Both sides had wasted themselves racing back and forth and were, for the moment, incapable of further action. Although Rommel and his command had shown a satisfying level of aggression, something the entire officer corps understood, most of them saw his drive to the Egyptian border as a misfire. On November 24, he scrounged up every tank he could find and ordered a raid deep into the British rear. Wait? As a young man Rommel's father had been a lieutenant in the artillery. Captain Daniel Inouye witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor and overcame discrimination to serve his country in war and peace. The army’s intelligence chief, Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin, was wasting away with amoebic dysentery. It failed, coming to grief against British defenses on the Ruweisat ridge. SGS Afrika Korps recreates the campaigns and battles of Erwin ‘Desert Fox’ Rommel’s legendary Afrika Korps, in Libya between 1941 and 1942. It was a solid block of armor nearly fifteen miles on a side stood on the British flank. He was Hitler's fair-haired boy, a young officer repeatedly promoted over more senior candidates. On the Gazala line, however, Rommel would finally win a real victory, not the meaningless to and fro of the “Benghazi sweepstakes.” On May 26, 1942, Panzerarmee Afrika went over to the offensive, a frontal assault by the Italian infantry divisions to pin the British in place. Half the unit had been given some well-earned rest and recreation and the men were swimming in Tobruk harbor that fateful morning. News reports—vetted by the little doctor himself—marveled over Rommel’s good looks, his “high, smooth forehead, a strong energetic nose, prominent cheekbones.” During the 1940 campaign through France and the Low Countries, the media coined a new verb for overrunning your opponent, Rommeln (“to Rommel”), and when the action shifted to the desert, they claimed that rommel was actually an old Arabic word for “sand.” (Untrue.) He led from the front, braved enemy fire, and turned off his radio from time to time rather than risk receiving orders to halt. The Ariete Armored Division and the infantry divisions of X Corps (Bologna and Pavia) lunged east from central Libya through Cyrenaica (the eastern coastal region of Libya), attempting to reach the Egyptian border in one bound. An amazing feat, to be sure, but may we not legitimately ask, 600 miles to where? Finally, at Agedabia he smashed the British defenders (elements of the green 2nd Armoured Division, equipped partially with captured Italian M13/40 tanks), pinning them in front with the infantry of 5th Light Division while dispatching his panzers on a ride around the open desert flank to the south, the first use of a tactic that would become his signature. It calls forth a war of near-absolute mobility, where tanks could operate very much like ships at sea, “sailing” where they wished, setting out on bold voyages hundreds of miles into the deep desert, then looping around the enemy flank and emerging like pirates of old to deal devastating blows to an unsuspecting foe. Two hastily marshaled attempts to storm Tobruk went badly wrong. Supply became not just a problem, but the problem. There is no more evocative phrase to emerge from World War II than Afrika Korps. It should not be surprising, then, that Rommel soon turned the tables on the Allies once again. A chronic shortage of potable water had put thousands of soldiers on the sick rolls. BY THE END of their approach march, the massive force was perched on the British left flank, and the opening of the attack came as near to the Platonic ideal of “surprise” as any operation in the war. There is no more evocative phrase to emerge from World War II than Afrika Korps. Then, 22nd Armoured Brigade, attempting to ride to the relief of 4th Armoured, also went down in flames. No other German general ever held his own press conference, as Rommel agreed to do in early October 1942. Josef Goebbels and his propaganda machine had a job to do. To the east, near Bir Gubi, lay the 7th Motorised Brigade. With British forces stripped away from Africa to fight an exceedingly ill-advised campaign in Greece, he carried out a quick personal reconnaissance in his trusty Fieseler Fi 156C Storch airplane, then launched an offensive with his Italian partners. While it would be easy to view all these illnesses as simple bad luck, they were, in fact, the price Rommel and all the rest of them were paying for fighting an overseas expeditionary campaign with inadequate resources. Adolf Hitler ordered the establishment of a German expeditionary force in North Africa in January 1941, following Italian defeats in Tobruk and Benghazi, at the request of the Italians, who had refused an early German offer for military assistance. The rest of the division was still en route to Africa, and a second division, the 15th Panzer, would not arrive in full until the end of May. He was actually seeing Italian tanks of the Ariete division, but it was early in the morning so we can forgive Fi-lose his imprecision. Finally, when he was no longer useful for any purpose at all, the regime dropped him altogether and eventually killed him. The bulk and strength of the majority of Bolt Action armies are its core infantry blocks. Or command the 8th Army soldiers, the famous Desert Rats, to repel the invaders. towards their own starting positions, in order to open up a