THE GAZALA LINE BATTLES

MAY 26-27 1942

The 8th Army front extended from Gazala to Bir Hacheim and was interlaced with huge minefields of a scale and complexity never encountered before. Behind this line loomed the strongly defended boxes of Knightsbridge and El Adem and finally Tobruk, occupied by experienced desert fighters. Even Rommel underestimated the strength of the forces mustered here. However, within 3 weeks of opening his offensive, Rommel would reduce this magnificent British army to a state of complete rout.

THE SECRET WAR

Not all the battles was won on the battlefield. The intelligence, diplomacy and the secret operations, played an important role to both sides...

THE GERMAN WEAPONS SUPERIORITY

The fact that Rommels Deutsche AfrikaKorps in North Africa contained equipment which was far more advanced and effective than the Eighth Armies equivalent meant that the campaign lasted much longer than it may have done otherwise, whilst at the same time there were not sufficient numbers of them to become a decisive factor in the campaign. For instance, when the British launched Operation Crusader in late November 1941 “the 8th Army outnumbered the combined Axis force (118,000 men to 113,000), had 680 tanks (with 500 in reserve or in supply) to Rommels 390 and 1000 British planes confronted 320 Axis aircraft. What the Times Atlas of the Second World War and many other history books does not mention is that these statistics are completely misleading as one British tank is not equal to one Panzer whilst “The Eighth Army`s air support, though numerically superior, was qualitatively inferior and in making this mistake it is not alone. It was not until the Second battle of El Alamein that the Allies possessed the sufficient superiority in numbers to offset the technical superiority that the Axis force enjoyed. This is an important point that is very rarely mentioned in literature on the Second World War let alone the North African theatre, where technical superiority was of utmost importance due to the precarious nature of supplying an army.