's rearguard, was on high ground to the west. Together the two groups dominated the approaches to the pass, while Voss Group was in a position to fire on vehicles negotiating the track down the escarpment to the coastal plain.

Freyberg had by this time decided not to use the pass but to keep on the top of the escarpment and follow it round to the west

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of Fuka, with the Sidi Haneish landing ground and the Division's old defences at the Baggush Box as his objectives. From this point he could control the chain of desert landing grounds south of Baggush and operate westwards to the Qasaba grounds.

As the Derbyshire Yeomanry probed forward to find a way between the two enemy groups, they met a marked minefield running north and south. The armoured brigade's tanks and vehicles then began to bank up behind the armoured cars and the enemy fire increased, so Freyberg called on Brigadier Weir to deploy the artillery. Under the fire of the field guns, the enemy group on the west withdrew, on which the armoured cars followed up and found a gap, probably the one the enemy had used. Passing through, though still under fire, the armoured cars came in sight of a large concentration of vehicles, stretching several miles to the west behind the northern group of the enemy. According to the German records this must have been the main body of 21 Panzer Division, then beginning to suffer from an acute shortage of petrol. Both to deny the pass and observation over the coastal plain, and to extricate themselves from their precarious situation where they might be encircled and cut off from expected petrol supplies, the German forces opened heavy fire, from medium and field guns as well as 88-millimetres, on all attempts by the British tanks to pass through the minefield gap. During this period of the afternoon several parties of stragglers, including a large body of Bologna Division, had given themselves up to the divisional column. The Division was also joined by the commander of 7 Armoured Division, Harding, who stated that he had been to Daba and found no enemy there.

What had actually happened further east was that 1 Armoured Division had reached Daba in the morning and had met with some resistance. The tanks of 2 Armoured Brigade had then cut the coast road to the west, while 7 Motor Brigade had laid on an attack which netted numerous guns and vehicles and much equipment but only a small bag of prisoners. Harding with his division had then appeared and, anticipating Lumsden's next orders, had led his men back into the desert and on to the New Zealand route. In the meantime 8 Armoured Brigade (10 Armoured Division) had somehow cut ahead of the other two divisions to reach the coastal road at Galal, halfway between Daba and Fuka. Here it was just in time to catch the enemy flushed by the other divisions, the only sizable body caught by any of the British encircling movements. After having dealt with some small parties of stragglers, the brigade waited as a large column of tanks, trucks and marching men came unsuspectingly straight towards it. Under fire at almost point-blank range, the enemy was thrown into confusion and offered little resistance.

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The total of tanks accounted for here by 8 Armoured Brigade was put as high as 14 German and 29 Italian. About 1000 prisoners were taken as well as numerous guns and vehicles in good order. It was generally accepted in the Eighth Army that this engagement completed the annihilation of the Italian 20 Corps which 7 Armoured Division had begun the previous day, but, according to the Rommel Papers, elements of this corps with ‘about ten tanks’ were in Matruh on 7 November.¹ As the German records do not mention either the composition or the loss of this group at Galal, it was probably not part of any formation but a mixed group of rear and front-line troops, including German and Italian technicians and tanks from the Daba workshops.

From Harding the New Zealand staff learnt that he intended to cut round the left of the Division and secure the landing grounds on the south of Sidi Haneish and cut the coast road. It is uncertain if Harding was at this time able to pass on the full extent of 10 Corps' latest plans. Lumsden had in fact realised at last that the narrow wheels of his armour had encompassed mainly laggard Italians and few combatant Germans, and that the main striking force of the Panzer Army was slipping from his grasp. After telling 10 Armoured Division to clear the coastal plain as far as Fuka, taking care not to engage the New Zealand column by mistake, he sent 1 Armoured Division on a last desperate, and almost impracticable, sweep. Shortly before 2 p.m. he sent a radio message to Briggs with instructions to despatch Fisher's 2 Armoured Brigade, then in laager on the west of Daba, on a 70-mile trek to Bir Khalda, which lay a few miles south of Minqar Qaim and some 35 miles as the crow flies south of Matruh township. From this point the brigade was to operate towards the north to block the routes leading west out of Matruh.

