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Part Twelve
"The object of the deception plan was twofold: (a) To conceal from the enemy as long as possible our intention to take the offensive. (b) When this could no longer be concealed, to mislead him about the date and the sector in which our main thrust was to be made. This was done by the concealment of real intentions and real moves in the north, and by advertising false signs of activity in the south." Montgomery's own memoirs (p. 121)
In this article, we analyse the turning point of the desert campaign : the famous Battle of El Alamein. Operation Lightfoot , the code name for Montgomery's massive offensive, was planned for the evening of October 23rd, 1942. Montgomery knew that his sacrificial pawns, the hordes of sappers and infantrymen spearheading the attack in front of the main armour, could find themselves in a dangerous and vulnerable position as they carved their way through the extensive German minefields. To minimise his own casualties, Montgomery was determined to fool the Germans not only with the date of the attack but also with the precise point at which the main thrust would be made. Furthermore, Montgomery hoped that the German command, surprised and confused by the British advance, would be less able to launch a dangerous counter-attack. According to Fisher, Maskelyne's own contribution to the El Alamein deception plan was crucial and should be seen as the climax of his illustrious wartime career. In the build-up to this historic engagement , as set out in "The War Magician" , Montgomery personally met with Dudley Clarke, Geoffrey Barkas, Tony Ayrton and Jasper Maskelyne. He authorised them to develop an urgent deception plan. Their brief was to hide the main army assembling to the north and create the plausible illusion of a second ' army ' gathering to the south. If Maskelyne could somehow conjure up a phantom army and simultaneously vanish the genuine juggernaut, he would pull off "the greatest magic trick in history" . Maskelyne, according to Fisher, translated the challenge into conjuring terminology : "It's a trick, that's all...the situation absolutely begs for a classic misdirection. What we intend to do is make something that is in one place appear to be in another place..." . (War Magician, p.274-275) The map reprinted below will help readers understand and appreciate the deception plan drawn up for the decisive Battle of El Alamein . The deception operation, code-named Bertram, included the following elements : On the eve of battle, transport vehicles (in actuality, tanks) would assemble in the north ; armoured vehicles and tanks ( in actuality, dummies) would gather to the south. Stockpiles of fuel for the main army to the north would have to be assembled and hidden in advance. Conversely, a fake dump to the south would have to be created. To meet these challenges, the camouflage experts came up with strong practical solutions. The petrol for the main thrust was secretly loaded into old slit-trenches to the north. A fake water pipeline, snaking south, code named 'Diamond', was constructed from flattened fuel cans. It was hoped that German reconnaissance planes studying the pipeline's daily progress would calculate that it could not possibly be operational until November. This was a clever, dual-purpose ploy designed to catch the Germans off-guard as to the date and direction of the attack.
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'Martello' the rectangle to the north , from where the disguised armour would eventually launch the attack , was occupied initially by a combination of 4,000 real trucks and 722 cleverly constructed dummy trucks or 'sunshields'. These 'hides' were empty shells at this stage of the deception operation. Only on the night of the 'switch' would they house their designated tank.
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Camouflaged empty sunshield | ||||||||||||||||||
The artillery pieces needed for the massive opening barrage were disguised as innocent trucks. The method of concealment was nicknamed 'cannibal' because the fake trucks appeared to swallow up the genuine guns hidden within. The deployment areas were also nicknamed 'Cannibal'.
