RESERVE-GRUPPE MILDEBRATH
On 27 July 1942, 15. Panzer-Division received orders from Afrika Korps to hold in readiness a reserve Gruppe under the command of Oberstleutnant Mildebrath. This Gruppe consisted of:
I. /Infanterie-Regiment 115
one leichte Artillerie-Abteilung (less one Batterie)
one schwerste Flak-Batterie
one Panzer-Zug
Commander: Oberstleutnant Werner Mildebrath
KAMPFGRUPPE MITTE
This Gruppe was formed on 23 October 1942, along with two other Gruppen, for defensive operations during the British offensive. The other Gruppen were Nord and Süd. The following day, the units assigned to Kampfgruppe Nord were attached to this Gruppe.
11. /Panzer-Regiment 8
Stab/Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 115
III /Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 115
13. /Panzer-Grenadier- Regiment 115 (Sturmgeschütz)
15. /Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 115 (captured guns)
III /Artillerie-Regiment 33
HQ/133º Reggimento Carri
IV/133º Reggimento Carri
23. /12º Reggimento Bersaglieri
29. /Artillerie-Regiment 3
DLVI Gruppo Semoventi
Commander: Major Schemmel
KAMPFGRUPPE NORD
Formed on 23 October 1942, as one of three Gruppen of 15. Panzer-Division, for defensive operations during the British offensive. The other Gruppen were Mitte and Süd. This Gruppe was disbanded on 24 October 1942, and its units attached to Kampfgruppe Mitte.
1. /Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 115
Stab, Stabsbatterie/Artillerie-Regiment 33
3. /Flak-Abteilung 617
51./133º Reggimento Carri
Commander: Oberst Eduard Crasemann
KAMPFGRUPPE NORD (3 NOVEMBER 1942)
Formed on 3 November 1942, the Gruppe was to operate alongside Kampfgruppe Süd during the retreat from El Alamein.
Remnants of Panzer-Regiment 8
Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon 33
1. /Artillerie-Regiment 33
1. and 2. /Flak-Abteilung 43 (Luftwaffe)
Commander: Hauptmann Siemens
KAMPFGRUPPE PFEIFFER
On 31 October 1942, DAK informed 21. Panzer-Division that it was to form a Kampfgruppe comprising approximately half of its tanks, anti-tank guns (self propelled), medium howitzers (self-propelled) and 2 cm Flak guns. 21. Panzer-Division designated Major Pfeiffer, commander of Panzerjäger-Abteilung 39, as commander of the Kampfgruppe.
Since the Division had no serviceable medium field howitzers available, it was ordered to incorporate one light and one heavy battery into the Kampfgruppe.
Pfeiffer Kampfgruppe was to launch a counter-attack north of the El Alamein railway line in an attempt to relieve the encircled Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 125.
KAMPFGRUPPE SIEMENS
Formed on 3 November 1942, for operations during the withdrawal of the 15.
Panzer-Division to new positions.
Panzer-Regiment 8
Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon 33
1. /Artillerie-Regiment 33
1. /Flak-Regiment 43 (Luftwaffe)
II. /Flak-Regiment 43
plus an unknown number of Italian tanks.
Commander: Hauptmann Siemens
KAMPFGRUPPE SÜD
This Gruppe, formed on 23 October 1942, was one of three formed by 15. Panzer-Division for defensive operations during the British offensive. The other Gruppen were Mitte and Nord.
II. /Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 115
II. /Artillerie-Regiment 3
Stab/Artillerie-Regiment 33
II. /Artillerie-Regiment 33
HQ/12º Reggimento Bersaglieri
DLIV Gruppo Semoventi
Commander: Oberst Willi Teege
KAMPFGRUPPE SÜD (3 NOVEMBER 1942)
Formed on 3 November 1942, this Gruppe was to operate alongside Kampfgruppe Nord and set up new defensive positions during the retreat from El Alamein.
GRUPPE WARRELMANN
This Gruppe, also known as Abschnitt Ost; was formed on 25 June 1942 from units of 15. Panzer-Division. The Gruppe, along with Gruppe Baade and Gruppe Dedekind, was under the overall command of Oberst Baade.