Such a manoeuvre might have had an element of success had Lumsden told Harding and Freyberg to engage and contain the enemy facing them in order to give Fisher's brigade time to get into position, but these two commanders appear to have been unaware of this new plan and its implications. They continued with their aim of cutting the coast road in the Baggush - Sidi Haneish area where 10 Corps Headquarters, from air and ground reports already received, should have known that few of the enemy would be entrapped.

Freyberg's appreciation of the situation in his immediate area was that the enemy group on his north-west would probably try to break out to the south-west after dark. On this basis he gave

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4 Light Armoured Brigade orders to take the ‘high ground’, presumably that to the north-west of the minefield gap, while 9 Armoured Brigade was to get through the gap and deploy facing north, all to be completed before dark but all qualified by an ‘if possible’. The Divisional Cavalry was to cover the north on the eastern side of the minefield, 6 Brigade was to stay in reserve at the rear of the divisional column, but 5 Brigade was to attempt the passage of the gap and take the ‘high ground’ if the light armour failed to do so. What Freyberg had in mind is doubtful, for the deployment he ordered would have left the enemy a clear route of withdrawal to west or north-west, but he may, at the time he issued the orders, have been expecting Harding's 22 Armoured Brigade to come up on his left.

In the early afternoon the New Zealand guns fired a smoke screen to cover infantry and sappers of the light armoured brigade, who removed the wire and pickets bordering the minefield and marked a route in which apparently no mines were found. The tanks, well dispersed against the enemy's shellfire, then drove through and turned north, where they rounded up about 150 of the enemy, mostly Ramcke paratroops. The advance of the armour drew the attention of most of the enemy gunners away from the gap, so that just before dusk 5 Brigade, travelling in column at high speed, navigated the gap without casualties or damage, and halted in a hollow sheltered from enemy observation. After darkness fell, the brigade moved some way further north in order to clear the exit from the gap and to make contact with the armour. However, no other part of the New Zealand column followed for some hours. Brigadier Kippenberger recorded that his instructions from Freyberg were to harass the enemy but not to get involved with ‘the still powerful German armour’,¹ a remark which helps to explain the caution exhibited by individual commanders but hardly condones the lack of concerted action. In his short night move, Kippenberger had lost touch with his artillery, 5 Field Regiment, and was unable to make contact with the headquarters of 4 Light Armoured Brigade. Estimating that he was still ten miles from the coast road he decided that, without guns or armour, his brigade should stay in a defensive laager overnight.

At 9 p.m. Freyberg conferred with his two brigadiers still east of the gap, that is, Gentry of 6 Brigade and Weir of the artillery. He told them that his intention was to proceed at daylight direct to the escarpment overlooking the coastal strip to the east of the Baggush Box area, with 9 Armoured in the lead, followed by 6

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Brigade and the Divisional Artillery. The other two brigades, whose whereabouts were uncertain, would be collected on the way. He also stated that 22 Armoured Brigade¹ would be operating on his division's left, its objective the escarpment to the west of Baggush. This last statement indicates that Freyberg had now received more detailed information of 7 Armoured Division's progress and intentions than Harding could have given earlier in the day. Roberts' brigade had in fact reached the minefield some miles to the south and, without enemy interference, had quickly found that there were no mines between the fences. However, no sooner was it through than it found itself short of petrol. About seven o'clock the brigade laagered, some ten miles south-west of the New Zealand position, to wait for petrol and its lorried infantry, 131 Brigade, which had become disorganised in attempting to catch up and was scattered over many miles of the desert route.

How much more of 10 Corps' plans Freyberg knew at this time is uncertain, nor is it certain that he knew he had been transferred to the corps' command. In fact, the wireless message issued by Lumsden just after midday and giving the latest plans reached the New Zealand Division just twenty-four hours after it was despatched. However, he must have gained some information from Harding and, not long after his conference with Gentry and Weir, he received first-hand news of 1 Armoured Division's plans when a column of trucks and carriers suddenly tangled with the divisional laager. This turned out to be part of 7 Motor Brigade on its way to join 2 Armoured Brigade at Bir Khalda.