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A Cannibal | ||||||||||||||||||
The dummy supply dump to the south , code named 'Brian', consisted of fake buildings and fake stores of fuel, ammunition and food. A small team of soldiers was under orders to simulate signs of mass activity. For example, by driving trucks around for long periods, extensive tyre tracks could be created. All these interlinked schemes were designed to fool the Germans into thinking the attack would occur in November and be launched from the south. Meanwhile, Rommel, unaware of these secret preparations, flew to Europe for urgent rest. Interestingly, a military manoeuvre of genuine tanks was staged deliberately in the south for the benefit of German reconnaissance. It was hoped that this sham deployment would be interpreted incorrectly as a dress rehearsal for the real attack. General Stumme, Rommel's temporary replacement, followed prearranged orders and divided his forces. "XV Panzer and the Italian Littorio Division remained in the north while XXI Panzer and Ariete moved into defensive positions on the southern front. His reserves, the 90th Light and the Trieste Divisions, were at a swing point behind the lines." (War Magician p.283) During the night of October 18th and the daylight of October 19th, the British armour, deliberately uncamouflaged, moved into preliminary position. It was hoped that German aerial reconnaissance would spot this large scale manoeuvring. October 20th was the date of the transposition or switch. The majority of units from Montgomery's real army moved from the south to the north and were replaced, in turn, by dummy tanks and dummy artillery. The Allied attack on the northern front, late in the night on October 23rd, was preceded by a massive artillery barrage. The British infantry then advanced by moonlight into the enemy minefields, the so-called Devil's gardens. At the same time, diversionary attacks on a minor scale were made to the south. In fact, the mine sweeping operations proved slow and costly. The ingenious Scorpion 'flail' tanks, making their début at El Alamein, proved to be less effective than was hoped. In addition, the newly designed electronic mine sweepers failed to work. The sappers and infantry men switched back to the traditional method, using bayonets and bare hands to search systematically the sand ahead of them. Fortunately for the British, the German command, which was gradually recovering from the initial shock of the opening shots, now faced a further crisis. Stumme, desperate to gain a first hand view of the battle, was killed on the morning after the offensive, ambushed in his staff car . Amid this chaos, Rommel was ordered by Hitler to return. When Rommel arrived at his command headquarters, he quickly assessed the position and decided to bring up XXI Panzer from the south and the 90th Light from the reserve position. These divisions had been diverted and kept away from the northern front for two vital days. "The War Magician" emphasises that the El Alamein deception plan had a direct and positive influence on the eventual success of the ground assault because it helped delay the German counter-attack. Several independent authorities would support this claim. For example, historian Michael Howard, an expert on strategic deception, confidently asserts :"There can be no doubt of the success of this deception." After the battle, the captured general von Thuma personally confirmed that the Afrika Korps had expected the attack to come from the south. This candid admission provides strong anecdotal evidence that the deception plan did have an effect. Churchill's speech in Parliament on November 11th is also frequently quoted: "By a marvellous system of camouflage, complete tactical surprise was achieved in the desert. The enemy suspected - indeed, knew- that an attack was impending, but when and where and how it was coming was hidden from him." In spite of this multi-sourced evidence, I have serious doubts on the true effectiveness of Plan Bertram. An important point to remember is that it took many days of fierce fighting for Montgomery to overcome the Afrika Korps. There is a cynical epigram of warfare: No plan survives contact . The plan of attack, no matter how brilliantly conceived, tends to go wrong from the very moment it is put into action. The initial phase of the British penetration soon encountered delays and setbacks. Ellis (Brute Force p.280-281) argues that Montgomery made serious blunders. In truth, Operation Lightfoot turned into Operation Clodhopper. Montgomery had underestimated the extent and impenetrability of the mine-fields. His plan of battle produced chaos and congestion. Tanks became stuck in grotesque traffic jams and quickly began to overheat. One participant described the scene as reminiscent of "a badly organised car park at an immense race meeting held in a dust bowl". Other military historians have debated the wisdom of Montgomery's costly thrust. It should be noted that several of Montgomery's generals, at one stage,wanted to