4th November 1942 - Twelfth day of Second Battle of Alamein . 8th Army breakthrough and mopping up begins , Rommel retreats with remains of Panzer Army Africa.
On 4 November, Eighth Army’s plan for breakout and pursuit was set in motion at dawn. There were no fresh units available for the chase so Montgomery had to swing 1st and 7th British Armoured Divisions northward to roll up the Axis units still in the forward lines and 2nd New Zealand Division with two lorry borne infantry brigades and 9th Armoured and 4th Light Armoured Brigades under command would head west along desert tracks to the escarpment above Fuka, some 60 mi (97 km) away. The New Zealanders got off to a bad start because the units involved were dispersed after the recent fighting and took time to concentrate. The paths through the minefields were very congested and broken up which delayed matters further.
The 51st Highland Division launches its next two attacks at El Alamein, at 2:30 a.m. 11th Indian Brigade leads the charge. The 1st/4th Essex Battalion take 100 exhausted Panzer Grenadiers prisoner on frontline and then capture 82 more German prisoners on their objective on the Rahman Track. The 3rd/10th Baluchs and 6th Rajputana Rifles from 5th Indian Brigade join them.
7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders attack Tel el Aqqaqir itself, and take the ground by dawn, finding the whole ridge abandoned. The Afrika Korps has withdrawn, leaving behind some stragglers, wrecked artillery, some unexploded mines, and a lot of booby traps.
The Germans are indeed retreating but a rather in a disorganised chaotic manner, mostly because of the orders muddle. Hitler and Rommel are trying to prevent that withdrawal. German 90th Light Division and the Afrika Korps defend the north. To the south lie the battered Italian mobile forces, down to about 100 worn-out M13/40 light tanks. They have no chance against heavy British armor.
Dawn finds the 8th Army advancing in the north, three armored divisions pushing forward. 1st Armoured Division now consists of 2nd Armoured Brigade and 7th Motor Brigade. 10th Armoured consists of 8th Armoured Brigade and 133rd Lorried Infantry Brigade, and John Harding’s 7th Armoured consists of 22nd Armoured Brigade commanded by Brigadier Roberts and 131st Lorried Infantry Brigade. With Montgomery’s orders all of them, including 4th Light Armoured Brigade (under 2nd New Zealand Division command), struggle to get free and out into the desert through the Supercharge salient. All battle darkness, mist, and dust to squeeze through the corridor. 2nd Armoured Brigade wins the race at 8 a.m.
2nd New Zealand Division and 4th Light Armoured also resume the offensive. Freyberg orders his men to stow away water and rations for eight days, 360 rounds for each field gun and petrol for 200 miles. Brigadier Gentry, commanding 6th NZ Brigade, tells his CO that this is the victory his men have awaited for three years. 6th NZ Brigade’s men will travel all night without sleep if necessary, to consolidate it.
In the skies, RAF bombers and fighter bombers blast the enemy. Nine B-24s whack Benghazi’s harbor, claming three ships hit and an enemy plane shot down. B-25s and P-40s join British Wellingtons and Hurricanes in attacking German positions at Alamein. 1st and 7th British Armored Divisions were launched forward and came contact immediately with what remained of 21st Panzer Division and 15th Panzer Division and main body of Arierte Armored Division.
In the salient’s southwest corner, 22nd British Armoured Brigade under command of Brigadier Pip Roberts drives forward and slams into the Ariete Division’s 100 M13/40 tanks, and 20th Italian Corps’ artillery. Despite low Italian morale and poor equipment, this is still a powerful force, which stalls Roberts. British and Italian artillery battle each other at nearly point-blank range in Napoleonic fashion. Meanwhile Indian and South African infantry attack crack Italian Folgore Parachute Division positions. Italian paratroopers devoid of anti tank rounds desperately try to storm British tanks with petrol bombs and makeshift molotov coctails.
Further north German Capt. Hans von Luck, leading a reconnaissance unit, tries to help the Ariete Division hold on. But his vehicles are no match for the British guns, either. He watches Italian tankers and anti-tank gunners of Arierte Armored Division fight with “death-defying” courage, their tanks exploding under fire. It is the 7th British Armored Division (Desert Rats) attacking them intend to wipe out or threw away Arierte Division out of their way this time for good.
