Chapter 475: The Great Desert
One after another, tanks appeared on the desert horizon, kicking up a sky full of yellow sand, a truly spectacular sight. This seemed to be a natural battlefield prepared for armored forces. The moment the engines roared and the tracks turned, they could raise a cloud of dust more effective than any deliberately released smoke screen.
Hundreds of tanks charging through the yellow sand—the scene was so grand it was hard to believe. It was as if war drums were beating in one’s ears. The sound of radio communications rose and fell. A classic German tank offensive had begun.
A dozen or so tanks fired at once. The shells struck a sand dune, sending sand flying. Two British soldiers of the Africa Expeditionary Force, wearing shorts, ran, hunched over, past the smoke from the shell bursts. Not far from them, a Matilda tank was hit by a shell and erupted in fierce flames.
The desert-yellow German tanks, their wide tracks crushing the small desert plants, stopped and fired with unhurried composure. On the other side of this tank, another tank of the same type was doing the exact same thing. The German attack came without warning, without even a standard artillery preparation.
There was no need for an artillery preparation. The German tanks outnumbered the British armored forces on the flank by more than two to one. The engagement of hundreds of tanks threw the British operational deployment into disarray. The British army, which had been preparing to move, was simply unable to organize an effective resistance.
It was like a disorganized infantry square suddenly being hit on the flank by cavalry. The battlefield turned into a one-sided slaughter. British soldiers fled in all directions, while the German tanks, like tigers among a flock of sheep, rampaged through the thousands of British soldiers.
The British soldiers, who had been in a bitter fight with the German 7th Corps for over six hours, completely collapsed. They were hungry and cold; most of them had not had lunch. The soldiers on both sides of the main front had been holding on grimly. They had fought from morning until noon, and then from noon until 2 PM. But the German 7th Panzer Division, which had entered the battle from the flank, was a fresh force, so their appearance suddenly accelerated the pace of the battle, which had been gradually slowing down.
At the very forefront of the assault was the 1st Regiment of the 7th Panzer Division. They were under orders to cut into the British positions and sweep away all resistance they saw. Under the command of their regimental commander, this regiment entered the battlefield from behind the southernmost British flank units. In less than half an hour, they had taken out a British divisional headquarters and captured a regimental commander along with 400 panicked British soldiers.
On the other flank, Rommel personally led the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment into the battle from the left of the 1st Regiment, conducting a limited flanking attack. Their luck was very good. One company charged into a fuel depot controlled by the British, and the garrison had fled the storage base without even setting it on fire. And Rommel’s own battalion headquarters ran into the interior of another British division, knocking out three concealed anti-tank gun positions from the rear and also destroying an artillery position in one go.
The other battalion of the 2nd Regiment, led by its commander, advanced along a simple road. Their luck was not so good. At the end of the road, they ran into the retreating forces of the British North Africa Expeditionary Force’s 1st Armoured Division, and a fierce battle ensued. A Panther tank was destroyed on the road, but this German battalion successfully stopped the British retreat and encircled about 4,000 British soldiers.
The entire battlefield was thrown into chaos by the 7th Panzer Division. Fighting was raging everywhere over a depth of more than ten kilometers. A dozen or so positions simultaneously reported that they had been surrounded by the Germans, and several more command posts had lost contact. Now, no one could figure out where the Germans were, nor could anyone confirm the direction and scale of the German attack.
The battle was fierce to the point of white heat. The large communication antenna on Rommel’s armored command vehicle was even hit by a shell. A soldier who couldn’t see the situation clearly actually reported to the 7th Panzer Division’s headquarters that he had seen “his general get hit by a shell.” This news briefly caused chaos in the German ranks, but it was quelled after Rommel, braving the shellfire, climbed onto another tank, borrowed a radio, and gave the order to continue the attack. The German army continued its offensive, and Rommel was kindly escorted from the battlefield by his soldiers.
“General! The 3rd Company of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Regiment has taken control of a nearby fuel depot. It’s very well hidden; our aerial reconnaissance didn’t even spot it…” a staff officer, holding a radio headset to his ear, reported to Rommel, who had just jumped off the tank. “They say the enemy is organizing a counter-attack and needs support.”
Rommel brushed the sand from his uniform, then squinted and walked over to the temporary command post’s armored command vehicle. He glanced at his own pitiful command car and pointed to the antenna that had been shot off. “Notify the maintenance squadron to fix this for me! Also, you will personally take the divisional headquarters’ tanks to support the 3rd Company. Apart from you guys, I can’t find any other idle troops!”
