O'Connors Raid.

A rough history.

On June 1940 Italy declared war on France & Great Britain, one of the things they forgot was to inform the Italian troops in Nth Africa of this so there was great surprise when the Armored Car & Tank units of the British 7th Armoured Division began raiding their frontier bases.

In Cyrennaica was based the Italian 10th Army with over 250,000 Italian & Native troops under Marshall Graziani. Facing them under the command of General Wavell were only 100,000 British & Empire troops, though only 36,000 were based in the Western Desert, others were in British Somaliland, Aden, The Sudan and training in Palestine.

From this first day of war the British (Used unless distinguishing specific forces) held a complete moral ascendancy over the Italian troops..

It took until 13 September for the Italians to prepare for the invasion of Egypt. When they attacked the British continually harassed them and after advancing only 50 miles they stopped at Sidi Barrani and dug fortified camps.

Here they stayed and despite their overwhelming numbers allowed the British to rule the desert outside their camps, in doing so the scouting troops discovered that while the “Camps” were formidable to the east & South, they were weaker to the West (rear) and North.

So the Western Desert Force under Gen Richard O’Connor made plans for a “5 Day Raid” to clear the Italians out of Egypt.

On 6 December 1940 the 4th Indian Infantry Division left its positions near Mersa Matruh on “Training Exercise No2 for an assembly area about 30 miles south of Sidi Barrani. In the meantime the 7th Armoured Divison was also on the move.

In the early morning of 9 December the attack went in , a blocking force faced the Italians on the Coast Road (Selby Force) while the Indians who had moved into the rear of the Italian camps hit Nibeiwa & Tummars camps. Supporting them was the secret weapon, the Matilda II tanks from 7th Royal Tank Rgt were impervious to any Italian AT gun except from point blank range, and these lead the British and Indian troops into the attack. After initial determined defense, the camps fell swiftly. 7th Armoured had sent its Brigades onto the coast road at Buq Buq & Azzizya, its Support Group masking the Sofafi Camps, while the Royal Navy pounded Sidi Barrani.

By the evening of 10 December the main battle was over, 20,000 Italians had been captured with only 700 British & Indian casualties

O’Connor would begin to plan an extension to his raid.

Wavell, on 11 December, would advise that 4th Indian Division would be withdrawn and replaced by the untried 6th Australian Division..

The Italians, chased by 7th Armoured, straggled back to their next defensive point, the Fortress & Port of Bardia just inside the Libyan frontier. Inside the Fortress were 1 & 2 Blackshirt, 62 Marmarica, 63 Cyrene & 64 Catanzaro Divs plus the original Fortress troops and Frontier Guards.

With concreted defensive posts it was a formidable position.

7th Armoured covered the fortress until the Australian Brigades moved up, and on their release advanced on Tobruk and surrounded that Fortress.

6th Australian Division shared one thing in common with the 4th Indian, every man was a volunteer, but unlike the Indians the men were mostly with only 1 year’s service unlike the professional Regular Indian troops.

On 1 January Western Desert Force was morphed into XIII Corps.

On 3 January, equipped with Italian wire cutters, using rifle “4x2” cleaning flannel to mark minefields, the Australian went into their first attack of WW2 . Heavily loaded with weapons and ammo, and wearing the new leather jerkins they looked like giants to the Italian defenders. Again led by the Matilda II’s of 7 RTR they cut through the defences. In 72 hours they had captured the Port and though the estimate of the defenders was 25,000 men, by midday on the first day over 30,000 had been captured, by the end over 40,000 men, 400 Guns and a small number of tanks (many weapons were sent to the Greeks) were captured for the loss of 130 killed & 326 wounded.

Again the Army, with support from the Royal Navy & RAF had destroyed an Italian position.

Tobruk was another prepared fortress, with 2 rings of concreted posts though with only 25,000 defenders they were a bit thin on the ground.

Again the Australians moved up with 7th Armoured holding the screen, on 21 January the Australians attacked on a narrow sector and were soon deep into the defenses. Again the Italians fought hard for a short time, then gave up once it was seen they were about to be swamped. Their Artillery fought hard as usual but again the Australians, with 7RTR in support, won through and the Italian surrender was marked by the raising of a Diggers Slouch Hat from the main flagpole of the Admirals Headquarters.

