The North African Campaign Of World War II
Intelligence In North Africa
“Intelligence however brilliant, cannot provide dramatic success
where militay strength or preparedness does not exist
1
Intelligence had two key roles in North Africa; aiding the fight for
supremacy in the Western Desert and contributing towards the ability to supply
ones army, whilst preventing the enemy from doing so. Intelligence in the
Desert was fraught with difficulties from
gathering or interception right through to the processing of its findings. In
the Mediterannean intelligence and in particular Ultra, the Allied codename
for the Axis Enigma ciphers played a very significant role, helping the Allies
to devastate the Axis supply convoys and gain a distinct edge over ‘The Desert
Fox’ Erwin Rommel). It was the Allied knowledge
of the German Air Force (GAF
enigma ciphers that was of most use in North Africa as the German Airforce was
involved in most operations in the Mediterannean and in the desert; its
dispositions and movements could give indications as to the whereabouts of
enemy units and activity whilst also helping plan the Allied air strategy. In
March 1941 Ultra revealed that the Germans had induced the Italians into
positive action against the British convoys and this resulted in the
overwhelming British victory at the Battle of Matapan, which kept the Italian
fleet at port for the best part of the war and gave the British command of the
Mediterannean sea.
Once the data is analysed it becomes apparent that the role of intelligence
differed greatly between theatres and also between the different aspects of
warfare. For instance, it can be argued that intelligence played a much more
significant role where supplies were concerned
as opposed to land warfare in
North Africa; events moved too quickly in the latter for intelligence to be
able to distribute its findings whilst their relevance remained. Although
Ultra is a much celebrated topic in literature on the Second World War, it
is fair to say that its role was severely limited for several reasons in the
North African theatre. Ultra played its most important role in the field of
supplies, helping to obliterate the Italian Merchant fleet, , which ultimately
led to victory in the North African theatre and made the Torch landings
possible in Novemeber 1942. It is most important to stress the fact that
Knowledge of the enemy'’s weaknesses is of no practical value unless you
have the capability to exploit it and this was the single most important reason
why intelligence only played a supplementary role in North Africa, rather
than being a decisive factor.
Ultra was only one intelligence source among many. Other sources
ranged from reconnaissance, both ground and air, POW interrogation, other
SIGINT and reports from contacts on the front line and the relevant commanders
history in battle. From analysing their impact upon the conflict it is possible
to assert that they were themselves more significant a factor than was Ultra,
although again it always had the potential to be decisive. Ultra was never used
as an infallible source, but instead it was corroborated with these other
sources to gauge its reliability. From the interception of Ultra signals all
the way to the information being put to use on the strategic or tactical maps
there were numerous difficulties at every stage. In gathering and analysis
aswell as distribution and application, intelligence as a whole faced
beaurocratic, technical, human and logistical limitations which resulted in its
potential not being exploited to the full and its significance as a whole to
the North African Campaign being reduced considerably. Intelligence was
only
one piece in a very big jigsaw and even when it was used effectively it could
not turn a battle around single handedly. From the history of the Second World
War it can be seen that intellignce was not always significant, but it did
possess the continual, but unreached potential to be the decisive factor in
battle, which can be seen at Alam Halfa and El Alamein. So if it had the
potential to be a decisive factor then why wasn’t it so on most occasions ?
“Not many of the decrypts directly illuminate the enemys intenstions and of
these some necessarily reached the Western Desert too late to be of immediate
use.2 Protection of the top secret Ultra source meant that
the distribution of Ultra was extremely slow and by the time it had reached
the relevant commander it was often out of date and therefore at best useless
and at worst dangerously mis-leading. Another limitation was the fact that it
was almost all low grade SIGINT that was intercepted, which gave details of
movements, equipment specifications and supplies on some occasions, but most
of which contained trivial information. Again there was the potential and on
rare occasions high grade SIGINT was intercepted and decrypted, but this never
revealed the whole picture, warned of future attacks or unveiled the enemy’s
strategy. Rommel was not a static enemy and
ciphers were regularly being
changed, some never being broken again and others taking valuable time to
re-break. These operational problems added to the limitations that
intelligence faced throughout the Desert War. Technological factors also
destined the distribution of intelligence findings to be extremely slow as
communications technology was not developed enough to provide swift delivery
over long distances with the required security. “Information about the
enemy was frequently treated as interesting rather than valuable3
, so when Ultra decrypts were finally received by the relevant commander
they were not always trusted.Montgomery
particularly disliked the rather
ungentlemanly form of warfare and therefore thought it not as important as
maybe they should have. Intelligence was hindered in its
gathering, analysis and application from weather conditions to beaurocracy, but
still proved itself valuable on several occasions. Signal intercepts of
information concerning the supply movements from Sicily and southern Italy to
North Africa resulted in decisive strikes on Italian convoys by Force K in
Malta, Force H in Gibraltar and Force B in
Alexandria,
which in August 1942 at Alam Halfa forced Rommel to strategically switch to the offensive when
tactically he wouldn’t have done otherwise.