At 10 a.m., 4th Light Armoured Brigade and the New Zealanders begin their advance, The light Stuart and medium Grant tanks rumble forward down the Rahman Track as Freyberg watches.
After them 1st Armored Division moves on. 12th Lancers’ armored cars and Shermans and Grants of the Bays, 9th Lancers, and 10th Hussars charge across the Rahman Track at last, over the northern end of the Aqqaqir Ridge, and see the remaining 24 Afrika Korps panzers and a few dozen German anti-tank guns barring the advance. General der Panzertruppe Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma himself leads the German defense. Thoma is wearing full field uniform with all his ribbons, for the first time since arriving in Africa.
He tells Bayerlein, “The Fuhrer’s order is a piece of unparalleled madness. I can’t go along with this any longer. Go to the El Duba command post. It is the death warrant of the army. How can I explain it to my men? I shall remain here and conduct the defense of Tel el Mampsra in person. As Rastenberg orders.”
Bayerlein hops into his scout car to head back to headquarters, reflecting that Von Thoma is probably throwing away his life.
The Germans fight back fiercely. Their first shot wrecks General Briggs’ command tank. He bails out and orders the armor back and the artillery up to deal with the Afrika Korps’ anti-tank guns.
A very accurate and heavy British artillery barrage blasts the defenders. At 11 a.m., Von Thoma sends his aide, Lt. Hartdegen, back to Bayerlein. Hartdegen reports, “The general has sent me back with the radio transmitter. He says he does not need me any more. At Tel el Mampsra all of our panzers, anti-tank guns, and flak have been wiped out. I don’t know what’s happened to the general.”
Bayerlein jumps into his scout car and drives east, dodging from British tank shells. He stops the car, and runs across the hot sands to the crest of the dunes. There he looks down at a sea of burned-out tanks , shattered German guns , knocked out German anti tank guns and a vast carpet of German dead on the ground. British artillery fire is still blasting the whole Tel em Mapsra area , tanks , armored vehicles and infantrymen of 1st Armored Division overwhelming Axis positions all around. 200 yards ahead is a burning Panzer IV tank. Standing next to it, tall, haggard, in full uniform, is Ritter von Thoma, clutching a bag of canned food. Advancing British tanks are shimmering in the distance, huge sand color camouflaged Crusader and M4 Sherman tanks.
Von Thoma has been wounded 20 times in two world wars, and holds Bavaria’s highest medal for World War I bravery, the Max Josef Order. He has fought with the Condor Legion and in Russia. Now he stands alone by his tank, being shelled by advancing British tanks.
The firing stops. Bayerlein watches Von Thoma. Von Thoma watches British tanks pull back. Then a Bren carrier followed by two Sherman tanks drives up to Von Thoma. Capt. Grant Singer of the 10th Hussars (Prince of Wales’s Own), nicknamed “Bakers Light Bobs”, jumps out, brandishing a Thompson sub-machine gun. Singer calls to Von Thoma. The German general walks over to Singer’s Bren carrier and climbs in.
Bayerlein, stunned, runs back to his scout car and speeds back to Rommel’s headquarters. Alongside, Bayerlein can see huge dust clouds. The clouds are the smoke of blazing Italian tanks of 20th Corps, being crumbled.
Around Von Thoma, British tanks advance cautiously around Tel el Mapsra, and see German infantrymen and gunners rising from pits and trenches, their hands in the air , surrendering to British in large groups. This is the end of original Deutsche Afrikakorps.
Meanwhile, Rommel gets word that the Afrika Korps and Ariete Division are being destroyed. Things get grimmer when his radio intercept team picks up a message in clear from 10th Hussars to Montgomery: “We have captured a German general. His name is Ritter von Thoma. Signed: Grant Singer, Captain.”
Meanwhile further south Argyll and Sutherlands from 51st Highland Division also breakout last German defences behind Rahman Track , take 200 more extra German panzergranediers as prisoners and then capture headquarters of 21st Panzer Division along with all of its HQ staff officers also taken prisoner by Scots in the afternoon as well. Delighted Scottish infantrymen find a case full of Iron Cross decorations for award in enemy headquarters and decorate each other with them on their chests…
5th Indian Brigade troops look arpound enemy wreckage left behind
At that moment, Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring arrives at Panzer Army Afrika’s HQ. The meeting is cold. Rommel thinks Kesselring has been sent to supervise the battle or chastise Rommel. Actually, Kesselring just wants to see what’s going on.