27,000 defenders, 200 Guns and 200 vehicles were captured, plus 2 months of food for 25,000 men and a water distilling & wells complex which could produce 40,000 gallons of water each day, more valuable than Gold.

At this point over 100,000 Italians had been captured, over 3 times the size of XIII Corps.

After Tobruk, the Australians stayed on the coast road and pushed on through Gazala, Derna (after a hard fight on 29 Jan) Barce(5 Feb) and onto Bengazi, 7th Armd went inland to Mechili(26 Jan), and then in a piece of O’Connors brilliance, pushed on through Msus(5 Feb)and onto the Coast road south of Bengazi cutting off a major portion of the Italian 10th Army at the Mosque of Beda Fomm on 6 Feb. After a very hard fought battle, with little supply reaching them, they finally broke the Italians on 7 February and another 25,000 men, 100 M13 Tanks, 200 Guns, Uncounted Lt Tks and 1,500 wheeled vehicles went into the bag.

Overall, 130,000 men, 180 medium Tks, over 300 Lt Tks & 845 Guns were captured, many others were destroyed.

Western Desert Force/ XIII Corps lost 500 British, Indians & Australians were killed, 1,373 were wounded and 55 “missing”

I believe it was Anthony Eden who paraphrased Churchill “NEVER BEFORE, IN HUMAN CONFLICT, HAVE SO MANY,SURRENDERED SO MUCH, O SO FEW”

After this success, 6th Australian Division was removed and sent to Greece, 7th Armoured took what few “runners” they had back to Egypt and rest. 4th Indian was in Eritrea for its campaign against Keren . They were replaced by 9th Australian Division (A collection of the least trained Brigades as 7th Aust Div was to go to Greece and an Armoured Bde of the newly arrived 2ns British Armd Div, even equipping one unit with Italian M13’s!!

Western Desert Force (Later XIII Corps)

Corps Troops
7 Royal Tank Rgt
1 & 104 Rgts Royal Horse Artillery
51 Fd Rgt RA
7 & 64 Medium Rgts RA

7th Armoured Division
Div Troops
11 Hussars
3 & 106 Rgts RHA
2 RAF Armoured Car Coy.
2 Fd Sqn, RE
141 Field Prk Toop, RE

4th Armoured Bde
7 Hussars, 2 Royal Tank Rgt, 6 Royal Tank Rgt

7th Armoured Bde
3 Hussars, 8 Hussars, 1 Royal Tank Rgt

Support Group
1 Kings Royal Rifle Corps, 2 Rifle Bde, 1 & 4 Rgts, RHA.

4th Indian Infantry Division

Div Troops
Central India Horse (Recce), 1 Royal Northumberland Fusiliers MG Bn,
1, 25 & 31 Fd Rgt RA
3 RHA


5 Indian Infantry Bde
1 Royal Fusiliers, 3/1 Punjab Rgt, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles

11 Indian Infantry Bde
2 Queens own Cameron Highlanders, 1/6 Rajputana Rifles, 4/7 Rajput Rgt

16 British Infantry Bde (attached)
1 Queens Rgt, 2 Leicestershire, 1 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders


Selby Force
3 Coldstream Guards, W Coy Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, A Coy 1 South Staffordshire, A Coy 1 Cheshire, det 1 Durham Lt Infantry, A Troop 7 Hussars


6th Australian Infantry Division

Div troops
6 Div Cavalry Rgt
2/1, 2/2 & 2/3 Fd Rgt RAA

16 Australian Infantry Bde
2/1, 2/2 & 2/3 Australian Infantry Bns AIF

17 Australian Bde
2/5, 2/6 & 2/7 Australian Infantry Bns AIF

19 Australian Infantry Bde
2/4, 2/8 & 2/11 Australian Infantry Bns AIF

There was also a Free French Motorised Company swanning around.


Italian Tenth Army

XXI Corps
1 Libyan Div (Maktila)
2 Libyan Div (Tummar)
4 Blackshirt Div (Sidi Barrani)
Maletti (Armoured) Group. (Nibeiwa)
63 Cirene Div (Rabia/Sofafi)
62 Marmarica Div Sofafi/Halfaya)
64 Catanzaro Div (Buq Buq)
1 Blackshirt Div (Bardia)
2 Blackshirt Div (Bardia)
Bardia Fortress

XXII Corps
61 Sirte Div (Tobruk)
Tobruk Fortress

XX Corps
60 Sabratha Div (Derna)
27 Brescia Div ( Slonta)
17 Pavia Div ( Cirene)
Babini Armd Bde (Mechili)

(Note, Libyan & Blackshirt Divs were approx 8,000 men, Metropolitan Divs ahd approx 13,000)

OOB & Dates taken from the CRUCIBLE OF WAR by Barrie Pitt, definatly worth purchasing

 

That was interesting to read about Ali !