GRUPPE WERNEYER
This Gruppe was formed on 25 June 1942, from units of 15. Panzer-Division. Its task was to act as divisional reserve for Gruppe Warrelmann, Besde and Dedekind.
one Zug/Panzer-Pionier-Bataillon 33
1. /Infanterie-Regiment 115 (two Kompanien)
one leichte Batterie/Artillerie-Regiment 33
Commander: Major Werneyer
KAMPFGRUPPE 155
Formed on 5 September 1942 for defensive operations in the El Alamein area.
Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 155 (less two Kompanien)
Stab/Panzerjäger-Abteilung 190
2. /Panzerjäger-Abteilung 190
one Batterie/Artillerie-Regiment 190
Flak-Batterie 190
Commander: Major Kost
KAMPFGRUPPE 200
Formed on 5 September 1942 for defensive operations in the El Alamein area.
two Kompanien/ Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 155
Stab/Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 200
1. /Panzerjäger-Abteilung 190
7. /Flak-Regiment 25 (Luftwaffe)
Commander: Major Georg Briel
KAMPFGRUPPE 361
Formed on 5 September 1942 for defensive operations in the El Alamein area.
I /Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 200
Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment 361
I./Artillerie-Regiment 190 (one Batterie)
9./Flak-Abteilung 25
Commander: Oberstleutnant Albert Panzenhagen
GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
AAR After-Action Report
ADC aide-de-camp
AIF Australian Infantry Force
Alam a cairn or rock (Arabic)
AP armour-piercing ammunition
Armata army (Italian)
Armeenachtrichtenführer army chief signals officer (German)
Arztpanzer light tank used by a German medical officer
ASC Army Service Corps
A/T anti-tank
Aufklärungs-Abteilung reconnaissance battalion (German)
Aufklärungsgeschwader a Luftwaffe unit. Reconnaissance wing (German)
Battaglione Carri tank battalion (Italian)
BEF British Expeditionary Force
The title given to the forces of the British army sent to fight in France and Belgium in the opening months of the First World War. This remained the official title for British forces serving on the Western Front until the end of the war.
Begleitkommando senior commander’s personal escort group (German)
BGS Brigadier General Staff
BHQ Battalion Headquarters
Brigade Française Libre Free French Brigade
CGS Chief of the General Staff
Chef der Operationsabteilung Chief of Operations Section (Staff) (German)
CIGS Chief of the Imperial General Staff
C-in-C Commander-in-Chief
CO Commanding Officer
Comando Supremo Italian High Command
Corpo d’Armata Army Corps (Italian)
Corpo di Spedizione Italian Expeditionary Corps which fought on the Eastern
Italiano Front
CRA Commander, Royal Artillery (the usual term for a divisional artillery commander)
CSM Company Sergeant-Major
Deir a depression (Arabic)
Deutsches Afrika Korps German Africa Corps – the distinct principal component
of the Panzerarmee
Divisione Corazzata armoured division (Italian)
Divisione di Fanteria infantry division (Italian)
Divisione Motorizzata motorized division (Italian)
Divisione Autotrasportabik ‘Division that can be transported by motorized means’ (Italian)
DLI Durham Light Infantry
DSO Distinguished Service Order
Echelon unit transport was divided into these groups. F Echelon vehicles are the fighting vehicles such as command vehicles and armoured troop carriers which go into battle as part of the action. A Echelon vehicles have the immediate needs of the unit after the battle such as rations, extra ammunition, packs and cooking equipment. B Echelon is further back with the longer-term stores, administrative headquarters and workshops.
