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The final infantry operations at Alamein got off to a shaky start. At 5.20 p.m. 5/7 Gordons and the Valentines of 8 Royal Tanks had married up in the Gordons' sector, scattered mines in the route of the advance had been cleared by engineers, and everything was ready for the massive artillery support prepared together with bombing by Bostons, when a message came through the headquarters of 152 Brigade that the enemy had vacated the objective. The origin of this information is obscure but it added strength to a belief held by 1 Armoured Division that the artillery and air support would fall on the Rifle Corps men and the tanks which the division still thought were further to the west than they actually were. Though more reliable information had been supplied by page 418 artillery observers and by the commander of 8 Royal Tanks who had earlier reconnoitred the front, this was discounted and the Gordons were ordered to start, covered only by smoke. Led by a squadron of Valentines carrying three platoons of infantry, the advance went well until the smoke ceased, when enemy ahead opened up with anti-tank and machine-gun fire. The Gordons' wireless went out of operation but the commander of 8 Royal Tanks managed to get a situation report back to his own brigade headquarters, which then asked 51 Division to have the originally planned supporting fire laid on. Though by this time in the battle the lesson of accepting 1 Armoured Division's map reading should have been learnt, this request was refused, as was a further suggestion to lift the supporting fire 300 yards to the west, but the Highland Division promised to get the artillery to continue and increase the smoke. The commander of 23 Armoured Brigade then instructed 8 Royal Tanks not to attempt to advance against opposition but to get into cover and protect the infantry. This the Valentines did and, as the night fell, the Gordons were digging in about halfway between their old positions and their objective, still well to the east of the Rahman Track. Losses in 8 Royal Tanks were heavy: 12 men killed and 15 wounded, 9 tanks destroyed and 11 damaged. The Gordons' losses were given as 67 killed and wounded, or 98 all told, the latter figure probably including those missing. While the action was occurring, 1 Armoured Division signalled 51 Division to admit that its troops were from 1000 to 2000 yards east of the map references on which it had based its objection to the artillery programme.

The failure of the Gordons to reach their objective was not allowed to prevent the next phase, the advance by 5 Indian Infantry Brigade to a point on the Rahman Track south of the Gordons' objective. This was to be supported by 50/46 Royal Tanks, an amalgamation of the surviving Valentines of these regiments, and by a powerful artillery programme. The Indians and the Valentines had been able to make a reconnaissance of the front early in the afternoon and mark out a start line and assembly areas, but no major movement was made until last light.

Although the Indian brigade was not trained to follow a barrage, the New Zealand CRA, Brigadier Weir, to whom Leese had entrusted the fire support, persuaded the brigade commander to accept the standard New Zealand method of a simple lifting barrage augmented by concentrations. In fact, Weir took the Indian brigadier and his staff forward in daylight and had his gunners demonstrate by laying a line of smoke on the start line and the lifts. This practical test also showed that the final lifts could not be reached by some of the field guns in their present positions page 419 and would have to be dealt with by the medium guns. With the short notice, the depleted staff of the New Zealand artillery headquarters had to work hard to prepare the barrage plan but managed to issue it by telephone in good time to the units concerned, which included field regiments from 1 Armoured, 51 Highland, and the New Zealand divisions and two medium regiments, firing in all a total of about 37,000 rounds. To help the Indian infantry to form up and fix their positions, Weir allowed for a 1 ½ hour standing barrage on the opening line. This would then be followed by 100-yard lifts every three minutes for one hour, a 20-minute pause and further lifts for 45 minutes, with Bofors tracer to mark the boundaries along the 230 degree line of advance.

The Indian brigade's operation started in even more confusion than the Gordons'. Zero hour for the artillery was set at 1.30 a.m. but by midnight only one battalion, ¼ Essex, was assembled and ready to move, so the start time was postponed for one hour. Then, when it seemed that 3/10 Baluch,¹ due to share the lead with the Essex battalion, would not get forward even for the late start, the reserve battalion, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles,² was sent to take its place. Several of the supporting detachments of signals, engineers and drivers, some lent by other formations, arrived in the assembly area without knowing the tasks allotted them and had to be hurriedly briefed, while at the original zero hour some batteries of 6 NZ Field Regiment and possibly others commenced to lay the standing fire as news of the postponement had not reached them.

