The Battle of Beda Fomm took place following the rapid British advance during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941). The Italian 10th Army (10ª Armata) was forced to evacuate Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya. In late January, the British learned that the Italians were retreating along the Litoranea Balbo (Via Balbia) from Benghazi. The 7th Armoured Division (Major-General Sir Michael O'Moore Creagh) was dispatched to intercept the remnants of the 10th Army by moving through the desert, south of the Jebel Akhdar (Green Mountain) via Msus and Antelat as the 6th Australian Division pursued the Italians along the coast road, north of the Jebel. The terrain was hard going for the British tanks and Combeforce (Lieutenant-Colonel John Combe), a flying column of wheeled vehicles, was sent ahead across the chord of the Jebel.
Late on 5 February, Combeforce arrived at the Via Balbia south of Benghazi and set up roadblocks near Sidi Saleh, about 30 mi (48 km) south-west of Antelat and 20 mi (32 km) north of Agedabia. The leading elements of the 10th Army arrived thirty minutes after the British who had set an ambush. Next day the Italians attacked to break through and continued their attacks into 7 February. With British reinforcements arriving and the Australians pressing down the road from Benghazi, the 10th Army surrendered later that day. Between Benghazi and Agedabia the British took 25,000 prisoners, captured 107 tanks and 93 guns out of the totals for Operation Compass of 133,298 men, 420 tanks and 845 guns.
On 9 February, Churchill ordered the advance to stop and troops to be dispatched to Greece to take part in the Greco-Italian War; Unternehmen Marita, a German attack through Macedonia was thought imminent. The British in Libya were unable to continue beyond El Agheila anyway, because of vehicle breakdowns, exhaustion and the effect of the much longer distance from the supplies in Egypt. A few thousand men of the 10th Army escaped the disaster in Cyrenaica but the 5th Army in Tripolitania had four divisions. The Sirte, Tmed Hassan and Buerat strongholds were reinforced from Italy, which brought the 10th and 5th armies up to about 150,000 men. German reinforcements were sent to Libya to form a blocking detachment (Sperrverband) under Directive 22 (11 January), these being the first units of the Afrika Korps (Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel).
Background
Libya
In 1936, General Alberto Pariani had been appointed Chief of Staff of the army and begun a reorganisation of divisions to fight wars of rapid decision, according to thinking that speed, mobility and new technology could revolutionise military operations. In 1937, three-regiment (triangular) divisions began to change to two-regiment binary divisions, as part of a ten-year plan to reorganise the standing army into 24 binary, 24 triangular, twelve mountain, three motorised and three armoured divisions. The effect of the change was to increase the administrative overhead of the army, with no corresponding increase in effectiveness as the new technology, tanks motor vehicles and wireless communications were slow to arrive and were inferior to those of potential enemies. The dilution of the officer class by the need for extra unit staffs, was made worse by the politicisation of the army and the addition of Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (Blackshirt Militia). The reforms also promoted frontal assaults to the exclusion of other theories, dropping the previous emphasis on fast mobile warfare backed by artillery.
Cyrenaica, the eastern province of Libya, had been an Italian colony since the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912). With Tunisia, a part of French North Africa to the west and Egypt to the east, the Italians prepared to defend both frontiers through a North Africa Supreme Headquarters, under the command of the Governor-General of Italian Libya, Marshal of the Air Force Italo Balbo. The Supreme Headquarters in Libya had the 5th Army (General Italo Gariboldi) and the 10th Army (General Mario Berti), which in mid-1940 had nine metropolitan divisions of about 13,000 men each, three Blackshirt and two Libyan Colonial divisions with 8,000 men each.
Morale was considered to be high and the army had gained recent experience of military operations. The Italian navy had prospered under the Fascist regime, which had paid for fast, well-built and well-armed ships and a large submarine fleet but the navy lacked experience and training. The air force had been ready for war in 1936 but had stagnated by 1939 and was not considered by the British to be capable of maintaining a fast tempo of operations. The 5th Army, with eight divisions, was based in Tripolitania, the western half of Libya opposite Tunisia and the 10th Army, with six infantry divisions, held Cyrenaica in the east. When war was declared, the 10th Army moved the 1st Libyan Division to the frontier from Giarabub to Sidi Omar and XXI Corps from Sidi Omar to the coast, Bardia and Tobruk. XXII Corps moved south-west of Tobruk to act as a counter-attack force.
