Last Stand! by Bryan Perrett

Author:Bryan Perrett [Perrett, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780225265
Publisher: Orion

CHAPTER 8

The Defence of Outpost Snipe

27 OCTOBER 1942

The Second Battle of Alamein had been raging for almost three days when Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Turner, the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion The Rifle Brigade, was informed that during the night of 26/27 October his battalion, which had hitherto been employed in support of sapper units clearing gaps through the extensive enemy minefields, was to take part in offensive operations on the Kidney Ridge sector. These would involve Major-General Raymond Briggs’ 1st Armoured Division, and would attempt to sever the Rahman Track, the Axis army’s principal means of lateral communication, lying two miles to the west.

The Eighth Army had opened the battle at 2140 on 23 October with a deafening bombardment fired by 592 guns. On the southern sector of the line diversionary attacks were mounted by Lieutenant-General B. G. Horrocks’ XII Corps, while in the north Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese’s infantry-heavy XXX Corps delivered the main blow, capturing the minefields and clearing two lanes through them in the Meteiriya and Kidney Ridge areas. Progress was slower than had been expected, but by the morning of 26 October Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, the army commander, felt that the moment had come when Lieutenant-General H. Lumsden’s X Corps, which contained the 1st and 10th Armoured Divisions, should be pushed through the gaps in anticipation of a major counter-attack which would write down the Axis armour and force his opponent, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, to exhaust his tiny and irreplaceable reserve of fuel. For his part, Rommel was holding his two German and two Italian armoured divisions in reserve for just such a counter-stroke, and was unlikely to ignore so obvious a threat to the Rahman Track. It was inevitable, therefore, that the operation would result in a major tank battle.

Turner’s battalion, together with 7th Battalion The Rifle Brigade and 2nd Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps, formed the 7th Motor Brigade, commanded by Brigadier T. J. B. Bosvile, the infantry element of 1st Armoured Division. Unlike the standard infantry battalions, the motor battalions were small in numbers but possessed high mobility and heavy firepower. Thus, although the motor battalion could deploy a mere 90 assault riflemen, its order of battle also contained an anti-tank company with sixteen recently issued 6-pounder anti-tank guns, scout platoons with a total of 33 tracked carriers, machine-gun platoons armed with the Vickers medium machine-gun, capable of sustained fire, and a platoon of 3-inch mortars. Casualties sustained by 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade during the early phase of the battle had reduced the number of riflemen to 76 and there were now only 22 tracked carriers available, but in other respects the battalion was complete. Most of the men came from London and they were old desert hands, used both to working with tanks and to standing them off. In view of the nature of the operation, Turner was reinforced with a further eleven 6-pounder anti-tank guns manned by 239 Battery of 76th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, another experienced unit which had

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