break off the attack to the north because of the high casualty rate and the lack of progress. These generals allegedly came close to mutiny. At 3.30 a.m. October 25th, Lumsden actually confronted Montgomery and asked him to call off the attack. Even Fisher's account in "The War Magician" readily concedes that " At the end of five days close combat, many British units had still not achieved the first day's objective." The long delay in crossing the minefield surely invalidated the initial surprise value of Operation Bertram. Alexander McKee's recent book El Alamein(1991) claims that Rommel quickly worked out where the main attack was coming from:"In spite of the order to medical units to remove their Red Crosses and...concentrate medical resources obviously in the south, the give-away was the enormous concourse of vehicles which built up in the north, all in full view of the heights still held by the Germans." Rommel immediately brought up his reserves, met the main thrust and put up ferocious resistance. Of course, Rommel still lost the battle, but this was due to significant material shortages rather than any bold tactical manoeuvring on the part of the British. The main breakthrough against the Afrika Korps came only after Montgomery had revamped his battle plan by arranging an attack further south called 'Supercharge'. ___________________________________________________________________________
Why did the British win at El Alamein ? Deception did play a role, but there were other important factors that contributed to the victory. The traditional, perhaps simplified, view contends that victory was due to Montgomery's inspired leadership and his unflinching battle strategy. There is some truth in this. Montgomery's unyielding doctrine of maximum concentration at a single point to smash the enemy eventually proved unstoppable. However, the following contributions are also recognised as critical : • the outstanding performance of Australians and New Zealanders. • the newly arrived and technologically superior M4 Sherman Tanks provided by America. In contrast, the Germans failed to meet their original deadline of introducing the advanced Tiger tank. • Rommel's absence in the first 48 hours of the battle. • fuel and ammunition shortages. Rommel had'stretched his elastic' to the maximum. As discussed in the previous article, an important reason why the North African campaigns oscillated so dramatically was the logistical predicament. Changes in length to the supply lines eventually handicapped the invader and favoured the defender. The further an army pushed forward in triumph, the less able it was to deliver the killer blow against the retreating enemy forces. Overstretched, it then became vulnerable to counter-attack. • the waning of German air power. By October 1942, German aerial reconnaissance had been severely curtailed. The German air force was outnumbered, overstretched and exhausted. Convoy protection was given high priority. The resumption of bombing raids against Malta also diverted scarce resources. An embarrassing statistic confirming the weak state of the GAF is that on October 24th , the first main day of battle after the night-time offensive, the Germans only managed 107 sorties whereas the British achieved 1, 000. The British also experimented with special jamming aircraft which disrupted radio contact between Panzer units. • Ultra intelligence. Although Montgomery did not know the exact details of Rommel's defensive battle plan, he knew precisely Rommel's troop and tank strengths. Recently released documents also confirm that Ultra enabled the British to track and sink vital ammunition and fuel supplies. • Field Intelligence. Montgomery's 'Y' service, which intercepted battlefield communications, was coming into prominence. In contrast, Rommel's own battlefield intelligence unit was now severely handicapped. In Fisher's book there is no reference to July 10th, the day on which Australian troops stormed the Afrika Korps' forward intercept station. Seebohm, commander of Rommel's SIGINT team had moved his unit to elevated ground to maximise the number of transmissions intercepted. The Australians eliminated this position in a surprise attack, capturing men and documents, and fatally wounding Seebohm. The hidden secret behind Rommel's Fingerspitzengefuhl (uncanny sixth sense) was at last revealed. However, the decisive factor influencing victory at El Alamein was surely the incontrovertible fact that Montgomery had more men and military hardware. On the eve of the battle, the British were well aware of this superiority . An enigma decrypt from October 20th revealed German troops numbered only 49,000 and Italian troops were 54,000, compared to the British Army's 195,000. Another enigma decrypt, intercepted on October 23rd, gave precise details of tank strengths: German : 238 tanks (including 30 obsolete Pzkw II's). Italians : 279 tanks British : 1,029 tanks (plus 200 in reserve), plus a further 1,000 under repair or being altered. With hard-headed statistics like these, the unglamorous