supply line. He was Hitlers fair-haired boy, a young officer repeatedly promoted over more senior candidates. That leaves us with Rommel. This time, it was the well supplied British on the attack, however, and they managed to smash through the Panzerarmee and drive Rommel and company back, not hundreds of miles, but more than a thousand, out of the desert altogether and into Tunisia. This one, however, suddenly clarified into something worse: tanks, tanks, and more tanks, vehicles of every description, sailing out of the dust. This one, however, suddenly clarified itself into something worse:  tanks, tanks, and more tanks, vehicles of every description, sailing out of the dust. The British rear was in chaos. On April 6, a German motorcycle patrol captured the British commander in Cyrenaica, Lieutenant General Philip Neame, as well as Lieutenant General Richard O’Connor, the victor of Beda Fomm. In the next two weeks Rommel reconquered Cyrenaica. A regiment-size task force, Group Marcks, got around its right flank near the coast, while the mass of Afrika Korps looped around the left. German start strength was 42,210. Halt? Germany also did not defend Sicily and instead Axis evacuated it, which resulted in toppling of Mussolini, opening of Italian front and start of Italian civil war. It was, one of them said, “the whole of Rommel's command in full cry straight for us.” The same thing happened on both flanks of Retma. The manpower was breaking down. Article after article in the German press equated Rommel with the great Prussian-German captains of the past. For the next 18 months the DAK, … In France, Rommel had behaved more like an 18th-century hussar cut loose on a raiding mission than a divisional commander. During the war, Rommel and the Afrika Korps acquired a reputation for invincibility. In the course of this wild ride the Panzers  overran, in quick succession, the headquarters of the XXX Corps, 7th Armoured Division, 1st South African Division, and the 7th Armoured Brigade, unleashing panic as he went.15 Ultimately, however, the drive to the wire was yet another drive to nowhere, and had little impact on the operational situation. Deutsches Afrika Korps Corps Troops The following troops were not assigned to any division, but rather were German corps-level assets. All default options, except limited dice chess being on. Ultimately, however, the drive to the wire was yet another drive to nowhere, and had little impact on the operational situation. He was real—not just sizzle but steak. The name conjures up a unique theater of war, a hauntingly beautiful empty quarter where armies could roam free, liberated from towns and hills, choke points and blocking positions, and especially those pesky civilians. Colonel Siegfried Westphal, the Panzerarmee’s operations chief (the “Ia,” in German parlance), was yellow with jaundice. Rommel instead got the Iron Cross, and it would be the same in Africa. Yes, the reader might respond, but surely we are on firmer ground with regard to his military skill. info@nationalww2museum.org With the German Afrika Korps driving toward the Suez Canal in July 1942, heroic resistance by a small band of Indian soldiers and anti-tank gunners stopped Rommel in his tracks, setting the stage for the climactic battle of El Alamein. Rommel, he wrote, “storms around all day long with formations strewn all over the place.” The man had apparently “gone insane.” And there was some justice to the complaint. It was a marvelous improvisation, and enough to flummox the British, who far preferred to fight on one front at a time rather than three. In both war and peace, Baker served as an inspirational leader for the soldiers that served under his command and for generations to come. Once past the initial shock, however, Eighth Army dug in its heels and took advantage of an underappreciated piece of equipment. By the end of their approach march, all of them were perched on the British left flank, and the opening of the attack came as near to the Platonic ideal of “surprise” as any operation in the war. This piece originally appeared in MHQ magazine, Summer 2012. There were many in the German high command, including the chief of the General Staff Franz Halder, who didn't much appreciate Rommel running amok, but as one analyst put it, “it was impossible to court martial such a successful general, so Rommel instead got the Ritterkreuz.". Rommel’s second offensive bore quick fruit. Striding into the room in front of the international press, he placed his hand on the door handle and declared, “Today we stand 100 kilometers from Alexandria and Cairo and have the gates of Egypt in hand.” And that 1941 movie, Victory in the West? That they would eventually succumb in the long run to two world empires--one (the British) waning, one (the Americans) just beginning to wax--should equally surprise no one. Finally, it implies a dauntless hero, in this case Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, a noble commander who fought the good fight, who hated Adolf Hitler and everything he stood for, and who couldn’t have been further from our stereotype of the Nazi fanatic. Manpower was breaking down. Anyone who expected Rommel to ease up on the throttle clearly hadn’t been paying attention. At “Third Alamein,” General Bernard Law Montgomery spearheaded his offensive with another technological marvel, at least by desert standards, the U.S. M4 Sherman. In