13 October 1941. Cairo, Egypt.
The forces in the Western Desert were now designated as Eighth Army. The creation of XXX Corps in August had been the final ingredient, with Lieutenant-General O’Connor becoming Army Commander. September saw the arrival of Lieutenant-General Vyvyan Pope as GOC XXX Corps. He had begun working immediately with the three Divisions (2nd Armoured, 4th Indian, 2nd New Zealand) in his command.
WS9B and WS10 Convoys had brought enough Valiant I* tanks to fully re-equip 1st and 22nd Armoured Brigades, and so 2nd Armoured Division had been reconstituted. Instead of a Support Group, 3rd Indian Motor Brigade would continue to be attached, and the Division would have its own Royal Artillery and Engineers attached, along with Signals and all the other parts that make the Division effective.
The 4th Indian Division was once again at full strength and Headquartered in Tobruk. The Greeks had been able to form a complete Brigade to take over from the New Zealanders on Crete. With all three Brigades back together, General Freyberg’s 2nd New Zealand Division were preparing to move forward to Tobruk to join the 4th Indian Division. It was there that 2nd Armoured Division was also preparing to move to. The hold-up was the Valiant I* tanks on WS10 which had arrived at the end of September, to equip 22nd Armoured Brigade were still to be transported to Tobruk.
Lieutenant-Generals O’Connor (GOC 8th Army), Reade Godwin-Austen (GOC XIII) and Vyvyan Pope (GOC XXX) had had a series of meetings, under the watchful gaze of General Wavell, to discuss the forthcoming Operation Crusader. Godwin-Austen was confident that his three Divisions would be primed and ready to begin on 4 November. Pope knew that his three Divisions would need time to exercise together. The men of 2nd Armoured Division were well trained and, for the most part, battle-hardened, as were the Indians and New Zealanders. Once 22nd Armoured Brigade arrived at Tobruk, Pope wanted three weeks of training all his forces together. He estimated that XXX Corps would be ready for action by 18 November, but it would probably take at least another week to arrive at the front.
O’Connor wanted Pope to see if he could shave some time off his estimation. While he had every confidence in Godwin-Austen’s Corps to reach Misrata, he really needed XXX Corps to be prepared to take over the next phase to Tripoli. The chances that XIII Corps would be exhausted by the time they fought through to Misrata was very real. The South Africans now had two Division’s worth of men in Egypt and Libya. If one of those Divisions could move to Tobruk, this would allow XXX Corps to exercise in the vicinity of Marsa Al Brega. That would cut 270 miles off the distance to catch up to XIII Corps. Pope agreed, with the proviso that the Navy could land the Valiant I* tanks at Benghazi rather than Tobruk. Wavell was happy to ask Major-General George Brink to move 1st South African Division to Tobruk. Brink had been complaining about the way his men were being used to reinforce the defences at Matruh. Moving up to Tobruk would give the South Africans more time to train and exercise.
O’Connor asked that if XXX Corps could be ready to move to Sirte when XIII Corps began the attack, then they would be in a position to follow up. Knowing the ability of the three Divisions in XXX Corps, O’Connor put another idea to his Corps commanders. The Long Range Desert Group were doing wonders reconnoitring the desert. Throwing a left hook through the desert had been consistently effective so far. O’Connor leaned over the map and started to conjecture how a left hook in this case could become the knock-out blow.