Egypt
The British had based forces in Egypt since 1882 but these were greatly reduced by the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. The small British and Commonwealth force garrisoned the Suez Canal and the Red Sea route, which was vital to British communications with its Far Eastern and Indian Ocean territories. In mid-1939, Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell was appointed General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of the new Middle East Command, over the Mediterranean and Middle East theatres. Until the Franco–Axis Armistice of 22 June 1940, the French divisions in Tunisia faced the Italian 5th Army on the western Libyan border. In Libya, the Regio Esercito (Royal Army) had about 215,000 men and in Egypt, the British had about 36,000 troops, with another 27,500 men training in Palestine.
British forces included the Mobile Division (Egypt) (Major-General Percy Hobart), one of only two British armoured training formations which in mid-1939 was renamed the Armoured Division (Egypt). On 16 February 1940, it became the 7th Armoured Division. The Egypt–Libya border was defended by the Egyptian Frontier Force. In June 1940, the headquarters of the 6th Infantry Division (Major-General Richard O'Connor) took over command in the Western Desert, with instructions to drive back the Italians from their frontier posts and dominate the hinterland if war began. The 7th Armoured Division, less the 7th Armoured Brigade, assembled at Mersa Matruh and sent the 7th Support Group forward towards the frontier as a covering force. The RAF moved most of its bombers and Malta was reinforced.
The HQ of the 6th Infantry Division, which lacked complete and trained units, was renamed the Western Desert Force on 17 June. In Tunisia, the French had eight divisions, capable only of limited operations and about 40,000 troops in three poorly armed and trained divisions in Syria along with border guards. Most of the French forces in Tunisia served as an army of occupation against the civilian population. Italian land and air forces in Libya greatly outnumbered the British in Egypt but were handicapped by some inferior equipment and poor serviceability. In Italian East Africa were another 130,000 Italian and African troops, with 400 guns, 200 light tanks and 20,000 lorries when Italy declared war on 11 June 1940.
Terrain
The Western Desert is about 240 mi (390 km) wide, from Mersa Matruh in Egypt to Gazala on the Libyan coast, along the Litoranea Balbo (Via Balbia), the only paved road in 1940. The Great Sand Sea 150 mi (240 km) inland marks the southern limit of the desert at its widest at Giarabub and Siwa; in British parlance, 'Western Desert' came to include eastern Cyrenaica in Libya. From the coast, extending inland lies a raised, flat plain of stony desert about 300–500 ft (91–152 m) above sea level, that runs 120–190 mi (200–300 km) south until the Great Sand Sea. Scorpions, vipers and flies populate the region, that was inhabited by a small number of Bedouin nomads.
Bedouin tracks linked wells and the easier traversed ground; navigation was by sun, star, compass and "desert sense", good perception of the environment gained by experience. (During the Italian invasion of Egypt in September 1940, the Maletti Group got lost after leaving Sidi Omar and reconnaissance aircraft had to find it.) In spring and summer, days are miserably hot and the nights are bitter cold. The Sirocco (Gibleh/Ghibli), a hot desert wind, blows clouds of fine sand, which reduces visibility to a few yards and coats eyes, lungs, machinery, food and equipment. Motor vehicles and aircraft need special oil filters and the barren ground means that supplies for military operations, have to be transported from outside.
Operation Compass
Following Operazione E the invasion of Egypt and advance to Sidi Barrani by the 10th Army, Wavell ordered the commander of British Troops Egypt, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, to plan a limited operation to push the Italians back. Operation Compass, for administrative reasons, was originally planned as a five-day raid but consideration was given to continuing the operation if it succeeded. On 28 November, Wavell wrote to Wilson that,
I do not entertain extravagant hopes of this operation but I do wish to make certain that if a big opportunity occurs we are prepared morally, mentally and administratively to use it to the fullest.