the course of this wild ride, his panzers overran, in quick succession, the headquarters of the XXX Corps, 7th Armoured Division, 1st South African Division, and the 7th Armoured Brigade, unleashing panic as he went. Instead, the Panzerarmee vaulted across the border into Egypt with virtually no preparation. Sure, it was ungainly and clumsy, and yes, it really did present a monstrous 9-foot, 3-inch tall target profile to German fire. Unfortunately, this section is the most disappointing since there is no real discussion of artillery or engineer equipment, although they clearly played a major role at Gazala and El Alamein. But in his relationship with the media, his “almost American sense of public relations,” as one biographer put it, he was exactly what Goebbels once called him: a truly modern general. It failed, coming to grief against British defenses on the Ruweisat Ridge, but made a second, more deliberate, attempt in August. In November 1941, the British Eighth Army, led by General Sir Alan Cunningham, launched Operation Crusader, an attempt to relieve Tobruk (although to say that the tiny port was “under siege” is yet another example of myth making in the desert war). The German Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) had decided to send a "blocking force" (Sperrverband) to Libya to support the Italian army. That leaves us with Rommel. Last year’s “fortress” was now virtually undefended, and the Panzers overran it in a sin-gle day, slicing the unfortunate 2nd South African Division to ribbons. To his admirers, Field Marshal Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel had shown a flash of his old form in Tunisia. The core of his defense—the two Panzer divisions of the Afrika Korps—amounted to only 9,000 men at full strength, and combat had withered that number to little more than 2,000. By April 11th, the Germans had surrounded the coastal fortress of Tobruk while smaller formations pressed on to the east, taking Bardia and reaching the Egyptian border at Sollum and Ft. Capuzzo. Both sides spent the summer rebuilding, replacing, and reinforcing, but by and large, the British were able to do it more rapidly. Nazi propaganda painted him as a battlefield hero and a model National Socialist and Aryan, a man who could overcome stronger enemies through sheer force of will. Captured British stores and vehicles had become its life-blood, Canadian Ford trucks in particular. A chronic shortage of potable water had put thousands of soldiers on the sick rolls. A regimental-sized task force, Group Marcks, got around its right flank near the coast, while the mass of Afrika Korps looped around the left. It was even easier than the first time, perhaps the greatest hussar raid of all time. Wait? HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. Other articles where Afrika Korps is discussed: logistics: Staged resupply: In 1941–42 the German Afrika Korps in Libya was supplied across the Mediterranean through the small port of Tripoli and eastward over a single coastal road that had no bases or magazines and was exposed to enemy air attack—a distance of up to 1,300 miles, depending on the location… He led from the front, braved enemy fire on numerous occasions, and turned off his radio from time to time rather than risk receiving orders to rein himself in. Afrika Korps recreates the campaigns and battles of Erwin ‘Desert Fox’ Rommel’s legendary Afrika Korps, in Libya between 1941 and 1942. Rommel's Afrika Korps Tobruk to El Alamein Pier Paolo Battistelli ... Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK), still under strength and led by an anonymous general, swept through Cyrenaica as far as the Egyptian border. His career had been based solely on Hitlers favor, and we might reasonably describe his attitude toward the führer as worshipful. Here, the hyper-movement of the desert war ground to a halt. He starred in it and actually helped direct it. It isn’t easy, but we must strip this entire operational sequence of the romance and legend in which we have wrapped it. The famous Afrika Korps of the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions was a fine example of the expertise in armoured warfare of the German Army. With his tank strength near zero and his (largely Italian) infantry well blooded, he had no choice but to retreat back to where he had start-ed, El Agheila. Unless the British were destroyed altogether, they would always be able to reinforce to a level the Axis could not match. Both brigades, along with the Retma box, were overwhelmed in the opening minutes with very little fighting. He was not apolitical. Its commander, Brigadier A. In the next two weeks Rommel reconquered Cyrenaica. Honus Wagner, baseball shortstop known as "The Flying Dutchman.". 