The orders for 1 Armoured Division to proceed at once to Bir Khalda were issued by 10 Corps shortly before 2 p.m. and received by the division within half an hour, according to the available records, but for some reason the division was not ready to start until 6 p.m. Admittedly the difficulties, of communication, replenishment and preparations, were great at this period, but the late start meant that even 12 Lancers in the lead had not gone far before dusk made travelling hazardous. In fact the tail of the divisional column was not able to get clear, before dark, of the maze of old defences, slit trenches, minefields, and criss-crossing tracks in the well-occupied coastal strip. However, the division ploughed on gamely on a gruelling all-night march, which took the head of the column some 55 miles by dawn. The Lancers and 2 Armoured Brigade, still some miles short of Bir Khalda, were finally halted by lack of petrol shortly after sunrise, with the rest of the division spread out over more than 20 miles of the desert to the east.

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During the morning of 5 November, Rommel seemed at first to think that his Panzer Army was in better shape than it actually was, due perhaps to early messages from Africa Corps and 90 Light Division which gave an appearance of some order in the withdrawal, while news of how far or fast his opponents were following up was scanty. First thing in the morning he established his headquarters two miles south-west of the Fuka landing ground and, while there, received authorisation from Hitler and Mussolini for a withdrawal, with the proviso that the non-motorised forces would be extricated.

We could do nothing but shrug our shoulders, for extricating the infantry was precisely what the original order had prevented us from doing…. Now only Fate could show whether the British would permit us to stay at Fuka long enough for the Italian and German infantry to catch up.¹

He then let his staff issue an order that the Fuka position, that is, an imaginary line running due south from Fuka station, was to be defended to the last man according to Mussolini's directions, together with a sharp reminder to the Italians to get their surviving formations organised on that line. Driving north to the road, he watched vehicles streaming past under constant air attack, and returning into the desert he found Africa Corps in engagement with a British column. Back at his headquarters, he took to a slit trench when the Royal Air Force made two bombing runs over the area, having apparently located the headquarters position through wireless intercepts.

By this time he must have realised, from all that he had seen and heard, that most of 10 and 21 Italian Corps could be written off. Africa Corps had already warned that it was in danger of being outflanked from the south, and then ‘several Sherman tanks came in sight and opened fire on everything they could see. We apparently no longer had any troops between us {Panzer Army Headquarters} and the British.’² The Panzer Army narrative goes on to recount that in the afternoon a breakthrough by strong tank forces between 15 and 21 Panzer Divisions could not be prevented while Voss Group was tied down by a strong tank force, and as there were no more reserves and little petrol, no counter-attack was possible.³

As no British forces, except for armoured car patrols, were far enough west to engage Africa Corps at this time of the day, the Corps must have been reacting to the tentative probings of the New Zealand column. The Sherman tanks that fired on Rommel may have been armoured cars or the tanks of 4 Light Armoured Brigade that captured the Ramcke troops. Whoever they were, the situation

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was enough to persuade Rommel to accept Africa Corps' proposals for retreat by another bound to Matruh. Accordingly, he gave orders for any available remnants of 10 and 21 Italian Corps to occupy the Matruh defences, and for 90 Light Division and Africa Corps to retire on the minefields along the Matruh-Siwa road to a point just south of Charing Cross, covered by rearguards supplied by 90 Light Division at Garawla and to the south.

By the timing of messages issued by its headquarters, 15 Panzer Division began to retire almost as soon as the New Zealand column arrived to face it across the dummy minefield and, after dark, it made all speed for the Siwa track. Both Africa Corps Headquarters and 21 Panzer Division seem to have waited until later in the day, when the panzer division set off but got no further than the vicinity of Qasaba before it ran out of petrol, and Corps Headquarters moved north towards the main road. Voss Group, which must have been responsible for most of the spasmodic fire on the New Zealand forces, joined 21 Division after dusk. Through poor communications in its direct link with Panzer Army headquarters, 90 Light Division did not learn of the orders until well after dark and its assembly was then hindered by heavy bombing of the coast road. Attempts to disperse its columns on the desert tracks running parallel with the road met trouble with the old minefields, but it finally managed to collect its units, spread between Fuka and Sidi Haneish, and despatch them to Matruh by dawn, leaving a rearguard at Garawla.

