30 August in military history: the Battle of Alam el Halfa, 1942

30 August 1942 · 84 years ago

New men at El Alamein

General Alexander took over in the Middle East on 15 August. General Gott, chosen for the Eighth Army, died before he could take it up. Playfair, in the British official history, writes that his aircraft was forced down by German fighters; Alexander, that Gott was killed by machine-gun fire on the ground. Lieutenant-General B. L. Montgomery arrived in Egypt on 12 August, Alexander writes; Playfair and the naval officer Eugene Arbogast date his taking command of the Eighth Army to 13 August.¹

Playfair reports Montgomery telling the officers of his headquarters that if the Eighth Army could not stay at El Alamein alive it would stay there dead, and that they would plan the campaign that would "hit Rommel and his army for six right out of Africa".²

Rommel's gamble

Rommel's plan, in Alexander's words, was to break through on the southern flank and then, turning north, "drive to the sea behind 30 Corps and encircle our centre and right". Playfair calls the operation the first phase of a renewed attempt to capture the Suez Canal.³

Alexander had expected the attack on or immediately after 25 August, "the night of the full moon", and writes that the fuel situation caused a delay. Rommel had asked for about 6,000 tons of fuel to reach Libya by dates between 25 and 30 August, Playfair writes; by 29 August only about 1,500 tons had arrived at Tobruk for the army, and he decided to take a chance on a quick success.⁴

Playfair gives the Afrika Korps 203 tanks on 30 August, not counting its Panzer IIs, and the Italians 243 medium tanks, "many of which were almost worn out". Alexander credits the enemy with five hundred medium and light tanks, and 13th Corps with three hundred medium and eighty light tanks.⁵

Mines in the moonlight

Playfair writes that the striking force was to move off at 11 p.m. on 30 August, leaving the Afrika Korps seven hours to cover thirty miles at night over ground known to be mined, a timing he calls "wildly optimistic". Alexander writes that after diversionary attacks on 30 Corps that night, at 0100 hours on 31 August, "shortly after moonrise", the main striking force began to lift the minefields; in the face of two artillery regiments and a motor battalion it took six hours to clear two gaps. The American officer Charles Schwartzman puts its gain by 0930 at only 15 kilometers.⁶

General Nehring, commanding the Afrika Korps, was wounded, and his chief of staff, Bayerlein, took over. Rommel arrived at about 9 a.m., Playfair writes, and after talking with Bayerlein ordered the attack for noon with a shorter wheel, which brought the Afrika Korps opposite the western half of the ridge: "Nothing could have suited the British better". Alexander credits a false "going" map that the British let fall into enemy hands, and writes that from General von Thoma, captured later, "we learned that this ruse had been effective". Playfair finds "no direct evidence" that the map caused the change of plan.⁷

The ridge holds

The German armor moved off in the afternoon, at about 1 p.m. according to Playfair and about 1530 hours according to Alexander, and the attack fell on the 22nd Armoured Brigade near the western end of the ridge. The brigade's Grants and the 6-pounder anti-tank guns of 1st Rifle Brigade waited in dug-in positions, Playfair writes. At dusk the Germans drew off. Over a quarter of their tanks, Alexander writes, "were believed to have been disabled". General von Bismarck of the 21st Panzer Division was killed.⁸

That night, Alexander writes, the Royal Air Force flew over the enemy leaguers continuously; Playfair describes a night of continuous bombing. Of this and the next few nights, Playfair writes, the Afrika Korps recorded that "officers and men were badly shaken" and their fighting capacity considerably reduced by dispersal, lack of sleep and the strain of waiting for the next bomb.⁹

On 1 September the Germans pressed again around the 22nd Armoured Brigade, gaining little. The 21st Panzer Division stayed inactive, probably from lack of petrol, and at about noon, Playfair writes, Rommel announced that he was going over to the defensive. On the morning of 2 September, Playfair writes, he ordered a deliberate withdrawal, and in a report to OKW gave as his reasons, in Playfair's summary, "the shortage of petrol, the bad start, the delay imposed by mines and the incessant air attacks by day and night". Alexander writes that on 2 September Rommel decided to put himself "in a posture of defence" and that, as the day wore on, it was evident to him that he would have to withdraw: "It was the nearest the Germans ever got to the Delta". Schwartzman dates the order to withdraw to 3 September.¹⁰

Closing the gap

On the night of 3 to 4 September the New Zealand Division, with the 132nd Brigade under command, attacked south at 10.30 p.m. to close the minefield gaps behind the enemy. The 5th New Zealand Brigade took its objective, but the 132nd Brigade failed, and the infantry were withdrawn the next night. Playfair gives the losses as 275 officers and men for the New Zealanders and 697 killed, wounded and missing for the 132nd Brigade.¹¹

By the evening of 5 September, Alexander writes, the enemy's withdrawal had brought him back to the area of the British minefields, and at 0700 hours on 7 September the battle was called off, leaving Rommel a strip of ground that included the peak of Himeimat. Playfair writes that by 7 September the battle had died down; Montgomery chose not to retake Himeimat, leaving the enemy a vantage point from which to watch bogus preparations.¹²

Counting the cost

Playfair gives German losses in the week's fighting as 1,859 killed, wounded and missing and Italian losses as 1,051, with 38 German tanks destroyed and 11 Italian tanks lost; and British casualties as 1,750, with 67 tanks and 15 anti-tank guns put out of action. Alexander counts 42 German and 11 Italian tanks and nearly 700 motor vehicles abandoned on the field, estimates the enemy's killed and wounded at 2,000 Italians and 2,500 Germans, with 300 taken prisoner, and gives British losses as 68 tanks and 1,640 killed, wounded and missing.¹³

Alexander saw more in the battle than its statistics: "It was the last throw of the German forces in Africa, their last chance of a victory before, as they calculated, our increasing strength would make victory for them impossible". Playfair writes that to the Axis the battle seemed to end their hopes of reaching the Delta, while the Eighth Army's confidence rose to new heights. The Australian War Memorial London website writes that strong British defenses forced Rommel onto the defensive. The Second Battle of El Alamein began on 23 October. It is told in our article on the Battle of El Alamein, and the two commanders are compared in Montgomery vs Rommel.¹⁴

Also on 30 August: Second Manassas, 1862

In Virginia, on the third day of the Second Battle of Manassas (Second Bull Run), John Pope ordered a pursuit just before noon, wrongly concluding, the National Park Service writes, that the Confederates were retreating; Fitz-John Porter's Union corps was then thrown back at the "Deep Cut". Robert E. Lee writes that Longstreet, "anticipating the order for a general advance, now threw his whole command against the Federal center and left".¹⁵

Union troops made a final stand on Henry Hill, where the fighting ended at dark, the park service writes; Lee writes that the pursuit went on until 10 p.m., when darkness put an end to it. That night Pope wrote to Halleck from Centreville: "We have had a terrific battle again to-day", adding: "The enemy is badly crippled, and we shall do well enough. Do not be uneasy". The park service gives the battle's cost as 14,462 Union casualties and 9,474 Southerners who "had fallen". The first battle at Manassas, in July 1861, is told in our article on the First Battle of Bull Run.¹⁶