Einsatzkommando company-sized mobile killing units of the Security Police and SS Security Service (German)
Flak variously claimed to stand for Flugzeugabwehrkanone or Flugabwehrkanone – both meaning ‘anti-aircraft gun‘
Fliegerkorps Air Force Corps (Luftwaffe subordinate operational command of a Luftflotte – which itself was the equivalent to an army group)
Fliegerführer Afrika Air Force commander (Luftwaffe commander of a Luftflotte or of an area of air operations i.e. North Africa in this case)
Freie jagd ‘Freelance air sortie’ – A Luftwaffe fighter tactic
Gefechtsstaffel combat echelon i.e. a commander’s tactical operations force (German)
Generale d’Armata Italian military rank equating to [full] general
General der Panzertruppen General of Armoured Forces (German)
Generate di Corpo Armata Italian military rank equivalent to lieutenant-general
Generate di Divisione Italian military rank equivalent to major-general
Generalfeldmarschall Field Marshal (German)
GHQ General Headquarters, Middle East Command
GOC General OfficerCommanding
Gruppe (two meanings – German):
(1) Luftwaffe operational unit of three Staffeln, about twenty-seven aircraft
(2) Army tactical unit or groupment
GSO1, 2, 3 (I)/(O) General Staff Officer, Grade 1, 2 or 3, belonging to the (Intelligence) or (Operations) branch of the Staff.
HE high explosive
Hochseeflotte Imperial German Navy
HQ headquarters
IWM Imperial War Museum
Jagdgeschwader Luftwaffe unit – a fighter wing (German)
Kampfgruppe Task Force (German)
Kampfstaffel German Army combat formation
KRRC King's Royal Rifle Corps
LHCMA Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
Luftwaffe German Air Force
Maggiore Major (Italian rank)
MaresciaUo d'ltalia Marshal of Italy (Italian rank)
MC Military Cross
MG machine gun (LMG = Light machine gun)
MO Medical Officer
Naqb or Bab a pass or cutting (Arabic)
NCO Non-Commissioned Officer
Oberbefehlshaber Siid Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief South
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) German High Command
Oberarzt First Lieutenant, Medical Services (German)
OC Officer Commanding (like 'CO')
OH British Official History
OP observation post
Ordonn anzofftzier a German staff officer who assisted a commanding officer or another staff officer in a variety of duties
Panzerarmee Afrika German-Italian formation which succeeded the Panzergruppe Afrika
Panzergruppe Afrika German-Italian formation which controlled all German army formations in North Africa plus two Italian army corps
Panzerbefehlswagen Armoured command vehicle (German)
Panzerjäger-Abteilung anti-tank battalion (German)
Panzerkampfwagen (abbrev. PzKpfw) A tank. Often abbreviated to Panzer (German)
Qaret a low hill (Arabic)
QF ‘Quick Firing’ (artillery)
RA Royal Artillery
RAMC Royal Army Medical Corps
RE Royal Engineers
Regia Aeronautica Italian Royal Air Force
Regio Esercito Italian Royal Army
Regia Marina Italian Royal Navy
RHA Royal Horse Artillery
Ritterkreuzträger holder of the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes (Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross) – Nazi Germany’s highest award for battlefield courage or skilful leadership
RTR Royal Tank Regiment
Sanyet a deep well (Arabic)
Soldato Private soldier (Italian)
Sonderverband special unit (German)
Sperrverband ‘Blocking force’ (German) – An advanced force sent before arrival of the main unit(s).
SQMS Squadron Quartermaster Sergeant
Tenente Second Lieutenant (Italian)
TEWT Tactical Exercise Without Troops
Zerstörergeschwader destroyer wing (German) – Luftwaffe formation
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER ONE
1. Paolo Colacicchi interview, 2951, IWM Sound Archive.
2. Paolo Colacicchi interview, 2951, IWM Sound Archive.
3. Richard O’Connor interview, 12, IWM Sound Archive.
4. Richard O’Connor interview, 12, IWM Sound Archive.
5. Richard O’Connor interview, 12, IWM Sound Archive.
6. [Wavell’s dispatch] Operations in the Western Desert from December 7th, 1940 to February 7th, 1941 in Supplement to The London Gazette, 26 June 1946.
7. Richard O’Connor interview, 12, IWM Sound Archive.
8. Paddy Griffith, World War II Desert Tactics (Oxford: Osprey, 2008), pp.12–14.
9. Heinz Werner Schmidt, With Rommel in the Desert (London: Panther, 1955), p.11.
10. Peter Caddick Adams, Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives (London: Random House, 2011).
11. Hans-Otto Behrendt interview, 2793, IWM Sound Archive.
12. Heinz Werner Schmidt, With Rommel in the Desert, p.16.
13. Martin Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War: Waging World War II in North Africa, 1941–1943 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p.58.