— Wavell
On 8 December, the British had begun the operation against the fortified Italian camps, a defensive line outside Sidi Barrani. (Berti was on sick leave and Gariboldi had temporarily taken his place.) The raid succeeded and the few units of the 10th Army in Egypt that were not destroyed had to withdraw. By 11 December, the British converted the raid a counter-offensive and the rest of the 10th Army in Egypt was swiftly defeated. The British prolonged the operation to pursue the remnants of the 10th Army to Sollum, Bardia, Tobruk, Derna and Mechili, then advanced through and around the Jebel Akhdar (Green Mountain), to cut off the Italian retreat to Beda Fomm and El Agheila on the Gulf of Sirte.
Prelude
Derna, Mechili
The area east of the Jebel Akhdar mountains was garrisoned by the XX Motorised Corps (Lieutenant-General Annibale Bergonzoli) with the 60th Infantry Division "Sabratha" and the Babini Group (General Valentino Babini), which had already lost some of its tanks in the British capture of Tobruk. The Babini Group had an establishment of 120 tanks but these included 82 that had landed recently at Benghazi. The new tanks needed ten days to be made battleworthy and a three-day journey to reach Mechili but in the crisis, tanks had been rushed forward, reducing the serviceability of the vehicles. A defensive position was established by the 60th Infantry Division "Sabratha" on a line from Derna along Wadi Derna, with the Babini Group concentrating inland and slightly south-west of Derna at Mechili Fort, where several desert tracks converged, Giovanni Berta and Chaulan, to guard the flank and rear of the infantry. On 22 January, the British advanced towards Derna with the 19th Australian Brigade (Brigadier Horace Robertson) and sent another Australian brigade to reinforce the 4th Armoured Brigade (Brigadier John Caunter) of the 7th Armoured Division (Major-General Michael O'Moore Creagh) south of the Jebel Akhdar, for an advance on Mechili.
(In the turmoil created by Operation Compass, the 10th Army had several commanders in quick succession: General Berti until 23 December 1940, Gariboldi when Berti was on sick leave, General Giuseppe Tellera 23 December 1940 – 7 February 1941 [killed] and General Annibale Bergonzoli [surrendered 7 February].) On 23 January, Tellera ordered a counter-attack against the British as they approached Mechili Fort, to avoid an envelopment of the XX Motorised Corps from the south. Communication within the Babini Group was slow, because only the tanks of senior commanders had wireless. Next day, ten to fifteen M13/40s of the Babini Group attacked the 7th Hussars of the 4th Armoured Brigade, which was heading west to cut the Derna–Mechili track. The Italians fired on the move, hitting several tanks; the British retired, pursued by the Italian tanks. The British tank crews called for help from the 2nd RTR but these signals were ignored through complacency. By 11:00 a.m., the British had lost several light tanks and a cruiser tank, one cruiser had a jammed gun and the third was retiring at speed, after taking fifty rounds to knock out two M13s. Eventually the 2nd RTR turned up, caught the Italian tanks sky-lined on a ridge and knocked out seven M13s, for a British loss of the cruiser and six light tanks.
Tellera intended to use the Babini Group to harass the southern flank of the British and cover a withdrawal from Mechili but Graziani ordered him to wait on events. By the evening, a report had arrived from Babini that the group was down to fifty to sixty tanks and that their performance had been disappointing, along with alarmist reports of 150 British tanks advancing round the southern flank. Graziani ordered Tellera to disengage the Babini Group by next morning. Some tanks of the group had been held back at Benghazi and work had begun on a defensive position at Sirte, 440 mi (710 km) westwards along coast. On 25 January, the 2/11th Australian Battalion near the coast, engaged the 60th Infantry Division "Sabratha" and Bersaglieri companies of the Babini Group at Derna airfield, making slow progress against determined resistance. Italian bombers and fighters flew sorties against the 2/11th Australian Battalion as it attacked the airfield and high ground at Siret el Chreiba. The Bersaglieri swept the flat ground with field artillery and machine-guns, stopping the Australian advance 3,000 yd (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) short of the objective.