Totensonntag, the Sunday of Death, is a Lutheran holiday to remember those who went before, akin to All Soul’s Day in Catholicism. In Germany in 1941, it was also the day that the country remembered its dead from the First World War. The night before Totensonntag outside Sidi Rezeg, a decorated veteran of that war, Erwin Rommel sensed an opportunity.

Rommel sent detailed instructions over the wireless to the Afrika Korps HQ. Then he drove there to direct the next day’s operations, certain that they would win the battle. However, he never made it: he drove straight into the 6th NZ Brigade’s assault positions, and only a quick three point turn by his driver saved them from being captured. He found refuge at Point 175, a small escarpment notable only for an Islamic tomb and a mosque that served as the Regt HQ of the German 361st Infantry Regt. When the Kiwi’s attacked, Rommel was cut off and spent the day playing regimental commander.

GenLt Ludwig Cruell, commander of the Afrika Korps, received Rommel’s instructions and promptly disregarded them as “out of touch”. The only thing Rommel had right was there was an opportunity. After two confused days of fighting Cruell personally managed to consolidate the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions, and convinced the Italian tankers of the Ariete Division to coordinate an attack. One of his reconnaissance bns identified a gap at the weakened and disorganized British 7th Armoured Division which he had mauled the day before. They were intermingled between the New Zealanders of the XIII Corps, and the 1st South African Division of the XXX Corps.

Despite the threat the New Zealanders posed, Cruell planned to drive east and south into the gap, then boldly strike west and north into the rear of the 5th SA Brigade and the Brit 22 Arm Bde. The loss of these two Bdes would hopefully break the British, and the captured supplies, especially fuel, would sustain the Korps another few days.

At 0430 on Totensonntag 23 Novemeber, 1941, Cruell and his chief of staff (Col Fritz Bayerlain, we will hear his name again) took off in his command vehicle, a captured British Mammoth Armoured Car, to accompany the 15th Panzer into battle. Half an hour after Cruell left, the Kiwis that chased Rommel away overran the Afrika Korps headquarters and captured the entire staff. Nevertheless, the Korps marched to their assault positions relatively unmolested, linked up with the Italians and launched their attack.

Initially it was field day for the panzers: they surprised the transport and supply columns of both brigades, and the 7th Armoured Div logistics (7 Spt Grp) columns. Supply trucks, fuel tankers, maintenance sheds, recovery vehicles – it was target rich environment. They were in “Happy Land” – every tanker’s dream. The columns scattered. But the South Africans were tough and well disciplined, and soon they were fighting back. In particular the South African artillery (of all types cannon, AT, and AA) made quite an impression on the Germans, as they leveled guns and fired over open sights. Though many South Africans fled, enough stood and fought that the attack became fixed. A lost column of 4th Brigade crusader tanks marched to the sound of the guns, and caused more problems. Then the 22nd Brigade counterattacked and the fight soon devolved into a brawl.

Cruell, like his superior, was always close to the fighting. About 1100, he heard an urgent banging on the rear of his command car. Bayerlain, in the back at the map board, leaned over and unlocked the door. When it opened he was horrified to find that he was face to face with a very surprised British sergeant. Both fumbled to shoot each other, but a random burst of 20mm flak from an unknown source sent the Brit scurrying back to his tank. Cruell stuck his head through the cupola and was equally horrified to see six British Matilda tanks surrounding the command car. They were part of the 22nd Bde’s hasty counterattack into the Cruell’s flank, and they thought the Mammoth command car, which Bayerlain captured months before at Mechili, was South African. They had no idea the prize in their midst. Cruell yelled, and his driver sped away. Only the lack of ready ammunition in the Matildas saved them.

