October 10, 1941 0621 Benghazi
The air raid siren ceased wailing. Half a dozen Heinkels had hit the port city before dawn. Their target was the docks. And as the nuisance raids normally did, they achieved little beside disrupting the sleep of the ever growing Commonwealth garrison and logistics operation. A single wooden hoy was destroyed and two lighters were listing from near misses. Two sailors aboard a Polish destroyer were being taken to the hospital after an anti-aircraft gun ashore sprayed the superstructure of their ship with 40 millimeter shells.
General Wavell sipped his tea minutes after the air raid ended. He waited a few more minutes until the morning briefing started. This was a test run by his staff before they had to brief the corps and divisional commanders of the next operation. Sirte would be their objective, but far more importantly, the entire combined Italian-German Army was their objective. His forces were building up while the enemy struggled to maintain their strength.
XXX Corps was responsible for the holding the front near Marsa Al Brega. The New Zealanders were anchored on the coast with the Australian 7th Division in the center and the 4th Indian holding the southern flank. An army tank brigade was the corps reserve to handle any immediate threats. The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade as well as an eclectic mixture of commandos, smugglers, eccentrics and explorers secured the corps flank that hung loosely into the desert. Behind the XXX Corps, the XIII Corps was rested. The 2nd South African Division garrisoned the critical road junction at Adjabiya while the two armored divisions, 2nd and 10th, were in a series of camps south of Benghazi. The 70th, 50th and 3rd Infantry Divisions, an army tank brigade and two brigades of the Sudan Defense Force including a single camel brigade were in the army reserve. These units were mostly in Benghazi. A new corps headquarters was due to stand up at the start of the year but the communications troops had not yet arrived to support that headquarters. Back in the Delta, the 1st South African Division was resting and reconstituting as the theatre reserve.
Supply was good as the port of Benghazi was mostly open and under strong aerial protection. Hurricanes, Tomahawks and the first Spitfires provided aerial cover while a dozen squadrons of light bombers and another dozen squadrons of medium bombers were based along the coastal road between Tobruk and Benghazi. Radar and communication networks had been set up and worked well. Supply dumps were beginning to overflow as shells and fuel were coming forward in increasing quantities. The Italian submarine force was active but the coastal convoys were heavily protected and mainly worried about mines instead of torpedoes.
Across from his army were three corps, two Italian and a single German panzer corps. The two Panzer divisions were at half strength in tanks and two thirds strength in infantry and artillery after the battles that moved the front from Suluq to Marsa Al Brega. German replacements had seldom come forward as tanks and artillery were more urgently needed in Russia than Africa. What strength that had been reconstituted was from the successful cannibalization of a single wreck to keep a dozen other tanks operational and a single ship load of factory fresh tanks that arrived in September. The two Italian corps were in better shape. The mechanized corp of a single armored and a single motorized division was almost at full strength even as their tanks were undergunned and under-protected compared to the new Crusader and Stuart tanks which up the majority of the tanks in the Commonwealth armoured divisions. A line of leg infantry divisions held a series of outposts backed by brigade sized strongpoints across from the XXX Corps. Another leg division was garrisoned in the town of Marsa Al Brega itself. The motorized units, Italian and German, were held in reserve west of the front line.
The enemy had enough fuel to train. A recon Hurricane had spotted most of the Ariette Division maneuvering thirty miles behind the front yesterday afternoon. However their fuel was limited. Special intelligence sources indicated that the Axis African army could maneuver for no more than seven or eight days before facing a fuel crisis. The army had reserves stockpiled in Tripoli but that was almost five hundred road miles away. Smaller reserves were at Sirte where small coastal tankers could dock but even that limited supply entrepot was further from the front than Benghazi. The Axis air forces were skilled as the unskilled had quickly died but outnumbered. They could raid, they could challenge and they could attrite but they could not dominate their own air space. The Italian Navy could and would force convoys through to Tripoli after running a gauntlet of air attacks, submarines, cruisers and minefields deployed and sustained from Malta but they would not push supplies forward in anywhere near the bulk or frequency that the Royal Navy would push to Benghazi.
Once the assault ships were back from Kasos, Operation Misericord would go on the count-down clock. The Polish brigade and the Free French Marines would need two weeks to practice landings and the Royal Navy and allied air forces would need that time to isolate the battlefield and prepare the seas for the next offensive. But as the staffers finished their segment of the briefing, General Wavell asked for another cup of tea as he began his dress rehearsal of the operational concept.