The 2nd Camerons in Battleaxe

[ClintHardware]

Just been reading the 2nd Camerons' account from their war diary of what happened in their attack on Halfaya - its a fascinating read with lots of detail about the methods of the defence as they saw them and the aftermath of 'C' Sqn 4th RTR.

Let me know if you would like to see the account and I will post in a day or so.

Does anyone have their regimental history to hand and can you supply me with clear photos of pages covering May - October 1941?

Having done a search for Camerons on this part of AHF there is only one entry concerning Italy in 1943 which is surprising.

[nmao]

Hello.
Unfortunately i can't really help you.
In the forum below i could only find a very short history of the unit:
http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/sg ... ost-313479

About the war diary....of course I'm interested, and i'm sure most of us are
Your generosity is well appreciated.

regards

-Nuno

[ClintHardware]

Thanks Nmao - will do, and interesting link thanks.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Hi,

I'd certainly be interested. I do have some photos of the regimental history beginning in June and going up to late 1941. I'm going to be away for a week or so, but when I get back I'll sort out getting them to you if you have no other luck.

The description of the Halfaya Pass battle is quite detailed - I expect much taken from the war diary account.

Regards

Tom

[David W]

Hi Tom.
I would be interested in anything you could post.
Thank you.
Kind Regards,
David.

[ClintHardware]

That would be brilliant Tom - much appreciated.

Here is the document I am putting into a new book. If you see any typos of concern let me know and I will check with the original. On the last page I put in two short paragraphs in a different font to briefly explain the transport situation for the withdrawal.

2ndQOCH10To17June1941.pdf

(132.68 KiB) Downloaded 97 times

[MarkN]

Just been reading the 2nd Camerons' account from their war diary of what happened in their attack on Halfaya - its a fascinating read with lots of detail about the methods of the defence as they saw them and the aftermath of 'C' Sqn 4th RTR.

Very kind of you to type up and post it for all to see.

As you probably already know, the after-action reports written by the Germans were captured by the British during Op CRUSADER later in the year. They, British staff officers, then appear to have destroyed almost all of the captured documentation and thus it is now impossible to produce the same level of detail from the German perspective. Nevertheless, the British did produce a series of reports and intsums of their analysis of those documents.

For Op BATTLEAXE, Jentz in TCiNA principally uses the DAK KTB for the German perspective and one of the British regurgitations from captured documents. I have a copy of the same report Jentz used, but from a different source. The report is titled "The Development of German Defensive Practice in Libya". This is what it has to say about the Halfaya skirmish. The reader should be wary that although the information is based soley upon captured German documents, it is a condenced, summarized and translated write-up by the British, and thus some of the 'we/our's are British thoughts about British effort: e.g. 'Our plan...' at the end of para 2 refers to the British plan of advance.

[Tom Gale]

Very interesting, thanks for posting

[ClintHardware]

11th Indian Infantry Brigade note at 1223 hours 15th June that 2nd Camerons informed them that two 'I' Tanks were still able to fire their guns. The 'I' tank and the Light Tank can be discounted from being these two because the Light Tank is not an 'I' Tank, and the 'I' Tank had "a hole in the turret as big as a football" and was unable to traverse its turret. The turret was made traversable by about 1800 hours. Nothing was stated about the state of its guns. It seems that about five of the Matildas from 'C' Squadron did not get knocked out in the first attack including the squadron leader who made his "tearing apart statement" at about 1030 hours (IIRC) according to O'Carrol who was listening to the action on a radio several miles distant.
I am not disputing the final figures of tank losses according to the 4th RTR's statements. What interests me is how any of 'C' Squadron survived the first attack against the 88s at such close range.

Strangely no crew casualties are mentioned for the football holed Matilda - this extraordinary feat pre-dates Maradona. I don't think that such a hole was made by an 88 but probably one of the Italian guns - it sounds too large and of a much slower velocity.