On the morning of the 6th, therefore, the New Zealand forces were preparing to advance to the north, with 22 Armoured Brigade a little way behind on the left, to meet the coast road at a point where only a few laggard Panzer Army troops might still be cut off, while 1 Armoured Division was some 25 miles or more away, deep in the desert to the south-west, but well placed to attack the still critical road junction at Charing Cross had its men and machines not been so fatigued by their long night journey. Off to the south and west of Charing Cross, 4/6 South African Armoured Car Regiment, having reached this area the previous evening, reported that its operations were impeded by the mass of prisoners it had so far collected.

At first light Freyberg sent the Divisional Cavalry through the minefield gap with orders to screen the advance of 9 Armoured Brigade and 6 Brigade to the escarpment overlooking the Sidi Haneish landing ground. As the armour was filtering through the gap, a column of vehicles came from the north-east, apparently intending to pass round the south of the divisional laager area. Before the column could be identified, armoured cars and troop-carriers on its flank opened a rather indiscriminate fire obviously intended to

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cover the passage of the soft-skinned vehicles. The New Zealanders, however, were now not so ready to be taken by surprise and the men of 25 and 26 Battalions immediately returned the fire with Brens and rifles while the six-pounders of 34 Anti-Tank Battery and the two-pounders of 25 Battalion swung into action. Then the men of 3 Machine Gun Company of the Reserve Group, with their Vickers guns firing from their vehicles, and the carriers of 25 Battalion raced out in an attempt to head off the enemy. Although a portion of the column escaped, a large number of prisoners was collected, variously estimated at from 400 to 600, mostly Italians but including 100 men of 90 Light Division. Among the enemy were some fifty British troops, together with some of their vehicles, who had been captured the previous evening while bringing up supplies for 7 Armoured Division.

This incident was over before the Cavalry and armour had negotiated the gap so, leaving the prisoners to the Reserve Group, 6 Brigade followed without delay, the whole force advancing steadily in a north-westerly direction throughout the morning. No opposition was met, and shortly before midday the leading Cavalry patrols reached the high ground overlooking the Sidi Haneish landing ground.

Back in the desert, Freyberg had called Kippenberger and Roddick to a conference just after ten o'clock to give them instructions to move up on the right of the two leading brigades towards the south-east corner of Baggush Box. However, news from the patrols soon made it evident that the enemy had slipped away and, with petrol running low and the going becoming increasingly difficult, neither brigadier felt the need for haste.

Earlier in the morning, pilots of the Desert Air Force had met low cloud and rainstorms along the coast. As the day advanced the rainstorms increased in volume and frequency, spreading steadily inland. The Daba landing grounds from which the fighters were operating became unusable, so that the fighters had to return to all-weather fields well behind the Alamein line. When air reconnaissance revealed that the road east of Matruh was clear of traffic, unescorted light bombers, relying on the low cloud for cover, were sent to attack the road from Charing Cross to the Sidi Barrani area.

On the New Zealand left, 22 Armoured Brigade had set off early from its laager deeper in the desert. An enemy column, possibly the survivors of the one that 6 Brigade had engaged, passed across the line of march but drove off to the west before it could be identified; but a second group of vehicles, which seems to have been the rearguard of Voss Group, was engaged and some prisoners taken. These two incidents, allied to a shortage of petrol,

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delayed 22 Brigade's advance so that the brigade was still a good ten miles or more from the coast when, about midday, its supply trucks caught up and it stopped to refuel. Meanwhile, 1 Armoured Division at Bir Khalda, its tanks in need of maintenance and petrol, made no move before midday. Although some of its lost B Echelon vehicles appeared, they carried far from enough petrol to move the whole of 2 Armoured Brigade, while the main RASC petrol column was still struggling through bad going some 50 or more miles back.