Therefore from analysis it can be seen that intelligence and in
particular Ultra did not in itself enable the Allies to win the Desert War, but
was simply another important factor to the Allies advantage. Thousands of
decrypts were analysed and only a very few were found to be worthy of passing
up to a higher authority and of those, even fewer would be acted upon.
Information was confused by the enemy's uncertainty4as
and indeed preceding the battle of Gazala in
North Africa in 1942 the Allies
were misled entirely into thinking Rommel had
lost the best part of his armour
and was planning to deploy defensively, when infact, due to the fact that
he had received new panzer tanks with face hardend armour plating, he was being
indecisive and eventually decided on offensive action with superior armoured
forces. The limitation of intelligence in a nutshell is the problem of
distinguishing between having intelligence about the enemy and being able to
use it.5
The role of intelligence in the Second World War was supplementary; to add to
the information known by Allied commanders, and any exaggeration of this role
is misleading. Intelligence alone did not change a commander’s mind and
indeed its consultation was preceded by other far more immediate and
significant concerns, such as one’s own capability. The situation in Crete
illustrates the fact that Intelligence however brilliant, cannot
provide
dramatic success where military strength or preparedness does not
exist6 ,and although intelligence could give vital
information
to the Allies, it could not win the battle itself. The limited Allied
capability in the Mediterranean was the primary factor that led to the fall of Crete and there
was nothing that Ultra could do about this. Knowledge of the enemy’s
weaknesses is of no practical value unless you have the capability to
exploit it. The Allied knowledge gleaned from Ultra that the Germans were
about to attack Greece did allow the them to send forces, but the Allied
capability was such that it was not possible to have a realistic chance of
winning the conflict there. Again in May 1942 although the Eighth Army had
“good general warning of the imminence of Rommels attack, the British lost the
battle of Gazala.7. Ultra was
an extra weapon in the Allied
armoury, not their primary source of wisdom. It was consulted by commanders
in planning stages or when an important decision was to be made, but was not
the basis of their decision.
It is worth mentioning that Ultra achieved long term successes in
North Africa, in as much as the consequences of its input were more long term
than immediate. For instance it is true to say that although detailed Ultra
decrypts failed to stop the successful invasion of Crete, the resistance the
Allied forces were able to give (as the precise plans of the invasion were
known) helped to persuade the Axis powers to firstly postpone and then to
cancel a similar invasion of Malta. Ultra also had
a negative role in the
North Africa, by which the Allies could gauge if their deception techniques
were being successful and whether the Axis forces had knowledge of Allied
operations or not. This 'no news is good news' role which Ultra performed
especially
well preceding the Allied Torch landings in
November 1942 was extremely useful
to the Allies in the planning of future operations too. The
effectiveness with which intelligence was processed was significantly improved
towards the end of the war which led to its role being enhanced to some extent.
Since the release of many documents Ultra`s role in the Second world
War has been greatly exaggerated, being elevated to the rank of a decisive
factor. Such an assertion involves the overlooking of the numerous and
crippling limitations of this form of intelligence, technically and
operationally. Through analysis of such limitations, in relation to its
isolated successes, it can be seen that Ultra was no more than a supplementary
factor in the Allies favour, complimenting their knowledge of the Axis
powers
and their forces in North Africa. Intelligence occasionally enabled the Allies
to know vital information about the Afrika Korps and, although rarely in the
short term, due to the slow speed of its distribution , Ultra did achieve
decisive victories for the Allies in the long-term over its Axis counter-parts,
but for the most part intelligence provided very minute parts of an
ever-changing jigsaw which although significant, was not decisive in itself.
Towards the end of the Desert War intelligence was becoming established as a
significant weapon in the Allied armoury, with Ultra being more effectively
used, whilst still remaining undetected. Ultra indeed had the potential to be
a decisive factor and on selective occassions it was, and its use certainly
was to the Allied advantage as was shown at Alam
Halfa, but its role should not be exaggerated further,
as the usefulness of its findings were vastly restricted and as a result it
cannot be said to have won or even shortened the Desert War for the Allies.
The most important role of intelligence was to aid the British in devastating
the Italian Merchant Fleet and it was far more effective in this role than it
was in the land warfare in North Africa and the fact that the Axis forces did
not possess this type of source was of great significance to the entire
campaign.
1 1 F.H Hinsley, British Intelligence In The Second World War - Volume Two, p367
2 F.H Hinsley, British Intelligence In The Second World War - Volume
Two, p376
3 F.H Hinsley, British Intelligence In The Second World War - Volume One, p 215
4 F.H Hinsley, British Intelligence In The Second World War - Volume Two, p312
5 F.H Hinsley, British Intelligence In The Second World War - Volume Two, p367
6 F.W Winterbotham, The Ultra Secret, p187
7 F.H Hinsley, British Intelligence In The Second World War - Volume Two, p366
Supplies
Diverted and Committed Troops
Weapons In North Africa
Commanders and their tactics
High Command Disputes And Interference
Concluding thoughts on the North African Campaign
Back to the Start
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