But in the confusion, leadership matters most, especially at the lowest levels, and here the Germans decisively defeated the Allied troops. The unexpected South African resistance and British counterattacks slowed but did not stop the German advance. 88’s systematically picked off British tanks, and with the transports in chaos, the South African artillery eventually ran out of ammunition. By the time the 5th SA Bde HQ was overrun about 1600, the battle was over. Three Allied brigades were effectively destroyed (5 SA, 22 Arm, 7th Arm), and one was “temporarily useless as a fighting entity” (4th Arm). Furthermore, a giant hole was torn in the Allied line. At dusk, the Afrika Korps consolidated on the Sidi Rezegh airfield, right where they started 15 hours before.

That night, thirty miles away at the Eighth Army Headquarters at Maddalena, LieutGen Cunningham was distraught and broken upon the news of the of the Afrika Korps’ attack. There was a lot of fight left in the Eighth Army, but not so much left in its commander.

After several delays, the British Eighth Army launched Operation Crusader on 18 November 1941. The objective of Crusader was to destroy Rommel’s panzers. Everything else: the relief of Tobruk, the fall of Cyrenaica etc, would eventually come to pass if Rommel had no tanks. The British plan was to defeat the German and Italian tanks in Rommel’s inevitable, and frankly needed, counterattack with British armor and a breakout from Tobruk. The plan hinged on Rommel counterattacking immediately and broke down almost immediately. In fact, the day of the attack, the British, Australian, Kiwi and South African troops couldn’t find a single German or Italian soldier. The day started off with a thunderstorm which grounded the RAF, and the only Axis troops facing them were two reconnaissance bns and a company of tanks, who wisely withdrew in the face of the Allied assault. After Rommel’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” in September, he was convinced that the Allies couldn’t attack until December. So he concentrated his best divisions for an assault on Tobruk while the Afrika Korps, led by GenLt Cruell, reduced to just a screening force of a weak Panzer Div, and a few Italian infantry divisions held the frontier.

As the old saying goes, “No plan survives contact”, Operation Crusader’s plan didn’t even survive NOT making contact. The realities of fighting in that portion of the Western Desert saw to that. The area of operations was about 100 miles long east to west and 60 miles wide north to south. It was so flat that it was like fighting on a chess board. It was an attackers dream: the only terrain were low isolated hills less than 200m high, and minefields. Outflanking the opposition was always an option. However target identification was a problem. The dust covered everything, sand storms were common, and both sides used captured equipment.

It took Rommel a few days to be convinced that major offensive was underway, but when he did he launched the 15th Panzer, 21st Panzer and Italian Ariete and Trieste armored divisions at the British from around Tobruk. Between 20- and 27 November, a wild melee broke out around Sidi Rezeg. Attackers, counter attackers and counter counter attackers seemed to appear from any direction. Confusion reigned on both sides as commanders struggled to envision the battlefield. (Tobruk was actually relieved twice, only for them to be cut off again) Although the British outnumbered Rommel 2-1 in tanks, it seemed the Germans had tanks everywhere, and more importantly, were doing more damage.

The Germans had the upper hand around Sidi Rezeg for three reasons. First, the British thought of their tanks as Wellington thought of cavalry: for the elan of the charge. The Germans thought of their tanks as bait for the deadly 88mm anti-tank guns. Time and again the British would spot an enemy column and charge into an engagement area. In the confusion of being systematically destroyed by an enemy they couldn’t fire back against (if they could even see them), they would be attacked in the flank by the original target. Next, any German and Italian tanks that were knocked out were recovered by maintenance teams, who then repaired very close to the front. The British had no equivalent. Their knocked out tanks sat for weeks before being recovered, and then had to be sent back to Egypt to be repaired. German maintenance teams sent nearly 100 “destroyed” tanks back to Rommel’s divisions that week. Rommel’s maintenance sent more recovered British tanks to Rommel than the British did to their own troops. Finally, the Eighth Army Commander, Sir Alan Cunningham who did so well in East Africa, was not nearly as energetic and imaginative as Rommel, who simply out commanded him in the initial clashes.