Montgomery himself had driven forward during the morning along the coast road in an attempt to ‘ginger things up’. Here he met Gatehouse of 10 Armoured Division, whose leading troops were reported to be through Fuka just before noon. Montgomery ordered Gatehouse to halt his men and clear the area to his rear of stragglers, and at the same time to despatch all the petrol he could spare to 1 Armoured Division. About one o'clock Lumsden appeared at Freyberg's headquarters and, while lunching there, stated that he hoped to get 1 Armoured Division into Matruh before the day ended, and that he was sending 7 Armoured Division to the west of Matruh. He ordered Freyberg to occupy and clear the landing grounds in the vicinity of Baggush and, once the Royal Air Force was operating from them, to clear the area from Baggush to Charing Cross.

The opportunity of encircling the fighting units of the Panzer Army at Matruh passed during the afternoon of 6 November when the weather joined hands with the caution of the Eighth Army's commanders in exploiting their victory. All along the coastal belt the morning's rainstorms developed into a steady downpour which the desert sands were soon unable to absorb. On the escarpment plateau widening pools filled the hollows where the sand lay deep, turning them into morasses impassable to most vehicles and then, overfilling, gouged channels down to lower levels. Only on the rocky ridges was travel possible, but many of these soon stood isolated like islands in the sea of rain. From the escarpment, miniature waterfalls cascaded down to the coastal plain to form streams which swept across the road and railway towards outlets through the sand dunes on the beach.

As the New Zealand brigades drove north towards the road, first the trucks with only rear-wheel drive, then those with four-wheel drive, fell behind. As each truck sank to its axles in the wet sand, the men aboard dismounted from the shelter of cabs and canopied trays and, in the cold persistent rain, dug channels for each wheel. With camel thorn, sand trays, discarded enemy tents, or anything that would help the wheels to grip placed in the channels,

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the men hauled and heaved their vehicles to firmer ground. At first the tracked carriers and tanks were able to tow some of the wheeled vehicles, but soon too many trucks were immobilised and even the tracked vehicles were finding the going treacherous. The rearmost vehicles, driving over ground whose crust had been churned up by those in front, were the first to succumb, so that before long the brigade columns were stretched over many miles of the desert. By late afternoon the men in charge of most of the heavy trucks carrying troops and stores had given up the struggle and the advance slowly ground to a standstill.

In the van, however, two squadrons of the Divisional Cavalry which had reached the rim of the escarpment worked their way with some difficulty down cuttings that led to the Baggush Box, where the Division had been encamped less than a year ago. Crossing the railway on to the main road, one squadron made its way to the Box defences and the other to the Sidi Haneish landing ground. In neither area was there any sign of opposition, though German and Italian stragglers were found as well as quantities of equipment, much of it in good condition. Several hundred Indian prisoners were released from a compound by the landing ground, where the Cavalry also discovered a large stock of petrol with which they filled up their vehicles. When some of the Warwickshire Yeomanry's tanks and 4 Field Regiment's guns followed down the escarpment, the whole force started up the main road to the west. After covering a few miles, the regiment received orders to rejoin 9 Armoured Brigade Headquarters which had halted on the escarpment above Sidi Haneish. The rain had increased by this time and it was with some difficulty that the heavier vehicles ascended the escarpment to the brigade laager. Some of the armoured cars of the Derbyshire Yeomanry, of 4 Light Armoured Brigade, had also gained the road and, receiving no orders to return, stayed to laager by the railway station.

As the New Zealand columns struggled forward in the afternoon, 11 Hussars of 7 Armoured Division, on a parallel course a few miles to the west, were reconnoitring ahead of 22 Armoured Brigade. The Hussars fired on a group of vehicles, probably the headquarters of Africa Corps, which retreated rapidly to the north-west; following up, the armoured cars observed a larger group, including some tanks, stationary to the south-west. This force consisted of the remnants of 21 Panzer Division, with up to thirty tanks,¹ and Voss Group, waiting for petrol in the vicinity of the Qasaba landing grounds. Under cover of the reduced visibility brought by the afternoon's rain, tanks

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of 22 Armoured Brigade followed the Hussars and actually turned the flank of the Germans, who were expecting an attack from the south or south-east. According to the German records, the panzer division was unable to deploy its tanks where they were needed through lack of fuel, and an artillery unit, after firing at the British tanks over open sights, was overrun. The British commander intended to work round the rear of the German force but the increasingly poor visibility and the flooded going prevented much movement, so that night fell with the two groups of tanks still firing at each other.