The Luftwaffe field marshal tells Rommel not to regard Hitler’s order as binding in detail. Kesselring adds that the Desert Fox’s stock is high with the Fuhrer. Rommel is now persuaded. At 3:30 p.m., he sends off another order to his troops, to tell Panzer Army Afrika to withdraw.
Rommel turns to Bayerlein, and says, "Bayerlein, what we tried with all our might to prevent has now happened. Our front is smashed and the enemy is pouring through into our rear area. There can no longer be any question of obeying Hitler’s order. We’re withdrawing to the Fuka Position to save what still can be saved.
“Colonel Bayerlein, I’m putting you in command of the Afrika Korps. There’s no one else to whom I can entrust it. And if it should happen later that the Fuhrer court-martials us for our disobedience, we’ll both have to answer squarely for our decision today. Do your duty as best you can. All your orders to the troops carry my authority. You may say this to the senior commanders, in the event of your having any trouble with them.”
Then Rommel climbs into his command vehicle, to give the other units the order to retreat.
A few minutes later, the commander of Italian Ariete Armored Division, Brig. Gen. Francesco Arena, signals Rommel, “We are encircled, the Ariete tanks still in action.” Then he signs off for good.
While the German generals plan, the battle rages on. 8th Armoured Brigade is ordered to drive south, circle round the battle, and try to cut off the Germans. It’s a good idea, but towards evening British advance runs into a squadron of counterattacking JU87 Stuka raid, which stop the British cold for a while.
22nd Armoured Brigade’s attack also finally gains ground at sunset. Following orders, remains of the Italian Arierte Armored Division begins to retreat, leaving behind 29 wrecked Italian tanks , most of their guns and 450 prisoners. The rest of Ariete Division falls back. This day also saw the destruction of the Littorio Armoured Division and the Trieste Motorised Division. British took many Axis prisoners. since the remnants of Italian infantry divisions were not motorised and could not escape from encirclement. Private Sid Martindale, 1st Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, wrote about the Italian “Bologna” Division, which had taken the full weight of the British armoured attack :
“The more we advanced the more we realized that the Italians did not have much fight on them after putting up a strong resistance to our overwhelming advance and they started surrendering to our lead troops in droves. There was not much action to see but we came across lots of burnt out Italian tanks that had been destroyed by our tanks. I had never seen a battlefield before and the site of so many dead was sickening.”
Italian troops from Bologna Infantry Division and the remainder of Trento Motorised Division tried to fight their way out of Alamein and marched in the desert without water, food, or transport before surrendering exhausted and dying from dehydration. It was reported that Colonel Arrigo Dall’Olio, commanding an infantry regiment of the Bologna division surrendered saying to his captors, “We have ceased firing not because we haven’t the desire but because we have spent every round.” In a symbolic act of final defiance no one in 40th Bologna Infantry Regiment raised their hands. Harry Zinder of Time magazine noted that the Italians fought better than had been expected Italian prisoners were more angry to Germans than their captors , and commented that for the Italians:
“It was a terrific letdown by their so called German allies. They had fought a good fight. In the south, the famed Italian Folgore parachute division fought to the last round of ammunition. Two armoured divisions and a motorised division, which had been interspersed among the German formations, thought they would be allowed to retire gracefully with Rommel’s 21st, 15th Panzer Divisions and German 90th light and 164th Infantry Divisions. But even that was denied them. When it became obvious to Rommel that there would be little chance to hold anything between El Daba and the frontier, what remained of his Panzers dissolved, disintegrated and turned tail, , requestioning Italian motorised vehiclrs , leaving the Italians to fight a hopless rear-guard action.”
By late morning on 4th November, Rommel realised his situation was dire: “The picture in the early afternoon of the 4th was as follows: powerful enemy armoured forces … had burst a 19-kilometre hole in our front, through which strong bodies of tanks were moving to the west. As a result of this, our forces in the north were threatened with encirclement by enemy formations 20 times their number in tanks … There were no reserves, as every available man and gun had been put into the line. So now it had come, the thing we had done everything in our power to avoid – our front broken and the fully motorised enemy streaming into our rear. Superior orders could no longer count. We had to save what there was to be saved.”