Sensing the British were about to break, on 25 Nov, Rommel launched a massive counterattack to split XIII Corps, cut off XXX Corps and destroy the corps and army rear areas. Despite months of preparation by the British, and advantages in nearly every category, Operation Crusader was still very much in doubt.

In preparation for Operation Crusader, No 11 (Scottish) Commando landed on the Libyan coast from two British submarines on the night 14/15 Nov 1941. Due to heavy seas only 37 of the 59 actually made it to shore. Led by Brig Robert Laycock (the eccentric and colourful former commander of Layforce, the British rearguard on Crete) and LieutCol Geoffrey Keyes, the 37 men made a grueling 18 mile infiltration to their objectives – Rommel’s supposed headquarters at Beda Littoria, and an Italian Communications Retrans site at Cyrene. Laycock sent six men off with a LT to Cyrene where they successfully destroyed the site. The men sent to assassinate Rommel at the headquarters did not fare so well.

Keyes managed to infiltrate his entire team into Beda Littoria but they were stymied at the headquarters building. The windows and doors were locked. One of his soldiers spoke good German so Keyes banged on the front door, and they called out to open up. The sleepy sentry opened the door and the team pounced on him. But in the scuffle in the doorway they ended up shooting the guard which alerted the garrison. More immediately the Germans in the next room burst out and shot Keyes, killing him. In the confusion, Keyes’ second was shot by his own men, and the senior NCO took command. With the surprise lost, the commandos retreated.

But Rommel wasn’t there, in fact Rommel was actually in Rome arguing with his Italian superiors about resending critical parts and supplies that were on freighters sunk by Force K the week before. Also, it wasn’t even his headquarters, it was his rear logistics coordination center. When he heard about the raid, Rommel was indignant and furious that the British thought so little of him – he would never have his HQ 150 miles behind the front.

As for the Laycock and his commandos, they couldn’t reembark on the submarines, so they dispersed to made their way back to British lines in small teams. They were all eventually killed or captured except Laycock and the senior NCO who both spent 37 days wandering the desert, and one other who spent forty days surviving in the desert before being picked up. The six retrains attackers also survived and hitched a ride with a passing LRDG patrol.

Rommel had Keyes buried with full military honors in a Catholic cemetery outside of Beda Littori

Malta was the key to the Central Mediterranean. As long as it was in British hands, Rommel’s supply lines from Sicily and Italy were under threat. But Malta was only 60 miles south of Sicily, well within Italian and Luftwaffe bomber ranges and 100 miles from the main Italian naval base at Taranto. The island was surrounded by Italian minefields and small surface raiders, and prowled by German E-boats and U-boats. The island was under siege since the day Mussolini declared war on the British.

Keeping the island supplied under such a threat required massive operations for the simplest of items. Critical parts, code books ext were run in on fast minelayer or submarines, but everything required for the 35,000 man garrison to attack the Axis and for daily life for the 200,000 Maltese had to be convoyed in with large numbers of escorts, demonstrations and feints by fleet units, and intricate deception operations. Until Sicily was invaded in 1943, the Royal Navy (and eventually the US Navy) conducted 35 named operations involving Force H from the Atlantic Fleet at Gibraltar, Force K, the raiders in Malta, and the RAF and Mediterranean Fleet in Egypt, to keep Malta in the fight and from starving into surrender.

On 13 November 1941, the British launched Operation Perpetual, and it involved every Royal Navy sailor and RAF airman in the Mediterranean basin, and even included raids by the Long Range Desert Group on Rommel’s airfields in Libya lest they be used to attack the convoy. The operation went off perfectly despite the heavy German and Italian response. A month of painstaking planning and preparation between commands separated by thousands of miles (in the era before telecommunications) and a dogged enemy between them paid off. The only hiccup was the loss of the carrier Ark Royal (whose aircraft were instrumental in the sinking of the Bismarck) on the return trip when she was torpedoed by U-81 just outside the harbor at Gibraltar. But the cargo was delivered:

Just 35 Hawker Hurricane fighters.