Away at Bir Khalda, Briggs was still trying to get 1 Armoured Division assembled ready for an advance on Charing Cross, but when his petrol columns were still reported to be many miles to the east, he sent 2 Armoured Brigade off, but without the Bays whose petrol was extremely low. Although not quite so badly affected by the rain as the forces nearer the coast, the brigade made slow time over the broken ground south of Minqar Qaim. At a halt in the late afternoon when it was still east of the Siwa road and some 15 to 20 miles south of Charing Cross, the brigade found that the heavy going had used up most of its petrol so, with the ground becoming increasingly waterlogged, it laagered where it stood. By nightfall elements of 1 Armoured Division were extended from 2 Armoured Brigade, south of Charing Cross, to the divisional headquarters at Bir Khalda, and for many miles to the east, with tanks and trucks out of petrol or stuck in the wet sand.

Wireless communication on 6 November was probably the worst experienced in the campaign. Although the Eighth Army was now well equipped with transmitter/receivers of relatively good quality, so that detached units and supply columns should theoretically have been able to keep in touch with their parent formations, all wireless contacts had suffered for various reasons since the pursuit began. The great distances involved were of course partly responsible, as was interference from the enemy's radios, but the main fault lay in what might be called ‘over-indulgence’; spread out as they were and on the move, everyone in the pursuit forces with a set available—and that included practically every tank, armoured car, supply column, and all the various headquarters, high and low—was either asking for or sending instructions or information all through the day. On this particular day the weather also took a hand, with atmospheric interference which at first was intermittent, apparently preceding each rainstorm, and then in the afternoon became continuous, blotting out reception almost completely in many wireless sets.

ii

If the Eighth Army's pursuit forces found 6 November a trying and exasperating day, for the Panzer Army it was a time of near-panic and depression. As the fighting troops moved back on Matruh, the German commanders realised that this important forward base, with its stores and workshops augmented to congestion by materials brought from further east, would have to be evacuated as quickly as possible. Leading west and south from Matruh there were several routes threading their ways through the uncharted minefields of past campaigns and deep in soft sand through constant use, so that they could not take any great volume of traffic at any speed. As the rain increased these tracks turned into quagmires, forcing all vehicles leaving the area on to the main tarmac road. But this portion of the road, as the New Zealanders had found to their cost in June, was lined on both sides by mines from Matruh to Charing Cross and beyond so that movement off the tarmac at any point was hazardous.

The situation met by the New Zealanders when moving against the Eighth Army's retreat some six months earlier was now to be repeated along this same stretch of the road. Rommel's own account was as follows:

Conditions on the road were indescribable. Columns in complete disorder—partly of German, partly of Italian vehicles—choked the road between the minefields. Rarely was there any movement forward and then everything soon jammed up again. Many vehicles were on tow and there was an acute shortage of petrol….¹

The diaries of the Africa Corps and lower formations offered an even worse picture, of officers in panic, drivers out of control, trucks and guns being demolished and just abandoned to block the narrow road, and of the summary execution of offenders. As the Eighth Army had been saved on this same stretch of road by the Luftwaffe's inability to keep up with Rommel's ground advance, so the Panzer Army was saved by the weather, but to a lesser extent. Although the rain-soaked forward landing grounds put the area out of the range of fighters and fighter-bombers, the Desert Air Force's light bombers made numerous sorties and found occasional breaks in the cloud through which they bombed and machine-gunned the road through Charing Cross.

By this day Rommel, having relinquished any hopes he may have held that some of the lost groups of his army might reappear, could now make a candid accounting of the pitiful handful of fighting men on whom he could rely. To add to his worries, after hearing that

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ships had arrived in Benghazi on 4 November with 5000 tons of petrol, a belated reply to his earlier urgent demands but still welcome, he was then told that nearly half this quantity had been lost through British air attacks. When an envoy from Cavallero appeared, Rommel stated flatly that his available force could do no more than delay the British advance east of the Egyptian frontier. However, his spirits rose when so little happened on 6 November for he wrote, ‘During that day, we succeeded in forming a fairly firm front and beat off all enemy attacks. Although the enemy must have been aware of our weakness, he still continued to operate with great caution.’¹ He then proposed to reorganise his motorised forces to hold Matruh for a few days while defences were prepared at Sollum.