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 Rommel had an official of the German propaganda ministry on his own staff in Africa, Lieutenant Alfred Berndt, who directed photographers, suggested poses for Rommel, and fed heroic prose to magazines and the ministry. Finally, it implies a bold hero, in this case Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, a noble commander who fought the good fight, who hated Hitler and everything he stood for, and who couldn’t have been farther away from our stereotyped image of the Nazi fanatic. The Afrika Korps had come a long way, but now sat precariously on the edge of nowhere. He’d won a Pour le Mérite (the famed Blue Max) for a series of nail-biting mountain exploits in the 1917 Caporetto campaign, among them the demolition of Italian forces many times the size of his own at the battle of Mt. It was an amazing scene. Subsequent operations deserve the same cold eye. This was low-intensity fighting of the Kampfgruppen variety, without a fully formed division in sight. Smashing Eighth Army at Gazala and taking tens of thousands of prisoners at Tobruk did little to solve Rommel’s strategic problem. The 13-page section on weapons and equipment focuses on tanks, infantry weapons, AT/AA guns and other vehicles used by the Afrika Korps. Robert Citino, PhD, Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy and the Samuel Zemurray Stone Senior Historian... Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, History, Imperialism, and Revolution: C.L.R. Soon the panzers broke out, fighting a swirling action around the nondescript terrain feature known as Knightsbridge and driving on Tobruk. Rommel arrived in February 1941 with fairly mundane orders to act as a Sperrband, a “blocker” to bolster the Italians after their mauling at Beda Fomm. On April 6th, a German motorcycle patrol actually captured the British commander in Cyrenaica, General Philip Neame, as well as General Richard O'Connor, the victor of Beda Fomm. Finally, he smashed the British defenders at Agedabia (elements of the green 2nd Armoured Division, equipped partially with captured Italian M13/40 tanks), pinning them in front with the infantry of 5th Light Division while dispatching his Panzers on a ride around the open desert flank to the south, the first use of a tactic that would become his signature move. No other German general posed so willingly for so many photographs, always in a position of command, standing in the “unbuttoned” turret of a tank, or pointing to the far horizon. The army’s intelligence chief (the “Ic”), Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin, was wasting away with amoebic dysentery. Indeed, the Nazis even made a movie about those 1940 exploits, Victory in the West. Many later analysts argue that the Panzerarmee should have paused at this point, waited until some sort of combined airborne-naval operation had been launched against Malta to improve the logistics, and only then acted. These three tiny encounters, none exceeding regimental strength, were enough to unhinge the entire British defensive position in Cyrenaica. Now, in a logic-defying repeat late in 1941, the British had again shipped out of Africa more veteran troops to shore up Britain’s collapsing position in the Far East, which was reeling from a series of Japanese hammer blows. Germany evacuates Afrika Korps and decides to defend Sicily in strength, how would Mediterranean theater of WW2 be different? James and Fascist Italy’s Invasion of Ethiopia, Forgotten Fights: Stopping Rommel at Ruweisat Ridge, July 1942, Medal of Honor Recipient Vernon Baker: "Set the Example", Forgotten Fights: Malta's Faith, Hope, and Charity, 1940, Forgotten Fights: The Battle of Deir ez-Zor, July 1941, Medal of Honor Recipient Daniel Inouye Led a Life of Service to His Country, Forgotten Fights: Strike on Taranto, November 1940, Louisiana Spotlight: Corporal Albert Porche, 99th Fighter Squadron. The same might be said for the rest of the campaign. Unfortunately, practically all of it is a fabrication. There was still fighting to be done in Africa, but the “desert war” was over. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. Delva "Afrika Corps Lost Liquor" Special Brand. The British didn’t collapse as Rommel expected them to. The contents of which are some of the near 250,000 gallons of whisky, discovered along with stores of Cognac, Rum and Gin by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps in a wine cellar in North Africa during the early stages of World War 2. To Rommel, to his men, and even to Hitler and Mussolini, it must have looked as though a great victory lay just over the next horizon: Cairo, Alexandria, the Suez Canal, the British Empire itself. One column headed up the coast road towards Benghazi, while two more sliced across the Cyrenaican bulge, scooping up a mountain of British supplies at Msus and Mechili. The courageous volunteer pilots of three obsolete British biplanes nicknamed Faith, Hope, and Charity engaged enemy raiders in combat over Malta in June 1940. There was an iron logic at work, and neither side could escape its grip. Their campsites were filthy. Rommel’s bold decision to break contact and surge deep into the British rear (the “drive to the wire” on the Egyptian border) was an exciting moment, to be sure. He penetrated British defenses at El Agheila on March 24th, then drove on to Mersa el Brega on March 31st, pausing only long enough to take (and ignore) a number of radio messages from Berlin and Rome warning him not to do anything rash. The Wehrmacht would boast of its Kampfkraft until the end of the war, but it would look increasingly hapless in the face of the materiel and logistical superiority of its combined enemies. Once past the initial shock, however, 8th Army dug in its heels. When he was no longer useful, the regime put him on the back burner for much of 1943 and then, after he was tenuously linked to the July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, forced him to kill himself. Syria became a battleground in July 1941, when British