The Day the War Swung to the Allies: The Battle of Ruweisat Ridge

The following blog post is written by Chris Jephson, co-author of The Day Rommel Was Stopped. The book is about how the Allied forces finally managed to stop Rommel’s advance at the First Battle of El Alamein and eventually win the war in Africa.

 

The Allied position in June 1942 was at its absolute lowest point. Asia had been overrun; major Allied warships had been lost; the US had not yet arrived in Europe or Africa; Russia was under heavy attack and things were going badly, Sebastopol, one of the critical defensive positions was overrun; Rommel’s forces were advancing relentlessly across north Africa. Tobruk and Mersa Matruh fell. Churchill was under severe attack in the Houses of Parliament in London for his conduct of the war.

The Allied high command in Cairo was burning secret papers in anticipation of Rommel’s forces taking Alexandria within days, with Cairo and the Suez Canal shortly afterwards. Rommel’s objective was initially the Suez Canal and then to link up with Operation Barbarossa in the Caucasus. This would stress Allied supply chains with India, requiring them to go around South Africa while cutting off millions of tons of the oil that was critical to Allied war efforts. The Mediterranean would potentially become an Axis lake.

If the Allies had lost this battle, the consequences could have been disastrous. Even with help from the US, the war in Europe and Asia could have been lost. The US at that point might have turned inward and left the rest of the world to its own devices. There were many politicians at the time who opposed involvement. The political, economic and institutional development of the world would fundamentally have been very different.

My father, Major Francis Ronald ‘Jeph’ Jephson, MC, TD was born in Ripley, Derbyshire on the 29^th June 1918. Joining the Manchester Artillery in 1939 he was sent to France, was evacuated at Dunkirk and was then sent to India. In June 1942 he was in Iraq as a young Lieutenant with 11^th Field Regiment, R.A., one of the regiments urgently pulled 1,500 miles across the Middle East by General Auchinleck to attempt to stop Rommel’s advance. He was therefore at the battle on Ruweisat Ridge on the 2^nd July 1942, in the role of Command Post Officer.

With the retreat from Gazala underway, General Auchinleck had taken direct command of the Eighth Army. He stripped his northern command in Iraq and brought reinforcements post haste into the theatre – just in time. A high risk that ultimately paid off. The small force that met Rommel’s tanks at Ruweisat Ridge, close to Alamein, on 2nd and 3rd July 1942 were remnants of several different regiments, each of them down to their last few guns. In fact, 9 x 25 Pounder guns were critical to the effort on 2nd July, although the number of guns increased slightly with reinforcements arriving during the late afternoon. The fierce opposition they put up that day stopped Rommel’s tanks and killed his chances of success.

This success was later in October/November 1942 to provide Montgomery with the platform, after having received major reinforcements, to finally push Rommel and the Axis forces out of north Africa. This battle is known as the Battle of Alamein, but was really the 2nd Battle of Alamein.

Rommel knew that his troops were very extended but he anticipated that the success and morale-boost from entering Alexandria and Cairo in those few days would compensate for his ‘stretched’ resources. Once Alexandria was taken, his supply routes would immediately become shorter and provide the opportunity to regroup, strengthen his forces and move quickly on to the bigger objective.

After the war, my father was puzzled at the lack of recognition of both the battle and of those whose efforts had stopped Rommel. In later life, he conducted extensive research into the battle including via access to private diaries. He wrote hundreds of pages of notes but ill health prevented the drafting of the manuscript for publication that was his objective.

I inherited my father’s papers and since my retirement have spent the last two years reviewing the papers, structuring and editing them into the manuscript which is being published this week.

This, the 1st Battle of Alamein, is not well known. None of the leaders of the units that stopped Rommel that day ever received recognition for what they had achieved.

There are many reasons for this and the book touches on some of them. It also traces the lead up to the battle and the battle itself as well as outlining the roles of the key people involved.

2017 is the 75^th anniversary of what was one of the most important and least known battles of World War II, hence it is fitting to have the book finally published this year.

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