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The Impact of Terrain on British Operations and Doctrine in North Africa 1940-1943

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The Impact of Terrain on British Operations and Doctrine in North Africa 1940-1943 The impact of terrain on British operations and doctrine in North Africa 1940-1943. A thesis submitted to the Plymouth University in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Humanities Neal Dando Plymouth University January 2014 Copyright Statement This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the author's prior consent. Abstract This thesis focuses on the extent to which the physical terrain features across Egypt, Libya and Tunisia affected British operations throughout the campaign in North Africa during the Second World War. The study analyses the terrain from the operational and tactical perspectives and argues that the landscape features heavily influenced British planning and operations. These should now be considered alongside other standard military factors when studying military operations. This thesis differs from previous studies as it considers these additional factors from June 1940 until the Axis surrender in May 1943. Until now it has been widely assumed that much of the North African coastal sector was a broadly flat, open region in which mobile armoured operations were paramount. However this work concentrates on the British operations to show they were driven by the need to capture and hold key features across each battlefield. At the operational level planning was led by the need to hold key ground in Libya and across the province of Cyrenaica during the crucial middle period of the campaign. A secondary theme of the thesis argues that British forces began to improvise some tactical doctrines, with the initial practice of combined arms altering into Infantry and armour fighting separated battles. Other new developments included the practice of unit dispersal to hold key ground and to engage the enemy using temporary units known as Jock columns. The two themes are inter-linked and contribute fresh insights to the debate on British methods of warfare. The methodology has been to consult key primary documents, reports, war diaries and published memoirs, from major archives across the UK and compare these with the campaign historiography to develop the main arguments. These include the National Archives, the Churchill Archives Centre, the Liddell-Hart Centre for Military History, the National Army Museum, John Rylands Centre, Imperial War Museum at London and Duxford and London and the Tank Museum Archives at Bovington. The sources include unit war diaries, after action reports, along with many of the key 2 published and some unpublished memoirs. The analysis of these two themes will show that key terrain features were a significant influence upon all levels of military planning and operations throughout the campaign. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Dr.G.H.Bennett and Professor Kevin Jefferys, for their unstinting and continuous support throughout this work. Also, I would like to thank other members of staff from the Schools of Humanities and Education at Plymouth University, and Plymouth University Library for their advice and encouragement. I should also like to thank the staff of the following archives for their help in making documents, maps and papers available: The National Archives at Kew, the Imperial War Museums at London and Duxford, the National Army Museum in Chelsea, the Liddell Hart Centre for Military History at KCL London, the John Rylands Library at Manchester University, the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College Cambridge and the Bovington Archives in the Bovington Tank Museum. AUTHOR'S DECLARATION At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award without prior agreement of the Graduate Committee. This study was financed with the aid of a final year scholarship from the School of Humanities and Performing Arts, Plymouth University. 3 Contents Table of Figures ....................................................................................................................................6 Glossary ................................................................................................................................................7 1. Local names and terms ................................................................................................................7 2. Military glossary ...........................................................................................................................7 3. Axis formations and terms ...........................................................................................................9 Chapter 1 Introduction and Literature Review ................................................................................. 11 Chapter 2 Terrain .............................................................................................................................. 29 Chapter 3 Operation Compass to Beda Fomm, December 1940-February 1941. ............................ 46 Chapter 4 The defence of Cyrenaica and the two British Retreats, April 1941 and January-February 1942 .................................................................................................................................................. 64 Chapter 5 Brevity and Battleaxe May-June 1941. ............................................................................ 82 Chapter 6 Operation ‘Crusader’ Oct-Dec 1941. ................................................................................ 98 Chapter 7 Gazala and Tobruk, May-June 1942 ............................................................................... 112 Chapter 8 Mersa Matruh and First Alamein, June-July 1942.......................................................... 129 Chapter 9 Alam Halfa and Second Alamein, 30 August- 4 November 1942. .................................. 142 Chapter 10 Medenine, Mareth, Wadi Akirit and Tunis, March – 13 May 1943. ............................ 155 Chapter 11 Other factors: British doctrine, training, equipment, command, and Intelligence ..... 181 Chapter 12 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 201 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................... 207 Primary sources........................................................................................................................... 207 Secondary sources ...................................................................................................................... 211 Appendix 1British Army unit organisations. ................................................................................... 218 5 Table of Figures Figure 2:1 Egypt and the Libyan frontier. ......................................................................................... 31 Figure 2:2 Egypt and Cyrenaica. ........................................................................................................ 33 Figure 2:3 Tripolitania. ...................................................................................................................... 34 Figure 2:4 Tunisia. ............................................................................................................................. 36 Figure 2:5 The Egyptian frontier sector. ........................................................................................... 40 Figure 3:1 Operation Compass; the assault on the Italian camps. ................................................... 48 Figure 3:2 The Italian Defences at Tobruk, January 1941. ................................................................ 58 Figure 3:3 Sidi Saleh and Beda Fomm, February 1941. .................................................................... 60 Figure 4:1 The First Retreat, April 1941. ........................................................................................... 68 Figure 4:2 The Second Retreat, January 1942. ................................................................................. 75 Figure 5:1. Operation Brevity, 15 May 1941 ..................................................................................... 84 Figure 5:2 Operation Battleaxe 15-17 June 1941. ............................................................................ 89 Figure 6:1 Crusader, Sidi Rezegh, November-December 1941. ...................................................... 101 Figure 7:1 The Gazala line, May-June 1942. ................................................................................... 115 Figure 7:2 Operation Aberdeen, 5-6- June 1942. ........................................................................... 122 Figure 8:1 Map of Matruh defences and minefields, 26 June 1942. .............................................. 131 Figure 8:2 First Alamein, 30 June-27 July 1942. .............................................................................. 136 Figure 9:1 Alam Halfa, 30 August-3 September 1942. .................................................................... 144 Figure 9:2 Second Alamein, 23 October-4 November 1942. .......................................................... 149 Figure 10:1 Medenine, 6 March 1943. ............................................................................................ 158 Figure
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