Soon, amidst a clamor of noise, the reinforcement unit set off, consisting of two Panzer IIs from the divisional headquarters that were used for carrying miscellaneous items, one truck, and 12 fully armed divisional guards. Fifteen visiting Italian officers were also put to use by Rommel. They were issued weapons and tasked with guarding the 7th Division’s temporary frontline command post where Rommel was located.
No one knew how chaotic the battle had become, but some had already personally witnessed the British, in their confusion, beginning to fire on their own positions. Someone reported that many British were fleeing north, but they simply did not have the extra forces to pursue those fleeing troops. The reason was not complicated; it was just that the Germans now had far, far too many British prisoners.
The small unit Rommel had dispatched to reinforce the fuel depot did not encounter much trouble on the way. They routed a small group of scattered British troops and then reached the perimeter of the huge storage depot. But here, they were met with intense enemy fire.
Machine-gun bullets rained down on the sand dunes like a storm, pinning down the German soldiers. The British firepower had never seemed so dense. But soon, the sharp-eyed staff officer leading the unit discovered the problem: the sound of the machine guns opposite them sounded a bit like an MG42. So he crawled back to the tank behind him and loudly ordered the defenders of the fuel depot to cease fire.
Soon, the misunderstanding was cleared up. The jumpy German defenders had mistaken them for a British unit. However, this staff officer, who had just been nearly killed by friendly fire, had to lead his troops back to Rommel’s temporary frontline command post. The 1st Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of the 7th Panzer Division’s panzergrenadiers had arrived nearby and had reinforced the German defensive position, which had previously only consisted of tanks. Reinforcements were no longer needed here.
Just as the German army was in chaos, the British general headquarters was also in a state of disarray. An operations staff officer was marking the positions of the German attacks on the map, but he found that this was a futile effort, because the map had already been marked up into a complete mess.
An officer in the chaotic command post picked up a constantly ringing phone, then his face changed. He covered the mouthpiece, turned to the old general sitting in the chair, and said, “The southern fuel depot has fallen. The troops stationed there panicked and failed to blow it up.”
The eastern fuel depot was a secret fuel supply base for the British army. It contained not only tens of thousands of tons of gasoline and diesel reserves but also ten thousand barrels of high-quality aviation fuel. The main reason the British army had been slow to retreat was that the transport of this fuel depot was not yet complete. The truck convoys were not scheduled to empty the larger northern fuel depot and arrive there until tonight to move out these important strategic materials.
“What?” The old general was stunned by the news. He shot up from his seat, but he quickly collapsed back down. After several hours of tense nerves, he had encountered the disaster of his troops collapsing, and now he had lost an important supply base. This series of blows was finally too much for him, and he fainted.
The battle raged for a full three hours. At five in the afternoon, the southernmost British division surrendered under the German attack. Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division and Friedrick’s 7th Corps had a victorious rendezvous. With this, the most dangerous flaw in the German plan—the exposed flank of the 7th Panzer Division—was resolved.
Having freed up his troops, General Friedrick immediately dispatched a battalion to the north to coordinate with Rommel’s 7th Division in continuing the attack. And at this time, the German air force, which had been unable to intervene due to the intermingled positions of the two sides, once again appeared in the skies over the battlefield and mercilessly bombed the British, who had just managed to stabilize their positions, sending them into a panic.
To ensure the captured fuel depot was completely secure, Rommel ordered his troops to frantically expand their strategic depth. The German tanks, taking advantage of the late afternoon sun, launched a fierce attack on the British positions, driving all the British defenders near the fuel depot to an area 20 kilometers away.
After learning about the fuel depot, Friedrick replaced a portion of the 7th Panzer Division’s defensive positions overnight and launched a fierce attack on the British under the cover of darkness. For the first time since the beginning of World War II, the German army had taken the initiative to launch a large-scale night battle, and in an offensive posture, regardless of the cost.
This battle in southern Libya, which began on the morning of April 9th, lasted until the afternoon of April 10th before it could be considered barely over. The German army, disregarding its own heavy losses of over 3,500 men and 31 tanks, had, in one fell swoop, eaten up more than half of the main force of the British Ninth Army in North Africa. 17,000 British were captured, and 5,700 were killed in action. The remaining troops had completely lost their will to fight and had retreated over 300 kilometers before finally halting their withdrawal.
It is worth mentioning that on the night of April 9th, the frontline commander of the Ninth Army died of a heart attack while being treated. He had, in a way, taken full responsibility for his defeat with his death. From then on, the British army had lost its chance to drive the Italian North African forces into the sea. The combined German-Italian Afrika Korps had completed its debut in North Africa with a resounding victory.
Published: 2025-08-28T05:06:55.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-11-22T12:42:58.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c475-great-137526492
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