forces launched an invasion to secure their hold on the Middle East. It was, one British soldier said, “the whole of Rommel’s command in full cry straight for us.” The same thing happened on both flanks of Retma. The Gazala-Tobruk sequence was the greatest victory of Rommel’s career, not merely a triumph on the tactical level but an operational-level win, a victory that even General Halder could love. The British torpedo bomber strike on the Italian naval base of Taranto in November 1940 changed the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and set the stage for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. At “Third Alamein,” General Bernard Law Montgomery spearheaded his decisive offensive with another technological marvel, at least by desert standards, the U.S. M4 Sherman. It was not to be. Coming on the heels of the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, the loss of Tobruk seemed to herald the collapse of the British Empire. Within minutes of the German eruption onto the British flanks, one panzer after another was being drilled at seemingly impossible ranges, and soon Rommel’s attack ground to a halt. Recovering from a 1,500-mile retreat from El Alamein in November 1942, he unleashed his Afrika Korps on the newly arrived U.S. Army in mid-February 1943 and crashed through Kasserine Pass, administering a shocking defeat to the green American troops and their … There was a second, more deliberate, attempt in August. More than 14,000 African American men served in the US Army Air Forces in segregated units during World War II. By April 11, the Germans had surrounded the Libyan coastal fortress of Tobruk while smaller formations pressed on to the east, taking Bardia and reaching the Egyptian border at Sollum and Ft. Capuzzo. To his admirers, Field Marshal Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel had shown a flash of his old form in Tunisia. WHEN ROMMEL ARRIVED in Africa, he brought with him a fully realized art of war. Indeed, for all the fame it had brought Rommel in the world press, this first campaign won him few friends among command echelons in Berlin. At the beginning of the battle, Rommel himself was on convalescent. His force was appropriately tiny: the reconnaissance battalion and an antitank detachment of the 5th Light Division (soon renamed the 21st Panzer Division). Placing Rommel and his elite Afrika Korps to the fore allows us to view the desert war as a clean fight against a morally worthy opponent. EVEN HERE, however, let us be honest. The famous Afrika Korps of the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions was a fine example of the expertise in armoured warfare of the German Army. The point is not to smash any particular idols, but rather to restore some balance to a discussion that has been sorely in need of it. To Rommel, to his men, and even to Hitler and Mussolini, it must have looked like a great victory lay just over the next horizon: Cairo, Alexandria, the Suez Canal, the British Empire itself. Rommel's Afrika Korps Tobruk to El Alamein Pier Paolo Battistelli ... Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK), still under strength and led by an anonymous general, swept through Cyrenaica as far as the Egyptian border. The contents of which are some of the near 250,000 gallons of whisky, discovered along with stores of Cognac, Rum and Gin by Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps in a wine cellar … The very presence of an unconquered Tobruk rendered the drive across the desert pointless. Having German Panzers prowling around in the rear was enough to send 1st Armoured reeling back. It was even easier than the first time, perhaps the greatest hussar raid of all time. It was an amazing scene. He drove forward so rapidly that the 7th Panzer became known as the “ghost division” for its tendency to drop off situation maps and reappear where least expected. Afrika Korps Veterans In 2009 I made contact with Afrika-Korps Historian Bernd Peitz. To the east, near Bir Gubi, lay the 7th Motorised Brigade. The division consisted of over 400 tanks—more than the stock of the entire Deutsche Afrika Korps (DAK). During the years of victory, the German propaganda machine used him as an example to the nation. In the Easter Battle (April 10–14) and the Battle of the Salient (April 30–May 4), the defenders of the 9th Australian Division hung tough. During the war, Rommel and the Afrika Korps acquired a reputation for invincibility. At Gazala, those American Grant tanks had been the margin of survival for the British Eighth Army, even after the awful shock of the opening. Here, too, we should challenge the mythology. Rommel had both older and younger broth… An iron logic was at work, and neither side could escape its grip. By now, they’d all seen strange weather patterns and storms blow up out of nowhere. Such arguments ignore the dynamic of the desert battle, however; they ignore the morale imperative of keeping a victorious army in motion; above all they ignore the personality of Rommel himself. Unit Strength Panzergruppe Afrika 406 tanks thDeutsches Afrika Korps (15 Panzer Division and 21st Panzer Division) 260 tanks (15 Panzer I, 40 Panzer II, 150 Panzer III, 55 Panzer IV L/24, 154 Italian tanks) Special Purpose Division Afrika (renamed 90th Light Africa Division) thItalian 55 Infantry Division “Savona”

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