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2nd New Zealand Divisional Artillery

[section]

page 372

THE record of the Eighth Army now came under earnest scrutiny. It had so far lost most of its battles, though in every one its strength on paper had been greater than that of the enemy. In July it had exhausted itself in a series of sacrificial attacks. August had been quiet until it ended with the Alam Halfa battle. This it fought awkwardly and hesitantly. Its main move, the attack southwards from the New Zealand Box, had been a failure and only the strength and skill of the Divisional Artillery had held back the enemy while the infantry withdrew inside the Box. The Halfa ‘victory’, in fact, was gained not by Eighth Army but by the naval and air forces mainly based on Malta which immobilised the Panzer Army at a critical juncture for lack of petrol. The rest of September was quiet, with the balance of strength swinging in favour of Eighth Army. But bitter experience had shown that superior strength was no guarantee of victory. There were evidently serious disabilities which stood in urgent need of remedy.

To the New Zealanders the most obvious of these was the lack of understanding between infantry and armoured units and formations and their inability to co-operate effectively on the battlefield. They would therefore need to train together before Eighth Army attacked, as it must soon do. For this purpose 9 Armoured Brigade came under the command of the Division on 19 September, by which date preliminary plans for the attack were well advanced. Six days earlier the BM and Captain Gilchrist1 had reconnoitred a training ground southeast of the ‘Swordfish’ area towards the Wadi Natrun. On the 17th the CRA returned from leave and instructions for divisional training arrived. By the 21st the Divisional Artillery was widely dispersed in the training area, the Survey Troop had surveyed an artillery range to the south, and the CRA had attended a series of conferences and lunched with General Freyberg. On the 24th all units moved to an assembly area and by night they continued on to a deployment area; they deployed on a two-brigade front the following night, and in the night 26–27 September they ‘attacked’.

page 373

The exercise was tailored to fit at as many points as possible the attack the Division was to make in an Eighth Army offensive towards the end of October for which the precise form of the artillery support was not specified. Freyberg had explained to ‘Steve’ Weir that his main concerns related to the depth of the Axis minefields on the allotted front—Miteiriya Ridge between Tell el Eisa on the coast and Ruweisat—and the difficulty of controlling infantry in the dark while reserve battalions were passed through to broaden the front.

Freyberg suggested a solution that was classic, though in Eighth Army it seemed revolutionary (shades of Le Quesnoy!): the creeping barrage. On an artillery course for regimental commanders at Almaza 20 months before Weir had put it to the senior instructor that this kind of support might be helpful to assaulting infantry and had been told that ‘a creeping barrage would never be used in this war’. In Syria he got the field regiments to practise a simplified version of one. The more he thought about the task now facing him, the more convinced he became that Freyberg had the answer. He talked it over with the GOC and sat up late preparing a barrage trace for the exercise. In the morning he explained it and the GOC and the infantry brigade commanders, Kippenberger and Gentry, accepted it. There are many claimants for the credit of introducing—or reintroducing—the creeping barrage, which became the main form of support for infantry attacks towards the end of the October offensive and thereafter; but there was no mention of such a method in the various orders and training instructions which circulated in Eighth Army until after the New Zealand exercise, which was watched by Lieutenant-General Leese, the corps commander under whom the Division was to serve for the ‘real thing’.

With many guns (though not really enough by First World War standards) and plentiful ammunition, relatively flat ground, and a long advance—5800 yards in the exercise—there was much to be said for a creeping barrage. The screen of bursting shells would help to guide the attacking infantry and, if they kept close to it, it would set the pace—100 yards every two minutes—and help to keep them together. But many details needed to be worked out. The attack by two brigades, with simultaneous attacks assumed to be mounted by flanking divisions, called for effective marking of brigade and divisional boundaries. Weir's staff, busy with other work, had thought of no way of doing this. One morning the GOC's personal page 374 assistant, Captain White,2 asked if Bofors guns could do this important job. His idea bore fruit and in the event the strings of tracer from Bofors guns, fired at regular intervals, indicated the boundary between the two brigades. A less successful expedient was to mark the divisional boundaries with the tracers of 25-pounder AP shot. The 25-pounders also fired smoke shells to mark the ends of the final objective and on the exercise this worked well enough; but in a real battle, when there would be many other sources of smoke and dust, this method might not succeed.

The barrage was thin at the start and got progressively thinner as the front of the attack broadened, so that the final objective was much longer than the start line. An infantry officer was wounded in the first phase by a shell which fell short and a ‘rogue gun’ firing short caused another light casualty later. Before first light on the 27th all supporting arms, including anti-tank and light ack-ack guns, were in position, the field and anti-tank guns fired at dummy targets, and soon afterwards 27 Battery began to move forward. A simulated counter-attack was ‘beaten off’ and at 9.45 a.m. the exercise ended, though the 4th Field moved off in the afternoon for further exercises with 9 Armoured Brigade. Freyberg meanwhile discussed the main features and congratulated the gunners on their performance. On the evening of the 28th he gave a dinner in Alexandria to introduce the commanding officers of the armoured brigade to those of the Division. The month ended with an inspection of the Divisional Artillery by General Montgomery, a spit-and-polish affair very different from the informal first meeting in the positions near Alam Nayil.

A series of brigade exercises in the first fortnight of October kept the gunners busy. They had to practise throwing out an anti-tank screen to a flank of an infantry brigade and also supporting daylight tank attacks with infantry co-operation. The field regiments carried out a comparative calibration of all guns, a necessary precaution for barrage work, and zeroed sights. Working parties went forward, regardless of brigade exercises, to dig gun and supply pits in the forward area for the coming attack on Miteiriya Ridge and to camouflage large stocks of ammunition and rations at battery positions which would be occupied for the start of the offensive. The atmosphere was tense with expectation.

1 Maj P. Gilchrist, MC, m.i.d.; born Te Aroha, 1 Aug 1904; barrister and solicitor; died 8 May 1960.

2 Maj J. C. White, MBE, m.i.d.; Wellington; born Dunedin, 1 Nov 1911; barrister and solicitor; PA to GOC 1940–45; Solicitor-General, Feb 1966– ; appointed QC Mar 1966.