Three Kings (Kirov Series) by John Schettler Page A

war, but Churchill had labored
to send considerably more, and now General Creagh had 275 tanks, a mix of A-9
and A-13 cruiser tanks, and an equal number of Matildas, which were well
armored tanks for their time, but not given to the lightning quickness O’Connor
was now advocating. Where O’Connor saw his armor as a quick foil to slash and
jab at his foe, the Matilda was more of a lumbering battle axe.
    The A12 Matilda II could reach a
speed of 16MPH. It was a tank designed for the role the British still had in
mind for armor—an infantry support tank—a tank Wavell would understand
implicitly. Most were gathered in the 7th Royal Tank Regiment, and realizing
their limitations for the maneuver he had in mind, O’Connor would have them
operate with the infantry as Wavell might expect. They were his heavy cavalry,
to be thrown in at the appropriate time when the infantry had forced a key
position to break the enemy line.
    With a small 2lb main gun and a
single 7.92 Besa machinegun, the Matilda might pose a
threat to enemy infantry if properly employed, and its 78mm armor was
impervious to any anti-tank weapon then fielded by the Italians. It was not the
dashing armored chariot O’Connor had in mind, but the tank would prove a shock
to the Italians when they found they could do very little to harm the Matilda’s
waltzing through their positions. The tank would soon be christened “The Desert
Queen,” and the Matildas were not alone.
    O’Connor also had about 135
cruiser tanks in the 7th and 8th Hussars. The A-9 and A-10 cruiser had the same
2 pounder gun as the Matilda but, with half the armor at 30mm, it was twice as
fast. The A-13 cruiser could make 30mph, and this was the lightning fast jab
that O’Connor would put to good use. The rest of O’Connor’s “armor” were older
Mark VI light tanks, which were really nothing more than fast machine gun
carriers with thin 14mm armor. Yet speed was the order of the day in the
general’s mind just then, and so he would gallop ahead with his cruiser tanks
and an ad hoc brigade of armored cars, lorried riflemen, and anti-tank guns.
O’Connor would put his Western Desert Force to good use, and prove his methods
on the field, even with equipment ill-suited for the role he envisioned.
    The plan called for speed,
surprise, bold flanking maneuvers and night movement so as to assure he would
not be spotted by the Italian Air Force, and it was going produce something
much more than even O’Connor had expected.
     
    Chapter 8
     
    The attack started when the Blenheims came in at 7:00
scattering loads of bombs along the Italian positions, a rude awakening that
was made worse when the monitor HMS Terror opened fire on the coastal
encampment with her two big 15-inch guns. The ship was basically a small 7200
ton floating gun turret, a spare that had been built for the battlecruiser HMS Furious before it was converted to an aircraft carrier.
    It had
been at Malta earlier, helping to fend off the Italian air attacks there with
her anti-aircraft guns. Now it was cruising off the coast in the pre-dawn
light, blasting away at the Italian positions and living up to its name in
every respect. The shock of 15-inch shells tearing up the stony ground was
tremendous, and a rude awakening that day for the Italians. Terror was
joined by a few other smaller gunboats that were peppering known artillery and AT
gun positions with smaller caliber fire, concentrating on the coastal towns of Maktila and Sidi Barani .
    Further
inland at Nibeiwa camp, the Italians heard the skirl
and drum of Scottish bagpipes, and the growl of tanks. The surprise was that
the attack was not coming from the east as expected, but from the west, behind
them! The British had come in through the Enba gap as
planned, infiltrating at night behind the Italian encampments, and they were
taking them from the rear. Stunned by the sudden attack, the Italians burst out
of their field tents and leapt for the cover of nearby slit