The race for Tripoli
From Life Magazine
13th October 1958

The British First Army under Lieut. General Sir Kenneth Anderson had landed in Algeria on the 18th November and there was considerable speculation in high places as to which army would get to Tripoli first. The idea that any army except ourselves should capture Tripoli infuriated officers and men of the Eighth Army. For three years it had been the target: they weren't going to miss it this time.

When the enemy withdrew from the Agheila area he went back to the Bucrat position and began to prepare that line for defense. I did not want the enemy to withdraw; I wanted him to stand there and fight. If he did this he could probably be destroyed. When I attacked the Bucrat position my plan must be such that we could go right through to Tripoli, without allowing the enemy to delay us or stop our movement.

The essence of the whole operation must be speed. I calculated that I must have enough petrol, ammunition, supplies, etc, for 10 days' sighting. My forces were based on Benghazi and Tobruk, and it was a long haul by road from them. My staff told me the necessary supply dumping could be completed by the 14th January. I decided to attack on the 15th January. I well knew that if we did not reach Tripoli in 10 days I might have to withdraw for lack of supplies.

On the 4th January very heavy gales created havoc at Benghazi. Ships broke loose and charged about the harbor; heavy seas broke up the breakwater and much damage was done. The capacity of the port dropped at once from 3,000 to 1,000 tons a day. By the 12th January it had fallen to 400 tons a day. Here was a "pretty-how-de-do"!

I decided that there was only one thing to do - to crash on to Tripoli with no change in the timing. To do this I decided to "ground" three divisions and use all their transport to lift forward from Tobruk and Benghazi the supplies needed by the 14th January.

We kept our dates. The advance began on the 15th January. The leading troops entered Tripoli at 4am on the 23rd January 1943, three months to a day since the beginning of the Alamein battle.

The prime minister and General Sir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, visited Tripoli on the 3rd and 4th February and we organised parades for them. Winston Churchill was immensely impressed and was deeply moved when the troops marched past him, looking so lit and well and with such a line bearing. I felt a very proud man myself to be in command of such men.

I asked him to address the officers and men of my headquarters and he said, "Ever since your victory at Alamein, you have nightly pitched your moving tents a day's march nearer home. In days to come when people ask you what you did in the second World War, it will be enough to say: "I marched with the Eighth Army."

In accordance with decisions then at the Casablanca Conference the Eighth Army was to come under General Eisenhower for the fighting in Tunisia. Alexander was made deputy commander in chief and was to command the land forces.

Alexander told me he had found things in a terrible mess when he went over to join General Eisenhower. The British First Army was being heavily attached on the southern part of its front and everything looked like sliding there. Generally, he found stagnation: no policy, no plan, the front all mixed up, no reserves, no training anywhere, no building up for the future, and so on. He found the American troops disappointing. They were mentally and physically soft and very green. It was the old story, lack of proper training allied to no experience of war, and linked with too high a standard of living. They were going through their early days, just as we had had to go through ours. We had been at war a long time and our mistakes lay mostly behind us.

Alexander worked day and night to get things right. But he bad some anxious moments and he sent me a very real cry for help on the 20th February, asking if I could do anything to relieve the pressure on the Americans. I replied that I would do all I could, adding that if he and I exerted pressure at the right moment we might get Rommel running about like a wet hen between our respective fronts. My staff always used to refer to this message as the "wet hen" signal.

I speeded up events and by the 26th February it was clear that our pressure had caused Rommel to break off his attack against the Americans. This gave Alexander the time he needed, and he wrote to me on the 5th March saying that he reckoned the patient had passed the crisis and was on the way to recovery. When the Americans had leaned their lesson and had gained in experience, they proved themselves to be first-class troops. It took time, but they did it more quickly then we did.

Victory on the Mareth Line

By 9am on the 28th March we were in full possession of the famous Mareth Line, after a battle lasting only one week. We never lost the initiative, without which you cannot win in war. The enemy was made to commit his reserves in desperation and piecemeal, as at Alamein. We committed ours in one concentrated blow on a narrow front.

The Air forces played a notable part in the attack. In the area beyond the artillery barrage every vehicle, and anything that appeared or moved, was shot to pieces. This blitz attack was the most complete example of the close integration of land and air power up to that time.

It was obvious that the end of the war in Africa would now come quite soon. We had a stiff one-day battle north of Gabés on the 6th April. On the 8th April, we joined up with the American forces moving eastward from Gafsa. We were now taking prisoners at the rate of 1,000 a day, and no army can lose men at that rate for long and remain efficient.

General Eisenhower's chief of staff, Bedell Smith, had visited me in February and we had discussed the problem of how soon the Eighth Army could join up with the First Army north of Gabés I had said by the 15th April. Smith said that if I could do that General Eisenhower would give me anything I asked for. I said I would like an airplane for my personal use. Bedell Smith agreed willingly.

On the morning of the 10th April I sent a message to Eisenhower asking for the aircraft. It arrived on the 16th April. A Flying Fortress. It made me a thoroughly mobile general. Later I got properly ticked off by General Sir Alan Brooke for my action in the matter. He said that it was all a joke on the part of Bedell Smith and that Eisenhower was furious when I demanded the aircraft. I explained that it was very far from a joke on the day the statement was made. I don't think Bedell Smith had ever told Eisenhower about it, and he was suddenly confronted with having to pay. Brooke added that the R.A.F. could well have provided me with an aircraft. They certainly could but didn't, in spite of my repeated requests. Eisenhower produced it at once. And, being the great and generous man he is, he arranged that I was provided with an aircraft from American sources for the rest of the war.

Bizerte and Tunis were captured on the 7th May and the enemy was then hemmed in to the Cap Bon peninsula. Organised enemy resistance ended on the 12th May, some 248,000 being taken prisoner.

And so the war in Africa came to a close. It ended in a major disaster for the Germans. All their troops, stores, dumps, heavy weapons and equipment were captured. From a purely military point of view the holding out in the North Africa once the Mareth line had been broken through could never be justified. I suppose Hitler ordered it for political reasons. It is dangerous to undertake tasks which are militarily quite unsound just for political reasons. It may sometimes be necessary, but they will generally end in disaster.

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