The final infantry operation for this night was an advance by 7/10 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to Tell el Aqqaqir. This battalion, which had taken over the ‘firm base’ position at the rear of the salient from 6 NZ Brigade the previous night, assembled early in the night and at 1.30 a.m. started to thread its way through the mass of troops and vehicles which now filled every track and almost every square yard of the salient. Halting in the area where both the Gordons and the Indian brigade had laid out their start lines, and which consequently was being used as the route to the newly gained positions, the Highlanders formed up parallel to the Rahman Track, using as their guide the line of telegraph poles which, as the sky lightened, could be dimly discerned in the distance. With the uncertainties over the positions of the armoured division's troops now settled, the supporting barrage, fired by regiments of the armour under the control of the commander of 128 Field Regiment, RA, was allowed to commence as planned at 5.15 a.m. This consisted of a simple standing barrage for an hour along a stretch of the track, followed by the customary lifts over about 1000 yards and ending with a half-hour standing barrage. When the shellfire ceased at 7.10 a.m., the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders found themselves in complete and unopposed occupation of the Tell el Aqqaqir feature for the loss of eight men killed and 23 wounded, mainly from scattered shellfire and mines. Two German prisoners only were captured, for the enemy had clearly abandoned the area in haste. Among the positions there was a headquarters, probably that of 164 Division, where many documents, as well as much signal, medical and other equipment, were found undemolished.

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These three infantry operations ended the period which Montgomery called the ‘dog-fight’, though they could hardly be said to have completed the breach in the enemy's line, for by the end of this night there was no line as such to be breached. The front from Aqqaqir southwards had been held by 164 Light Division, which had been told by Africa Corps to withdraw on the evening of the 2nd in transport provided by the Corps so that its troops could be divided among the two panzer divisions. When, by the early morning of the 3rd, none of the promised trucks had appeared, communication with the Corps had broken down, and the Italian infantry and artillery had already decamped, the divisional commander decided that his front was too thinly held, and too full page 421 of holes where the Italians had been; accordingly he gave the order for withdrawal to start after dark on the 3rd. The attack by the Gordons arrived before the retreat had begun, but even the rearguards should have been away before the Indians' operation and it can only be assumed that the prisoners taken had not received the orders or were perhaps waiting for transport to ferry them back. As it was, the majority of the men of 164 Division marched back on foot overnight to the vicinity of the ‘Ariete’ or ‘Telegraph’ track, the next north-south supply route west of the Rahman Track, where they later became involved in a tank battle, suffering numerous casualties. On being distributed among the Africa Corps formations, many units of the division found that they had to continue to retreat on foot owing to the Corps' lack of transport.

From the experience of 164 Division, and similar experiences of 90 Light Division, it is clear that Hitler's order and Rommel's consequent indecision did not materially affect the final result in Africa. Rommel's original plan of withdrawal was based on unreliable logistics, for the strained transport and supply situation which so affected the outcome at Alam Halfa had, under the pressures of the Alamein battle, already reached the breaking point. However much Rommel believed he could disengage and fight a mobile battle, only a small proportion of the Panzer Army could have been made mobile and all that Hitler's intervention did was to lessen this proportion.

The ‘Fuka line’, of which there is so much talk in the German records, was an impracticable proposition, even if the Eighth Army had delayed following up for several days. The bulk of the troops to man it would have arrived weary, dispirited and short of weapons and equipment. They would have had to be concentrated in the coastal area, the front could not have been mined owing to the shortage of transport and mines, and the whole line could have been easily outflanked to the south. Any such line-by-line withdrawal was impossible without adequate transport and Rommel was inevitably committed to the hit-and-run retreat he eventually carried out. In fact, the transport problems of the Panzer Army were such that, once the Alamein battle had been joined, Rommel was faced with the alternatives of fighting the Eighth Army to a standstill or of a retreat in which the bulk of his infantry would have had to be left to fend for themselves.

