241: Operation Compass

Description

The British finally launch Operation Compass, turning a planned raid into a sweeping assault on Italy’s fortified camps west of the Egyptian border. We follow the deception, night moves, and Matilda-led attack that cracked Nibeiwa and left Italian defenses reeling.

As victories pile up, commanders debate how far to exploit the breakthrough before fuel and supply lines run dry—a dilemma that will shape the rest of the desert war.

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Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Second World War Episode 241 - North Africa 1940 - Operation Compass. This week a big thank you goes out to Georgeta for supporting the podcast by becoming members. Members get access to ad-free versions of all of the podcast’s episode plus special member only episodes roughly once a month. Head on over to historyofthesecondworldwar.com/members to find out more. During the second week of December the first major British offensive in North Africa during the Second World War would begin. Its goal was to attack against a series of Italian fortified camps that they had constructed in the aftermath of their own attack from the Libyan border to Sidi Barrani. The opening phases of the attack would be success beyond anything that the British could have hoped for, and in fact the attack was so successful that the objectives were extended out beyond what was originally planned. Before the attack began Wavell would write back to London that “I am not entertaining extravagant hopes of this operation, but I do wish to make certain that if a big opportunity occurs we are prepared morally, mentally and administratively to use it to the fullest.”. But as with all desert offensives during the early war years, there were logistical limits to what could be accomplished and as the British outran their supplies they would begin to have some serious challenges. These challenges would only be encountered after the opening phases of the attack, which will be the focus of this episode today.

For the attack the British were able to bring together the 7th Armored and 4th Indian Divisions. The total manpower was around 36,000, at least for those that would be actively committed to the attack. Both of the divisions had been built up to their establishment strength in the weeks before the attack was launched. Along with the two divisions there were several important pieces of what could be considered Corps level assets that were committed to the attack, including artillery and 48 Matilda infantry support tanks. These resources would be critical given the nature of the Italian positions and the task that was being asked of the attack which was to assault prepared Italian camps where the artillery and armor would be invaluable. As discussed last episode, the Matildas were mostly safe from anything that the Italians had unless they were unlucky enough to be hit by a large artillery shell. And in the case of attacking the camps they would also not be hindered by their slow top speed, since their targets were completely stationary. The Italians were able to bring more resources to bear than the attackers, but critically those resources were spread out along the front instead of being concentrated like the British units were. The Italian units could also not be easily shifted from one camp to another while combat was ongoing, which presented the British with the ability to defeat each of the Italian formations in detail, which is exactly what they planned to do.

Extreme measures were taken to try and maintain secrecy in the weeks and months before the attack. Leaks were a major concern for the British leaders due to the known presence of many Italian intelligence assets within Egypt, and this prompted the decision that nothing about the attack would be committed to paper until just a few days before the attack was scheduled to begin. Many of the long running preparations were then explained away for other reasons. For example the creation of forward supply dumps was simply explained as efforts made to bolster the British defensive capabilities, which was not a bad lie. There were certain preparations for which no excuse could be found and so in many cases the decision was made to simply not do some typical tasks . The medical services were not notified and prepared to accept the expected casualties during the attack, a clear sacrifice on the alter of secrecy. Some of the secrecy also extended among the British leaders, with the officer in charge of leading the attack, General O’Connor, not even realizing what the possible scope of the attack really was. The original plan had been for a quick raid that would not take more than a few days, but then only days before the start date he learned that if things went well he would be expected to continue the attack forward. This completely changed what the preparations should have been for the attack, but by the beginning of December it was too late to change the course of those preparations.

As the final written orders began to be distributed various units began to move into position. One of the first units to get the final orders for the attack were the 7th Royal Tank Regiment which was equipped with some of those Matildas. They had to have early warning because it would take some time for them to move to the front, arrive at a supply depot to replenish supplies, before then moving to their final jumping off points. They would actually end up arriving near the front about 2 days before the attack began, giving them plenty of time not just to restock consumables but also to get a bit of rest and maintenance. On December 7th all of the forces involved in the attack started moving, with the most important groups moving into position near the Enba Gap from where they would launch their attacks. Because of the generally limited roads in the area, and the size of the British units involved, a tremendous amount of dust was created by the long lines of British troops on the move. In total there were 5,000 vehicles moving around 100 kilometers, and the length of the columns were very long, many kilometers. All along the front they would stop at certain intervals to pull from pre positioned Field Supply Depots which were put in place specifically to extend the range of the vehicles involved, which was critical for some of the tanks which had very short actions ranges. There were Italian aircraft in the air, and at least one of them spotted the British units, but their report seems to have been ignored, or at the very least was not immediately acted upon. As the clock approached midnight on December 8th some units were moving towards their final jumping off points. Over the following hours some of the most critical units would advance out towards the Italian lines, with for example the 7th Royal Tank Regiment and the 11th Infantry Brigade of the 4th Indian Division moving out into the Enba Gap to move into their attack positions to the south and west of the Nibeiwa camp. At the same time RAF bombers focused their attacks on Nibeiwa in an effort to distract the Italian defenders, with the goal of forcing them to keep their heads down and to prevent them from hearing the British columns as they advanced.

