This post is the companion to the short film Twice into the guns. The film follows the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry through the two attacks it made at the Second Battle of El Alamein, over the ground as it lies today. The sources, figures and maps behind it follow.
The regiment
The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry was raised in 1794 and kept its horses until 1941. Converted to tanks, it went to Egypt in May 1942 with the 3rd Hussars and the Warwickshire Yeomanry as 9th Armoured Brigade (Brigadier John Currie), placed under the 2nd New Zealand Division (Lieutenant-General Bernard Freyberg) for the coming offensive. For Operation Lightfoot the regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Sykes, held 10 Shermans, 14 Grants and 13 Crusaders; six of the Crusaders were detached to go forward with the 21st and 22nd New Zealand Battalions (US Army 2006, App. J, from the regimental war diary).
The ground
The northern Alamein position is close to flat. Most of it lies between 15 and 45 m above sea level, and Miteiriya Ridge, the New Zealand objective on the first night, stands only 5 to 6 m above the desert around it (US Army 2006, App. H). The terrain views in the film are rendered from the Copernicus GLO-30 elevation model, with heights exaggerated eight times so that the ridges show at all. The model records the ground surface today, so modern roads, pipelines and coastal building appear in it.
Both armies lay behind deep belts of mines and wire. The Axis belts shown in the film are those drawn on the New Zealand official history's map of 30 Corps at daybreak on 24 October (Walker 1967), transferred to the modern terrain by matching the map's trig points and stations to the elevation data. The fit is good to roughly a kilometre, and every position in the film should be read at that resolution.
The first attack: 23–24 October
The barrage opened at about 9.30 pm and, in Major Hubert Blount's words, "continued to fire rapid without a break until about 4.30 in the morning" (letter, in Keoghane 2021, p. 131). New Zealand sappers cleared lanes through two Axis minefields: all four lanes through the first were open by 2.30 am and the second by 5 am (US Army 2006, App. K). "There was a good moon during the early part and in the leading tank it was quite easy to see the markings of the lane," Blount wrote.
B Squadron, in Crusaders, was reduced to two tanks by mines (Keoghane 2021, p. 129). A Squadron, with the new Shermans, and C Squadron, in Grants, came up on 22 Battalion's route, where the battalion commander had his men search and mark a mine-free track through their positions. "Not long after six o'clock, tanks of the leading squadron had been guided over the ridge," and the second heavy squadron followed, making the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry "the first, and only, regiment to break out beyond the infantry's final objective on this first morning of the Alamein battle" (Walker 1967, p. 274). 2 NZ Division's own map of the sector at first light shows the regiment just behind 22 Battalion and "Elements R. Wilts Yeo" beyond the final objective (Pitt 1946, Map No. 5).
The counter-attack came in the morning. "We set the first line of six on fire when they were about 1500 yards from us," Blount wrote (p. 132). The Commanding Officer was wounded. Tanks immobilised on mines drew fire onto the New Zealand infantry, and shortly after midday the four remaining runners were withdrawn into cover. Casualties to that time were 10 killed or missing and 32 wounded, including the Commanding Officer and seven other officers (Walker 1967, p. 302). Next day the regiment was taken out of the line and its last tanks were handed to the other two regiments (Walker 1967, p. 305).
Rebuilt
Over the following week the regiment took over repaired replacement tanks, "in a shocking state" (Keoghane 2021, p. 130). The brigade, down to 36 runners on the evening of 25 October, was built back to 80 Shermans and 52 Crusaders before the second attack (Walker 1967).
The second attack: 1–2 November
Operation Supercharge gave 9th Armoured Brigade the hardest task of the offensive: to cross the infantry's new line and break the last anti-tank gun line along the Rahman Track, so that 1st Armoured Division could pass through. Montgomery said he was prepared for heavy casualties in the brigade (Walker 1967, pp. 391–2).
The brigade formed up near El Alamein station with 105 tanks and set off at about 7 pm on 1 November. The night was moonless and the tracks had been ground to powdery dust (p. 392). The Wiltshires followed the Hussars along Sun track and Boomerang track, halting to refuel at 1.45 am (pp. 392–3). On the way a field of British mines, laid irregularly, held them up until 6 New Zealand Field Company cleared it; the brigade's report praised the sappers' work as "beyond all praise" (US Army 2006, App. L). The New Zealand engineers marked the route with green lamps every tenth of a mile.