By the evening of 3 November, the initiative was completely in Montgomery's hands. He was aware from air reconnaissance and the reports of the Royals and Long Range Desert Group patrols behind the enemy's line that there was no prepared line at Fuka or further back on which the Panzer Army could make a stand, so page 422 that he assumed Rommel intended to use his mobile forces to fight a rearguard action behind which the rest of the Panzer Army could withdraw. The whole of his planning, however, had been designed to avoid a repetition of the see-saw desert fighting and towards making the enemy stand and fight against his battering-ram of massed guns, tanks and infantry. Failing to realise fully the parlous state into which the Panzer Army had fallen, he resisted the pressures of those who wished to set off hot-foot in pursuit, especially as this would have meant letting the armour loose out of his direct control.

Accordingly the night of 3–4 November was spent in probing for a gap with the infantry operations already described, and careful preparations for sending the armour through at daylight if the gap should be found. Montgomery still insisted that a continuous infantry front be maintained, though he ordered several transfers and alterations of sectors so that troops could be released to his reserves. Horrocks of 13 Corps was given clearly to understand that no part of his corps was to rush forward and ‘receive a bloody nose’.

The only experimental action he permitted was a renewal of the attempts to pass armoured cars through the enemy line. Just before dawn two squadrons of 4/6 South African Armoured Car Regiment and the rest of the Royals, that is, Headquarters and B Squadrons, slipped through the area where 5/7 Gordons had earlier been repulsed and crossed the Rahman Track into the open desert. The South Africans made in the direction of Fuka while the Royals drove west to join their other two squadrons. Of the total effect of the actions of these armoured cars, it could be said here that they relayed valuable information to the Eighth Army and also proved a considerable nuisance to the Panzer Army. The first two squadrons through interrupted the supply routes to the southern part of the line, causing the enemy to waste valuable petrol and employ extra troops and trucks to provide convoy guards. An attempt to cooperate with the Air Force in an attack on a landing ground south of Daba met with only indifferent success.

At dawn on 4 November the Alamein defences had ‘crumbled’ and the pursuit began in earnest though, with the congestion on the tracks leading through the SUPERCHARGE salient and with memories still fresh of the anti-tank screen on which 9 Armoured Brigade had broken only a short time earlier, initial movement was slow and cautious. Screened by a dawn mist, all three armoured divisions sent reconnaissance groups ahead to test whether any opposition might still lie beyond the Rahman Track.

As the tanks of the three British armoured divisions reached the Rahman Track, the Australians were already busy clearing the road page 423 and railway in order to ease the supply problem, which was likely to increase the further west the armoured forces drove. South of the break-out area, there were still some pockets of Germans, fanatically determined to fight the rearguard battle that Rommel had asked for; but in the far south, where Italian troops had been predominant, 13 Corps' patrols found the defences abandoned. Resistance around the Qattara Box area where the Ramcke parachutists were stationed caused Horrocks to ask the Army Commander's permission to lay on an attack, on the assumption that a delaying stand was being attempted, but Montgomery was unwilling to waste his forces in an unnecessary battle, for the armoured advance would soon isolate all the enemy remaining in the south. This decision was also influenced by the strain already felt by the supply services in keeping the northern battle going, and the even greater effort that would be needed to keep the advancing armour supplied. He therefore directed Horrocks merely to send out patrols all across his front to keep in touch with the enemy and, if possible, encircle any areas of resistance.

The balance sheet for the battle that raged at Alamein from 23 October to 4 November cannot be drawn up with detailed accuracy. Total British losses came to 13,500 men, of whom fewer than 3000 were killed, the remainder being mostly wounded and a few taken prisoner. Being victors on the ground, the Eighth Army was able to recover most of the 500 tanks put out of action, and of these only 150 were found beyond repair. Of field, medium and anti-tank guns the army lost, as far as can be ascertained, no more than about a hundred damaged beyond repair.

The battle-worthy tanks in the Eighth Army on the evening of the 3rd included 151 Grants or Shermans and 103 Crusaders held by the three heavy armoured brigades,¹ some 30 to 40 heavy tanks in 4 Light Armoured Brigade and the Warwickshire Yeomanry, 66 Valentines in 23 Armoured Brigade, and a large number of Stuarts in various of the formations, giving a grand total of over 400 tanks altogether.