14. ‘Flak’ is variously claimed to stand for Flugzeugabwehrkanone or Flugabwehrkanone – both meaning ‘anti-aircraft gun’.
15. Ian W. Walker, Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts: Mussolini’s Elite Armoured Divisions in North Africa (Marlborough: The Crowood Press, 2006), pp.58–59.
16. Hans-Otto Behrendt interview, 2793, IWM Sound Archive and Hans-Otto Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign, 1941–1943 (London: William Kimber, 1985), p.227.
17. David French, Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War against Germany, 1919–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.228.
18. The film was Ice Cold in Alex (1958) starring John Mills, Sylvia Syms, Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews. The line was delivered by Quayle’s character ‘Captain van der Poel’ (actually a German officer, Hauptman Otto Lutz).
19. Nila Kanten interview, 18391, IWM Sound Archive.
20. ‘A PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF EL ALAMEIN by Major A.F. Flatow, TD, OC, A Sqdn, 45 (Leeds Rifles) Royal Tank Regiment’, 99/16/1, IWM Documents.
21. Nila Kanten interview, 18391, IWM Sound Archive.
22. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
23. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
24. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
25. Private papers of I.D. King, 96/12/1, IWM Documents.
26. Private papers of C.W.K. Potts, Con Shelf & 92/28/1, IWM Documents.
27. Martin Ranft interview, 23210, IWM Sound Archive.
28. Frederick Hunn interview, 19898, IWM Sound Archive.
29. Cyril Mount interview, 13123, IWM Sound Archive.
30. Gervase Markham interview, 16716, IWM Sound Archive.
31. Heinz Werner Schmidt, With Rommel in the Desert, p.169.
32. Quoted in John Connell, Auchinleck: A Critical Biography (London: Cassell, 1959), p.445.
33. Billy Drake interview, 27073, IWM Sound Archive.
34. Billy Drake interview, 27073, IWM Sound Archive.
35. Billy Drake interview, 27073, IWM Sound Archive.
36. I.S.O. Playfair, The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume III: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (London: HMSO, 1960 [Repr. Naval & Military Press, 2004]) (henceforth ‘OH, Vol. III’), pp.199–200.
37. OH, Vol. III, pp.285–86.
38. F.W. von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles (London: Futura, 1977), p.123.
39. Klaus Michaelse interview, 2798, IWM Sound Archive.
40. Thomas Russ interview, 14979, IWM Sound Archive.
41. Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, pp.149–50.
42. B.H. Liddell Hart [ed.], The Rommel Papers (New York: Da Capo Press, 1953), p.232.
43. Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, p.150.
44. Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War, p.247.
45. Albert Kesselring, The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring (London: Greenhill, 2007), pp.124–25.
CHAPTER TWO
1. Private papers of C.T. Witherby, 78/61/1, IWM Documents.
2. John Connell, Auchinleck: A Critical Biography (London: Cassell, 1959), pp.617–18.
3. The officer was Major Michael Carver, at that time a GSO3 (General Staff Officer Grade 3) at ‘Strafer’ Gott’s XIII Corps Headquarters. Quoted in Adrian Stewart, The Early Battles of Eighth Army: Crusader to the Alamein Line, 1941–42 (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2010), p.117.
4. Sir Charles Richardson, Flashback: A Soldier’s Story (London: Kimber, 1985), p.104.
5. New arrivals to the Middle East theatre of operations were likely at an early stage to be given the advice, ‘Put some time in and get yer knees brown!’ by desert veterans.
6. Quoted in J.A.I. Agar-Hamilton & L.C.F. Turner, Crisis in the Desert May–July 1942 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1952), p.248.
7. Quoted in Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.263.
8. Quoted in Agar-Hamilton & Turner, Crisis in the Desert, p.263.
9. Private papers of J.E. Brooks, 84/13/1, IWM Documents.
10. Douglas Waller interview, 23447, IWM Sound Archive.
11. Vincent Orange, Coningham: A Biography of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham KCB, KBE, DSO, MC, DFC, AFC (Washington: Center for Air Force History, 1992), p.96.