Chapter 11.1
06-03-42 23:59 hrs British 8th army and Middle East HQ Cairo Egypt Reporting back to American President Roosevelt and Joint Chiefs of Staff; Colonel Bonner Fellers, American military attache to MEGHQ
Urgent update; personal observations only:
Loss of Tobruk, garrison and possible undestroyed military equipment is very grave
No officer will go on the record as to how much fuel supplies in best or worst case may have been lost to Rommel
Based on rapid Royal Navy plan evolvement of their red lines, our staff presumes their staff feels Rommel has at least enough fuel to reach Mesah Matruh
The above applies to Desert Air Force Red line planning
Major Oswald who is well versed in fuel consumption of armored vehicles is attempting to prepare best case, middle case and worst case scenarios of Rommel's fuel radius on an assumed basis that he has captured 40 percent of British fuel stocks in Libya; A GHQ officer is privately working with us on this; but the 40 percent number is a middle case assumption in and of itself and even interviews with wounded or evacuated officers, coupled with the poor communications with the front, haven't given a clear picture on this
Oswald has been revising his radius views higher the last 36 hours, because previously he had presumed that the British would withdraw some forces in tact from Libya to fight the invasion; now that catastrophic defeat is likely, Oswald advises that Rommel would potentially be able to use the coastal highway which would lessen the amount of fuel he needs to reach deep into Egypt; as maneuvering to the south consumes much fuel
I had a conversation with Auchinlek about where he intends to stand in Egypt; he advises plans are evolving for this because his rear areas troops are still transferring to Egypt, he is counting on his New Zealand Australian and Indian divisions to be able to block Rommel once they are formed up; although he is not committed yet as to where that might be
Privately GHQ staff officers advise that Auchinlek has decided to relieve Ritchie and take over the remaining elements of the 8th army and the defense of Egypt himself. They advise that he will wait until the Gazala and Knightsbridge pockets surrender to make the move, so that blame for the catastrophic defeat can be pinned mainly on Ritchie; Ritchie and Auchinlek are close, rumor is London has forced Auchinlek's hand on this issue
For the moment there are no extra rumors on the relief of Smith, beyond rumors that ALL GHQ officers will be relieved
South African Staff officers are increasingly alternating between despondent and belligerent towards Smith and British officers over the loss of their divisions. They are fermenting considerable political pressure onto GHQ and London that dominates the atmosphere, well into the streets, bars and clubs of Cairo
South African working relationship with Smith is gravely impaired, and increasingly insubordinate
Morale and Discipline issues are a grave concern in the 8th army and being pointed too as factors in troops surrendering; we are removed from GHQ whenever these matters are discussed, which is more frequent
Our staff is of the belief that discipline and morale problems will escalate once the Tobruk and other unfolding defeats are passed down the grapevine
Privately GHQ staff officers advise they have significant desertion issue in troops transferring through Egypt, our staff is trying to quietly assess this
We are fully certain that Rommel has tank superiority in Libya regardless of refusal to accept this on the part of Smith or Auchinlek
Once the boxes at Knightsbridge and Gazala are fully consumed, it is possible that the Panzer Army Africa might have infantry parity with remaining British forces in Egypt; we cannot fully qualify this statement because intelligence does not have a clear grasp of Rommel's losses to date or the exact scale of reinforcements he is receiving; we are unsure if Rommel can or would deploy all of his infantry units forward into Egypt or just utilize his motorized divisions or some combination. This is likely dependent on the scale of trucking and fuel he has captured
I asked a General Smith if Rommel drove rapidly to Mersah Matruh, if he would be capable of using the rail line the British have built back from Belhamed; this met with a wall of silence and my being escorted from the room
The desert air force and is planning photo recon missions over Tobruk at first light, with follow up bombing missions if they see the harbor is not in a demolished state
Royal Navy staff officers are privately nervous about their ability to interdict Rommel's supply lines if Tobruk is functioning, they advise it is only 250 miles strait steam from Crete to Tobruk and that the Axis would be able to escort ships over the distance with fighter aircraft if they can land at Gambut to refuel and return back to Crete; they warn if the fleet has to evacuate, and the Axis set up convoy systems which largely bypass sailing past Malta, going Crete to Tobruk, that this would have grave implications across the battlefield; they are eager and pressing for air recon photos and are also dispatching two submarines to perform a recon of the port area