That evening, Freyberg’s men advance through wrecked German guns, trucks, and other vehicles, into the open desert. Freyberg sees “columns of enemy prisoners 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 (or artillery) position almost intact with guns in position and ammunition boxes empty…”
Just before midnight, some of Brig. Howard Kippenberger’s 5th NZ Brigade run into some determined German paratroopers from the Ramcke Brigade. The Germans, in distinctive crash helmets, attack the New Zealanders, and the night sky is lit by mortar and machine gun fire. The Germans seize some vehicles with which to flee, and take eight New Zealand prisoners. They kill eight more Kiwis and wound 26, while leaving behind 17 dead Germans. Before fleeing, the Germans explode a 23rd Battalion ammunition truck, which Kippenberger uses as a beacon to rally his scattered brigade.
Freyberg decides he must concentrate his force amid a wasteland of old minefields and loose enemy troops, and waits for daylight. Not everything goes well for retreating German paratroopers either.
Ramcke Parachute Brigade had 1.400 men when battle started. Only 700 can retreat back with captured British vehicles. Rest were either killed or captured. Brigade’s second in command Major Bruckhardt was taken prisoner previous night while leading a patrol and brought to 8th Army HQ. British intelligence officers question him , ask him what Rommel’s next plans were. Bruckhardt replies “What plans ? North Africa is lost for Germany. You have destroyed us !”. They ask him where his secret kit is but Bruckhardt refuses to answer says they will never find it. Two intel officers then invite him to dinner. Soon everyone is relaxed. Bruckhardt tells a funny story how German heavy boxing champion Max Schmelling (who fought with Joe Louis before the war) was trained as a paratrooper but during Operation Merkur (invasion of Crete) he fainted before jumping from plane and they had to slap him. Everyone laughs. 7th British Armored Div. intelligence officer Captain Peter Vaux decides not to break the mood and tell Bruckhardt they have already found and recovered his secret stash buried in desert , two German recoiless anti tank rifles…
Due to insufficient transportation, most of the Italian infantry formations were abandoned and left to their fate. Any chance of getting them away with an earlier move had been spoiled by the dictator’s insistence that Rommel hold his ground, obliging him to keep the unmotorised Italian units well forward until too late.
Italian prisoners escorted by New Zealand infantry to rear
In order to deepen the armoured thrusts, 1st Armoured Division was directed at El Daba, some 15 mi (24 km) down the coast and 7th Armoured towards Galal, a further 24 km (15 mi) west along the railway. Meanwhile, the New Zealand battle group had hoped to reach their objective by mid-morning on 5 November, but was held up by shell fire when picking their way through what turned out to be a dummy minefield and retreating 15th Panzer Division were able to get there first.
That evening, Kesselring fires off a message to Hitler outlining the Afrika Korps’ desperate plight. Kesselring succeeds where Rommel has failed. Hitler authorizes Rommel to retreat. Italian Foreign Minister and Mussolini’s Son in Law Count Ciano in Rome writes in his diary : “Egyptian front collapsed. We are retreating and saving what we can. That is for better I think” In London a jubilant Churchill orders church bells to be rung (they were silent since 1940 expecting a German invasion which never happened) Second Battle of Alamein is over and pursuit starts.
General Ritter Von Thoma surrenders and brought to Eighth Army Tactical HQ before Montgomery. I won’t deny this is oner of my favorite images of whole war. While Von Thoma , being all in ordnung soldier gives up smartly , Montgomery is much less interested as if asking who is this man and why he is spoiling my lunch ?
That night Montgomery invites him to dinner on his field HQ and they discuss the battle. Von Thomas later admitted he was astonished that “Montgomery knew our logistical situation , and defence positions better than us” (he was unaware that Monty was well informed by ULTRA) then added a quote summarizing African campaign “In war , amateurs deal with tactics , professionals deal with logistics.”
Before sent to UK , Von Thoma was then taken to the Pyramids of Giza by his captors when he expressed regret that he would leave Egypt without seeing them. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill - who apparently developed a great respect for Von Thoma during his period of captivity - is said to have commented, “I sympathise with General von Thoma… Defeated, in captivity, and dinner with Montgomery !”