For the Nibeiwa Camp the general plan for the British attack was for some units of the 7th Armored Division to move to the west of the camp to cut it off from the possibility of Italian reinforcements. This would be done by moving units of the 11th Hussars as far forward as possible before the attack and then they would quickly race to the Sidi-Barrani-Sollum road which was used by the Italians to move forces around their positions. At the same time the infantry tanks and infantry would launch an attack directly into the camp, supported heavily by artillery. Throughout the early morning hours the various units that would be involved in the assault would move into position, with the goal of attacking from multiple different angles simultaneously. Importantly there was a gap in the minefields around the camp which had been identified before the attack, and it was through this gap that the majority of the armor support would pass. The artillery fire would begin at around 7AM in the morning, with a maximum effort 10 minute barrage by guns primarily from the 4th Indian Division. In the Italian camps breakfast was generally served around 7:30, which meant that at the time of the artillery some units were preparing breakfast while others were just getting ready to eat. The intensity of the artillery fire came as a serious shock to the Italian forces, and for many this was the first time that they had been on the receiving end of such a violent barrage. The Matildas started forward at around 7:25AM, after have seen the artillery hit the Italian positions in what looked like a terrific bit of artillery fire. They would move forward with the intention of attacking the various Italian positions in their path, including several Italian tanks that were positioned on the southwest side of the camp. They would dispatch these quite quickly, and then they would move into the camp. There was simply nothing that the Italian forces could do against the British tanks, and so they were free to just continue to exist int he camps and use their machine guns against anything that moved. There were also instances of the tanks just physically destroying some Italian guns and defensive positions by running over them. This lasted for about 15 minutes before the British infantry joined into the attack, moving forward on tracked infantry carriers and trucks. By the time they arrived the Italian defenses were in shambles and the action more closely resembled a mopping up exercise rather than an actual attack. It only took about an hour total for every Italian in the camp to either be killed or to surrender.

For the Italians it had been a disaster, with somewhere around 600 dead and almost 3,000 captured. And it had only cost the British around 56 total casualties, with the bulk of those suffering only light wounds. It could not have gone better for the British, or worse for the Italians. In retrospect there might have been things that the Italians could have done to protect themselves better from the attack. More minefields, being better prepared to cover them with fire to prevent the easy movement of British forces. But in reality, the camp was taken almost completely by surprise so it is unlikely that there was an easy change that could have been made to their preparations that would have changed the result. It is a great example of how important tactical surprise could be when attacking an enemy in a prepared defensive position. One thing of note was that, while the Italian arms had not preformed very well, apparently they had really good food? . This comes to us form Alan Moorehead, a journalist that would be among the first group of civilians allowed into the camp after its capture. He would later write that: “We sat down on the open sand and ate from stores of bottled cherries and greengages; great tins of frozen hams and anchovies; bread that had been baked somehow here in the desert; and wines from Frascati and Falemo and Chianti, red and white, and Lacrimae Christi from the slopes of Vesuvius above Naples.”. The British forces would take advantage of this as well, and they would also rummage through the Italian stores and equipment to take advantage of anything useful. This included large items like trucks, which were invaluable no matter who originally made them, but also smaller items with the Italian aluminum water bottles apparently being highly sought after with some being in use even years later.

While the destruction of Nibeiwa was underway, to the west the 4th Armored Brigade was moving in on the Sidi Barrani-Sollum road, and up to that point they had experienced no Italian resistance. They would reach the road at around 9AM, at which point they would capture 8 Italian trucks carrying soldiers back to the West. The British would be forced to retreat a few minutes later, with the British armored cars coming under fire from a few Italian anti-tank guns, but they were still serving their purpose of disrupting Italian traffic on the road. There were other British forces on the move as well, as the 5th Indian Brigade, loaded up in trucks and other vehicles moved past Nibeiwa on their way to attack the Italians at Tummar West which was located to the north of Nibeiwa. As many Matildas as possible would also be on the move, with 6 of them left behind due to mechanical issues. The British plan for Tummar West was very similar to Nibeiwa, at least partially because they were organized in a very similar way. There was anti-tank ditch, a low wall with machine guns posts, and the usual collection of Italian armor and artillery. At about 1:30PM the artillery would begin firing on the camp and the attack would move forward. On the Italian side, they were at least less surprised by the British attack on this second camp, with warnings have been sent out to all of the camps warning of a possible British attack. There was still the problem of the Matildas, who moved forward about 20 minutes before the infantry to begin their crawl of destruction for a second time during the day. There were some lucky shots in Tummar West from Italian anti-aircraft guns, which were able to use their high muzzle velocities to jam Matilda turrets if the shells it at exactly the right spot. But the damage that was done did nothing to diminish the firepower of the tank, just made it a bit more difficult to use that firepower without being able to traverse the turret. The tanks were able to destroy gun after gun though, even if it was a slightly slower process. The infantry would then join in the attack about 20 minutes after the tanks had entered the camp. They were actually quite surprised by the stout Italian defenses at the camp. Unlike at Nibeiwa where the Italians were completely disorganized, at Tummar West they had been able to man and prepare their perimeter defenses which were not completely destroyed by the tank attack. This meant that when the infantry moved forward they found themselves under fire from both infantry and machine guns. The Italian positions were neutralized one after another though, and without the ability to answer the Matildas the Italian defenses would only be able to hold out for so long. At about 4PM, just a few hours after the start of the attack the final resistance in side Tummar West was extinguished. A final effort was made against Tummar East as well, which was, you guessed it East of Tummar East, but by the time the tanks got rolling with the available infantry support the exhaustion of all involved was clear . The attack would be called off shortly after it began, but it would not matter because the garrison in Tummar East would surrender the next day. Importantly for any future British efforts, the attacks on the three camps had caused almost all of the Matildas to be out of action, not generally by anything that the Italians did, but simply due to mechanical issues. Only 10 of the original 47 were available for action at the end of the day, although frantic efforts would begin to bring more back into the fight the next day.

