Monty’s Marauders

Description

against the Italian army which numbered 75,000 men, plus 120 tanks and 200 guns, General Richard O’Connor now deployed an offensive force comprised of 25,000 men and 275 L/C (light cruiser) and Matilda infantry tanks. His two divisions, 7th Armoured and 4th Indian, were to make set-piece attacks on the fortified perimeter camps south of Mersa Matruh. Major General Creagh was sick, so ‘Blood’ Caunter took his place and the Brigade was led by its 2i/c, Lt Col. Horace Binks. Lt Cyril Joly, a troop leader with 6 RTR in Take These Men described aspects of the battle: “We expected to return after three days and settle down to the interminable waiting. In wireless silence, shrouded in mist, I spent a lonely and dispiriting day perched in the cupola of the turret in discomfort and chilled by the cold winter wind.” By 8 December, 4th Indian Div was five miles east of the Brigade and 15 miles south-east of Nibeiwa.