The presence of British armoured car patrols to the south and south-west of Charing Cross had earlier been reported but Rommel discounted this danger. Towards evening, however, a force of tanks, obviously 2 Armoured Brigade, was observed in the same area, and 15 Panzer Division, which had just settled down with its back to the Charing Cross minefields, became worried lest it be outflanked and bottled up. Then, at dusk more bad news arrived in messages from 21 Panzer Division. With petrol drained from all bogged or damaged tanks and trucks, which were then demolished, the division had begun to fall back under cover of darkness from the danger of encirclement by 22 Armoured Brigade. The heavy going caused more vehicles to break down or become bogged, these in turn being demolished or abandoned, and soon the petrol of the remaining vehicles was exhausted. Somehow the division met a supply column carrying fuel and, after an arduous all-night drive, reached the Africa Corps area in the vicinity of Charing Cross by daylight on the 7th. How this journey was accomplished on a night when most other desert traffic was at a standstill remains a mystery, but it left 21 Panzer Division with a total strength of four tanks, a battalion of infantry, and skeleton units of field, anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery, engineers and signals.

iii

For the majority of the men of both armies the night of 6–7 November was memorable for the discomfort it brought. Although the heavy downpours became less frequent as darkness fell, light showers and drizzle persisted throughout the night. In the New Zealand column there were few men who had not already become soaked to the skin in their efforts to push and haul their vehicles

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through the wet sand. Such activity ceased towards last light which, with the heavy clouds above, came early and thoughts turned to food and rest. In the tanks and carriers, the crews improvised covers to keep the rain out and huddled in their seats. The infantry's 3-ton trucks, loaded with reserve ammunition, weapons, water and rations, could offer cover from the rain but little comfort to the men crowded aboard. There were few places on the sodden ground where bivouac tents could be erected. As for a meal, the heavily laden cooks' trucks, following the units they served, were among the first to succumb to the wet sand and were in many cases miles to the rear.

In spite of orders for the conservation of fuel, the lights of many petrol and sand fires flickered through the rain squalls just before blackout time as billies were hastily boiled and reserve rations or hoarded tins from Patriotic Fund parcels produced and shared around. Then, grumbling impartially at the conduct of the war and the weather, the troops retired to whatever cover they had devised from the drips and runnels of rain, and even welcomed being disturbed to take a turn at sentry duty. And at 2 a.m. the Eighth Army put its clocks back an hour.

Dawn on the 7th showed clearing skies but the sand had been too well soaked to dry out quickly. Although tracked vehicles and the lighter types of wheeled vehicles such as jeeps and staff cars were able to move provided they avoided the worst of the wet areas, no formed body of the Eighth Army could move any distance without constant halts to dig and winch out the heavier trucks and guns. Moreover, having used up more than their estimated consumption in attempts to keep going the previous day, most groups were running low in petrol. Replenishment, however, proved difficult, for the New Zealand ASC columns bringing up supplies and the Division's B Echelon trucks which ferried the supplies from the replenishment points to the brigades and units were themselves hampered by the waterlogged going. The main supply column, commanded by Major Bracegirdle,¹ the Division's Senior Supply Officer, had left the Alamein area in the afternoon of the 5th, intending by that evening to set up a replenishment point on the Division's axis south of Galal. Caught up in the still-thick traffic flowing after the pursuit forces, the convoy, which included 5 Field Park Company, 4 Company of 27 Machine Gun Battalion, and a guard of three armoured cars and amounted in all to some 200 vehicles, had not threaded its way out through the enemy's old defence lines by nightfall when the thick dust and the danger of mines and abandoned weapon pits brought it to a halt. Next morning it reached the

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appointed rendezvous, some eighteen hours late, to find only one B Echelon truck waiting to draw supplies. More divisional transport arrived in the afternoon, together with Lieutenant-Colonel Hillier,¹ the Division's AA & QMG. Loaded with 13,700 gallons of petrol as well as water and rations, the B Echelon trucks set off for the Division and, after arranging for another replenishment point for the afternoon of the 7th at a