After the neutralization of Tummar West and East, the next target for the British attack was Sidi-Barrani, which was further to the north and along the coast. This would be the target of the 4th Armored Brigade, which was already moving as the camps were being attacked. On the Italian side, Gariboldi, the commander of all Italian forces in Egypt, was in a very difficult position. The camps were clearly lost, and while he did have a mobile reserve, it was over 100 kilometers away to the west and was not really equipped or ready to meet a British armored unit in battle. While this was a problem, the greater problem was simply that there were so many British units essentially just wandering around behind Italian lines. This made it incredibly hard not just to defeat them and drive them off but just to put together a coherent defense. Gariboldi quickly came to the conclusion that the only option available was to start pulling back any forces that could possibly retreat, because if they didn’t then they would be cut off and surrounded and forced to surrender. But before this retreat could be ordered the British were already attacking Sidi-Barrani, threatening to cut off all of the Italian forces that were still to the east. This attack was launched on the morning of December 10th, even though the bulk of the British artillery and heavier tanks had not arrived. This meant that the attack was mostly just launched by infantry in trucks and some light reconnaissance vehicles. This was due to the decision made by the commander on the scene, Brigadier General Lomax of the 16th British Brigade, that speed was more important than preparation given the previous attacks and the possibility that the Italians were using any available time to bolster their defense.

This decision almost led to disaster, because as the infantry got moving, and when they had covered about half of the distance to the Italian lines the fog that they had been using to cover the movement from Italian artillery began to dissipate. Immediately the Italian artillery began firing, and hitting many of the trucks. The infantry dismounted and tried to find what cover that they could but there was little hope in the attack. They would be saved as so many other British infantrymen had been saved during the first days of Compass by the arrival of Matildas, in this case ten Matildas which immediately moved in to attack the Italian artillery. This decisively swung the battle in the favor of the British, and the previously pinned down and helpless infantry moved in to attack. While they were moving forward it rapidly became apparent that some of the garrison quickly wanted to surrender instead. But that did not mean that the fighting was over, and it would continue for most of the afternoon as the British attackers slowly ground down the defenses. By the end of December 10th, with Sidi Barrani in British hands it was clear that Compass had, almost without exception, went incredibly well for the British. During the fighting over the course of the three days they had captured Nibeiwa, the two Tummar Camps, and Sidi Barrani. Along with these positions they had also captured around 20,000 Italian troops . There were also almost 200 Italian artillery guns and 60 tanks that had been captured. More importantly they had compromised the Italian position in Egypt to such an extent that the Italian forces were frantically attempting to retreat. They were retreating so fast that the British had troubles cutting them off and keeping up with their movements. But often when they did many of the Italians would surrender as soon as the British came within gun range. This was mostly understandable, as it was difficult to see what purpose there would be in fighting, and it was not like they could easily continue to retreat across the desert without access to supplies. This caused the number of prisoners to grow in the days that followed, with the British Colonel Alec Gatehouse writing: “No defeated army has ever co-operated with its opponents to the extent that the Italians did on this day. They assembled their own lorries, refuelled them with their own fuel, and drove them full of their own prisoners to Maktila, and they came back for more - all without escort of any kind.”. For most of these troops, the war would be over. For the guns and vehicles captured during this time, the war was far from over, and the British units would put most of them to work to replace the British vehicles that had been damaged in action or had been written off due to mechanical issues. It is possible that over 1000 vehicles of all types were captured, but it is difficult to get an exact count because one thing that is clear is that some British units would not make accurate reports in the hopes that they could hold on to move of them. Also many of those captured vehicles would be lost, either to enemy action or mechanical issues in the days and weeks that followed, as Operation Compass, which originally started out as a 5 day raid with the goal of neutralizing the camps and moving on Sidi Barrani was suddenly repurposed. Instead of stopping the attack after the objectives were achieved the plan was greatly expanded and soon every British vehicle that could move was chasing the retreating Italians, on their way west and towards the Libyan border