theory of warfare dubbed 'brute force' seems the most relevant in any discussion of why Montgomery won at El Alamein. John Ellis argues that "the outcome was never in much doubt, because of the tremendous material superiority which the Commonwealth forces were able to bring to bear..." El Alamein was principally a battle of attrition. It has been described as a First World War battle fought with Second World War weapons. It is hard to deny the accuracy of Rommel's own assessment that the Afrika Korps lost because of overwhelming numerical inferiority in men, tanks, supplies, fuel, ammunition and aerial support . As Rommel wrote in his retrospective account of the campaign:"The battle is fought and decided by the Quartermaster before the shooting begins. The bravest men can do nothing without guns, the guns nothing without plenty of ammunition, and neither guns or ammunition are of much use in mobile warfare unless there are vehicles with sufficient petrol to haul them around." However, the modern view of El Alamein, fifty years later, also takes into account the importance of Secret Intelligence: "Above all, El Alamein was won by the code-breakers and the quartermasters." Should the words"the camoufleurs" be added to this contemporary quotation, i.e. El Alamein was won by the codebreakers, the quartermasters and the camouflage experts ? This is a difficult question to answer. However, on the available evidence, I would argue that their contribution to the outcome of this battle has been exaggerated. For example, let me raise the following important point, which appears to have been overlooked by military analysts. The subtleties of Plan Bertram relied on fake concentrations and sham movements being spotted by enemy reconnaissance. However, the latest evidence from intelligence files reveals that on the eve of battle the German airforce was unable to mount even minimal reconnaissance flights: "Thanks to the RAF, the enemy was denied any aerial observation of the British forces between 18 and 22 October, when Eighth Army took up its final positions, and during 23 October, immediately before Eighth Army's advance; as was confirmed in the Enigma decrypts of the Fliegerfuhrer's daily reconnaissance reports, no GAF aircraft succeeded in over-flying the British area of concentration." Hinsley, p 240 Surely this means that the sham positioning of British forces to the south on the 18th and 19th of October and the switching back on the 20th had no real effect on the German command, whose aerial reconnaissance by this stage was so impoverished as to be non-existent. It might be argued, then, that the conjuring trick (Bertram) in its final stages was over-elaborate and too clever, and was wasted on an enemy audience who, exhausted by other problems, were not paying attention at the critical time. It is hard, then, to assess the precise contribution of the camouflage and deception experts to the outcome at El Alamein, but a more modest view, expressed by Barkas on the final page of his book, "The Camouflage Story", perhaps comes closer to the truth: "Though none of us was so foolish as to think that it had been won by conjuring tricks with stick, string and canvas, we could at least feel that we had earned our keep. It was good to feel that camouflage had helped to put the fighting men into battle on more favourable terms, and to purchase victory at a lower price in blood." ___________________________________________________________________________ If we could replay the tape, indulge in hypothetical history, and alter the variables: this time, Operation Bertram is never implemented, Rommel is physically fit and in command from the start of the battle, the British do not have access to Ultra, Rommel's fuel ships aren't sunk, his SIGINT team survives intact, Seebohm is still alive — might there have been a different outcome? As Operation Lightfoot stalls, as the attrition rate grows too high, Montgomery under pressure from his subordinate commanders reluctantly halts the attack... Perhaps. However, it is hard to believe that Montgomery could ever have lost this battle. At best, for the German and Italian side, Montgomery's offensive might have been temporarily held. The British might well have suffered a higher casualty rate. But from a strategic viewpoint, these niceties did not really matter. The Axis forces, outnumbered and outgunned, would have merely postponed the eventual day of their defeat. Overwhelming brute force was moving against them and the situation was deteriorating week by week. (The debate continues: Ellis and others have criticised Montgomery's wasted opportunity after the battle to fully destroy the Afrika Korps. Australian analysts Bridge & Harper wittily conclude: "He may have knocked Rommel for six but he missed the next ball." However, neo-conservative historian Keegan is critical of "literary strategists". In his opinion, Montgomery's debut was "one of the most brilliant in the history of generalship." See The Australian newspaper, Oct 24th,1992.)
MASKELYNE'S INVOLVEMENT?