I was wondering what a Maltida looked like and found this site with maps and pictures.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Article.asp?ArticleID=366

I don't know much about tanks but wondered how the Maltida was rated by the crews vs the Sherman ?

 

I know only about Soviet accounts, who were delevered hundreds of Matildas (I'd say 800 - 1000).

They found it too clumsy and slow, because they rfeally lacked power to move their very thick armor. The Matilda had such a thick armor for its size and power !

Soviet usualy praised great mobility for their tanks, it is said that Soviets really favored the faster and nimbler Valentine over the Matilda.

The original post is very interesting, I did not know these details.

 

As the Matilda II was an Infantry Tank designed in about 1936 and in action in 1940 it is hard to compare it against the M4 Sherman developed in 1941-42 and in action in late 1942.

The Tillie was designed with strong armour, slow speed and the 2pdr Gun, in its time the best Tank gun around. Sadly it was small and incapable of being up-gunned.

It was probably better armoured than the Sherman, but had about half the speed and the Sherman had the ability to be dramatically up-gunned (up to 105mm).

Its a pity the Soviets didnt appreciate the Matilda, I'm sure those vehicles would have been greatly appreciated in Malaya, Burma, New Guinea etc

 

Not a problem, maybe members should be encouraged to post about items of interest instead of articles to argue about.

 

The Valentine tank too was an Infantry tank. A bit slow on the speed, and woefully undergunned. The main problem with early british designs was the inability to fire proper HE shells from the 2pdr gun.

 

it seems to me it was just a good anti infantry tank, and nothing more...

 

Fortune

The main problem was that the 2pdr gun was useless on infantry. Not able to fire HE shells like the German designs.

The only ordnance to be put against soft targets was the BESA machine gun.

 

Yet in its time it worked brilliantly.

But then the opposing AT guns were 37mm, hit by a few 2pdr spots these were destroyed, or overrun. The MGs were to take care of the Infantry. There were also Close Support versions distributed in limited numbers, and late war the Australian Army developed a succesful flamethrower (Matilda Frog)

 

But capable of being upgunned to 6pdr or, in the Valentine XI, the 75mm gun.

 

Just some notes:

The Australian divisions in the Western Desert at this time (following the defeat of the Italians) had their divisional cavalry regiments equipped with a combination of M11/39 and M13/40s. These had large white kangaroos painted on the sides of the hull and turrets.
These were replaced as soon as possible with more proper Crusader tanks.

The Matilda, also called the Matilda senior or Matilda II (the first Matilda was a machinegun armed heavily armored light tank used in France). The Matilda had a maximum of 78mm of armor and was basically impervious to antitank weapons of the 1939 - 40 period. Against the Italians they were the equivalent of Tiger tanks.
The Valentine, like all British tanks of the pre 1943 period was basically a slow well armored light tank. The cruisers like the A13, Crusader or Covenator were fast light tanks. The British had nothing through receiving the US M3 Grant that could be rated as a medium tank.
Against the Germans the problem that created was that the more flexible handwork batch systems of manufacturing in Germany allowed the Germans to upgrade their more flexible designs so the British found themselves fighting medium tanks with light ones.
The Soviets actually liked the Valentine. They saw it as a suitable replacement for their own T 70A light tank. It was probably the only British tank that they received that had a good reputation.
For a good read on the Matilda and the battles against the Italians in the Western Desert I suggest Brian Perrett's Matilda.

 

Ali

I did say 'early British designs'

And yes the QF 75mm Valentine was a marked improvement.

T.A

One of the really good thing about the Valentine was the reliability. Changes in the turret made it even better. Early models saw the Commander as a loader.

As for the M3 the british faced a problem with using the AP shells. The American AP shells sent along with the Grant tanks were not doing the job. The result was to take a German AP warhead and fit it on the shell. I read about this interesting phenomenon in 'Pendulum of Battle three battles at El Alamein.' A good read.