GHQ staff mood which had been progressively dour, was improved by announcement of USA Air expeditionary units being approved for Egypt and approval of advance deployment staff officers
GHQ staff privately advise they pray for rapid approval of USA ground troops
General Smith is inquiring with our staff every 4 hours about speeding up shipments of replacement tanks
General Smith will not provide number of running tanks inside or outside of pockets; 29th brigade is supported by 55 tanks at the moment on the frontier; some others have been straggling over the border the last few days whom were defeated in the south last week, the rest where likely pushed into the Tobruk pocket, the Knightsbridge pocket or the Gazala pocket or lost in the endless desert. Our middle case estimate is that Auchinlek has 100-160 tanks which are not in the surrounded units, although this number is speculative at this time; 8th army repair work shops at El Amyrid Egypt are swamped above and beyond capacity; there is considerable backlog in unit repair; loss of divisional workshops has grave strategic impact on the 8th army in the longer term; for it's recovery from this defeat
Auchinlek relieving Ritchie, whilst welcome in much of the staff and army applies additional pressure to Auchinlek whom has already gone many days with reduced or no sleep; and any opportunity for him to rest to restore his nerve and composure requires delegating to Smith whom is having confrontations with many staff officers, and leaving more problems for Auchinlek than he went to sleep with
There is immense pressure being applied by the other services up their chains of command to relieve smith
South African staff officers and other service officers have requested ICGS officers come to Egypt immediately to review situation first hand
Auchinlek admits failure causing grave issues in London, Smith more openly blames London for fall of Tobruk saying their refusal to approve free born doomed the garrison. Our staff cannot make such a determination because we are not seeing cables from London, but we are of the opinion that when it became known that Gott's HQ had operating plans for Freeborn on its command post which could possibly have been lost to the axis, this should have triggered a major strategic re-evaluation of the 8th army's ability to evacuate in the face of having disrupted air support, or in simpler terms they should have changed and expedited their retreat once Rommel got into the supply zone
This disclosure about large axis ammunition dumps just laying about at El Adem is simply shocking; it is near certain that many officers will and should face court martial over this matter, to leave large quantities of captured enemy munitions 2 days marching time from the front lines for well over 4 months, when the area has been a battlefield 4 times over is beyond our staff's comprehension; this oversite allowed Rommel's troops to restock their ammunition stores deep in the British rear and fend off all their counter attacks; this beyond the failure to properly coordinate supporting arms put the army in grave strategic jeopardy
Considering disclosures off the record by Desert air force and GHQ we now regard defeat as catastrophic, with both boxes having very limited ability to resist axis encirclement and aircraft
Our middle case current estimate on 8th army losses once the two boxes are consumed is 75-80 thousand men; it is wildly impossible to get any GHQ officer to objectively evaluate our numbers on this yet, the wound is too wide open for them, we will keep working on this; we do not have our middle case number prepared yet for loss of equipment but are coming close to having a first estimate
The staff officer whom had been giving us "dunkirk" now says "singapore" so there is some rationalization occurring that not just equipment is being lost, but the divisions themselves will be lost
The variety of privately disclosed issues for Malta that the army defeat is bringing forward are deeply troubling, the Naval Attache staff is going to prepare their own evaluations but we will continue to pass on those items we here that give picture to USA chain of command
The issue of using scorch earth tactics on Alexandria is deeply controversial inside GHQ and among all the branches and London itself; there are political implications, but privately GHQ officers advise that the Egyptian population and it's army whom have been helping the 8th army with so many of it's difficult labors of moving men to the front would take major issue with laying waste to the city and the delta to deny it to the Germans. They advise there are intelligence reports about of axis sympathizers inside the Egyptian Army who could make that issue very difficult for British presence in Egypt; especially if Rommel is able to invade and give them support
End Transmission
