Chapter 23

DEC 1940 BRITAIN BEGINS THE NORTH AFRICAN CAMPAIGN

“Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don’t in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.”

― Erwin Rommel

It was the Third Reich that displayed their intent to roll up the North African countries and secure an easy access to the oil fields of the Middle East.

Churchill decided that their best course of action for their land forces at this time was to counter the Nazi threat all across the vast sandy terrain of the Middle East. In 1940, Britain was well-established in that region with both political and economic influence. The British Empire stretched far and wide in all areas of the populated world and they wielded a convenient reserve of international trade that was unequaled by any other country including the United States.

The introduction of the “Afrika Corps” and the wily schemes of the “Desert Fox – General Rommel into the mix meant that the British would be required to respond with both land and air forces to regain the territory lost swiftly in the face of the Blitzkrieg-like tactics of Nazi forces.

Fortunately, the recovered manpower off the shores of Dunkirk gave the British the reserves they needed to mount an offensive under the command of Field Marshall Montgomery to confront the Nazi attacks by General Rommel.

The tides of war changed quickly on the coastal areas of the North African Continent. Entire armies raced from strategic position to strategic position over great distances in the type of warfare that was so unlike the trenches of World War One that it stretched the imagination.

I had studied the movements of both Rommel and Montgomery whilst sitting in a SS barracks in post-World War Two and listening to the instructor’s words with rapt attention. He was a Colonel missing one hand and with a glass eye that had been in the midst of the later American involvement in North Africa and he was quite blunt in stressing that the American training methods did not properly prepare the troops for the lightning warfare practiced by the German “Desert Fox” and the British “Desert Rats” in an environment that generally lacked true cover or concealment in most instances. It was entirely unlike the rolling hills and wooded terrain of central Europe where surprise and air power were the primary ingredients.

Air Power in North Africa was often the key to winning or losing a particular battle but both the British and the German resources were extremely limited with the priority at the time being the air attacks on London and other civilian targets to scare the British into surrendering to the Nazi war machine as well as the demands from Hitler to adequately furnish Luftwaffe units to start his long awaited assault on the Soviet Union with the upcoming “Operation Barbarossa”.

The civilians in the North African battlefields knew enough to stay far away from the fighting because any movement in a battle sight was fair game to a soldier with an instinct for survival. The only time the civilians would encroach on the battlefield was after the conclusion of the battle and they would rush out and strip the fallen soldiers, German, Italian and British of anything of value including arms and ammo and sometimes, even slit a throat here or there more in a sense of mercy than from mean spirit.

The early days of fighting in the region seemed to be mostly to the advantage of General Rommel and the Afrika Corps. Unfortunately, as time went on, the supply lines back to the Nazi supply depots in France and Italy were constricted by British naval attacks and the problem of sustaining a large field army so distant from its supply sources caused the German forces to be more restrained in their movements to reduce the consumption of fuel and other logistical needs. Even the transport of potable water to troops in the field was a problem and it was not unheard of to have some units expire from lack of water to sustain life. This was a problem that was still in existence in later years after the Americans had been added to the mix of combatants with their self-contained sources of logistical support that was far superior to either the Germans, the Italian or even the British.

At the time of this opening round of fighting in the North African coastal areas, I was more focused on the sudden influxes of Jewish refugees into the City of Marseilles and began to notice a swelling in the ranks of the somewhat covert Gestapo types that permeated the Vichy bureaucracy at all levels. It was beginning to look like there was not much difference between the Occupied Sector of France and the Vichy Sector of France with only exception being the presence of uniformed German soldiers in the occupied region and with French police and French Militia still running things in Vichy, France.