The deception plan in preparation for the battle of El Alamein is openly acknowledged in the official records. Its historical existence cannot be disputed. However, as we have seen, its precise effectiveness is open to debate. I have an additional concern. "Magic - Top Secret" gives scant coverage to the El Alamein deception plan. There is only a brief reference to preparations : "...we got to work again, producing dummy men, dummy steel helmets, dummy guns by the ten thousand, dummy tanks, dummy shell flashes by the million, dummy aircraft; and disguising the real tanks as trucks, disguising Bofors as trailers, making such a colossal hotchpotch of illusion and trickery as has never been accumulated in the world before." ( p. 121) Surprisingly, the description of the battle is restricted to a single paragraph and is vague. The Germans bombard the fakes "while the real British armour tore through elsewhere..." I am extremely puzzled as to why the ghost-writer of "Magic - Top Secret" makes no mention of Maskelyne's role in the deception plan at El Alamein. Why was such a wonderful opportunity missed to highlight Maskelyne's career? Could it be that Maskelyne was not intimately involved in Plan Bertram except at the ground level ? In contrast, Fisher's book culminates in this important deception scheme and provides pages and pages of detail. Like Booth, I was initially impressed by the apparent detail of the El Alamein clash:" the behind-the-scenes descriptions ...are absorbing details one usually doesn't gain from history books.." On second thoughts, I believe that Booth unwittingly goes astray in his generous praise for the way in which the battle is described in Fisher's book. I would accept that general history books tend to skip the details, but El Alamein was such a carefully prepared battle and of such importance to the British that many aspects of the engagement were recorded in detail and are in the public record. A skilled writer with access to a research library is capable of reconstructing the battle based on the eyewitness recollections of others. Thus, the fact that Fisher provides 'absorbing' detail is less impressive than it first seems to be. Beneath the gloss, Fisher's account of the battle of El Alamein seems to be based on the standard sources. The notion that Fisher gained access to privileged information, presumably from Maskelyne's 'diaries', and was able to construct an authentic insider's view of the battle which had never been told before, is surely overblown. For example, the deception plan can be found in Barkas' earlier account. How trustworthy , then, is Fisher's account of Maskelyne's contribution ? How far was Maskelyne personally involved in the development of the deception plan? Fisher virtually gives him centre stage. In "The War Magician", Fisher claims that on September 16th, 1942, Barkas and Ayrton whisk Maskelyne away to meet with Montgomery, Dudley Clarke and de Guingand at the same battle headquarters of Eighth Army. "After the meeting was adjourned Jasper strolled around the area with Barkas and Ayerton, finally settling down on the crest of a high white dune..." They then return to "the third-class waiting room of the El Alamein railway station." Ayerton then leaves to reconnoitre the terrain to the north, "while Clarke, Barkas and Maskelyne set to work." Maskelyne is credited with coming up with the 'switch' plan. "Working on a battered old typewriter with sticky keys, they banged out a general plan of approach, a so-called "appreciation of the situation." In contrast, Barkas' earlier book , "The Camouflage Story", is important because it includes the first detailed account of the deception plan for El Alamein . Barkas does not actually say that Maskelyne was involved in the creation of the original plan which confirms my suspicions that Fisher inserted Maskelyne's name into key episodes of the Alamein narrative. For example, in Barkas' version, on September 17th 1942, de Guingand meets with Barkas and Tony Ayrton at the new battle headquarters of the Eighth Army and asks them to develop a deception plan. Disappointingly for Barkas, Montgomery does not put in an appearance. "With our load of top secrecy heavy upon us, Ayrton and I trudged through the glaring white sand, seeking a place where we could talk freely without being overheard...Choosing the summit of a dune so that our words would be drowned by the thunder of the rollers, we tried to get the thing into perspective..." And later that day: "In two hours, after a feverish session on an ancient and gritty typewriter, Ayrton and I returned to Brigadier de Guingand with an appreciation and a report...." No mention is made of Maskelyne being involved in this brainstorming session. My aim is not merely to catalogue forgivable minor discrepancies between Fisher's account and Barkas' but to point out major ones: a participant might not recall precisely whether General Montgomery was wearing an Australian slouch hat or a black beret, but surely would remember clearly whether or not Montgomery had attended the meeting ! Fisher's embellished account is almost certainly based on Barkas' original version. This is an astonishing point to make, but based on the available evidence, I would seriously question whether Maskelyne was directly involved in devising the El Alamein deception plan. This claim would obviously totally undermine the main thrust of David Fisher's book. In a follow-up letter, I raised these issues with Alistair Maskelyne who responded : "Your comparisons of the two books make interesting reading: I have the feeling that Fisher used the Alamein battle to provide a fitting climax to his own story. Certainly my father's "diaries" had no more than photos of various desert landscapes, interspersed with pictures of dummy tanks and trucks." | ||||||||||||||||||
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