The attack was put back half an hour. At 6.15 am the regiment crossed the start line with 33 tanks: the twelve Crusaders of B Squadron in the lead, and C, Headquarters and A Squadrons level in line a short way behind (Walker 1967, pp. 393–4). The Crusaders overran gun pits and crossed the Rahman Track, marked by its line of telegraph poles, into heavier guns sited further west. The heavy squadrons came under fire as they reached the track and were ordered hull-down; A and C Squadrons engaged on the flanks (Keoghane 2021, p. 130). With wireless contact to B Squadron lost, the commanding officer had the two heavy squadrons lay smoke to cover its withdrawal. According to survivors, all but one of B Squadron's Crusaders went up in flames, after which the enemy switched his fire to the heavy squadrons (Walker 1967, p. 394). By about 8 am the regiment had nine tanks (p. 396).
Together the 3rd Hussars and the Wiltshires were credited with overpowering some 35 anti-tank guns, mainly Italian 47 mm and German 50 mm (p. 395). The brigade began the day with 94 tanks across the start line and ended it with about 24 fit to fight; the tank regiments had 163 casualties (p. 401), among them Trooper Herbert Daw of C Squadron, the film-maker's father, captured that morning after his tank was knocked out. The gun line, manned mainly by German gunners and short of ammunition, was close to breaking. On 4 November Tell el Aqqaqir was occupied unopposed and the Axis army was withdrawing (pp. 418–22). On 5 November the Commanding Officer wrote to all ranks: "This action will be recorded in the annals of regimental history, and the epic of B Squadron will live for all time" (Keoghane 2021, p. 130).
The fernleaf
Under 2nd New Zealand Division the regiment painted the Division's fernleaf on its vehicles. When it left Italy for England in September 1944, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Lloyd wrote to General Freyberg asking whether it might go on wearing the emblem. Freyberg replied from Headquarters, 2 N.Z. Division, on 22 November 1944: "we will be very proud to know you are continuing to wear the fernleaf as a reminder of Alamein days together." No association in the war, he wrote, "was happier than that between the Officers and men of the 9th Armoured Brigade and ours in the difficult days at Miteiriya Ridge and in the battle to break out." Of 2 November he added: "Your gallant advance that morning, though at great cost, broke the gun line and was the turning point in one of the most decisive battles of the war." He called the brigade's men "honorary New Zealanders" (letter printed in Pitt 1946). The Wiltshire squadrons of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry, B and Y, still wear the fern on their parade uniforms (Royal Wessex Yeomanry).
What is not settled
- Times. Walker has the regiment's four runners pulled into cover shortly after midday on 24 October; Keoghane has Major Gibb ordering the remaining tanks back at 6 pm. On 2 November Walker gives permission to withdraw at 9.10 am; Keoghane has the regiment withdrawn at 4 pm with four tanks. These may be different moves; no source says so.
- Positions. All are taken from 1942 maps drawn at small scale and fitted to modern elevation data; treat them as good to about a kilometre. The lanes in the film are a diagram, after 2 NZ Division's own diagram of its routes.
- "100 per cent casualties." The often-quoted order to accept them appears in the New Zealand engineers' history but has not been traced to a primary document, and is not used.
- The war diary. The regiment's war diary for 1942 (The National Archives, WO 169/4501; a copy at the Tank Museum) has not yet been read for this post.
Sources
- R. Walker, Alam Halfa and Alamein, Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–45 (Wellington: Historical Publications Branch, 1967). NZETC text.
- US Army Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate, Breaching the "Devil's Garden": Operation Lightfoot, the Second Battle of El Alamein, 23 October 1942 (Appendices), AMSRD-CER-NV-TR-220A (Fort Belvoir, 2006).
- S. Keoghane, Primus in Armis: An Illustrated History of the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry (2021), ch. 6 and "Yeomanry Tales".
- P. W. Pitt, Royal Wilts: The History of the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry 1920–1945 (1946), maps, including 2 NZ Division Map No. 5 and the route of the regiment in Operation Supercharge.
- The Eighth Army, September 1941 to January 1943 (HMSO, 1944).
- M. Carver, El Alamein (London: Batsford, 1962), maps by Arthur Banks: the mined and defended areas of 23 October and the line of Miteiriya Ridge, redrawn on the terrain.
- Terrain: Copernicus GLO-30 DEM, © DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA.
