El Alamein, Italian Memorial: 2/24th Battalion and 621 Company on 10 July 1942
Ian Kelly, Marketing and Public Affairs Manager, AWM
The Capture of 621 Company
On 10 July 1942 near El Alamein, the Australian 2/24 battalion captured Rommel's 621 intelligence company. It was a key point in the war in North Africa, but even today, little is known of this vital action.
By June 1942, the Axis forces under Rommel had pushed the British Eighth Army back to the area of El Alamein, but had failed in an attempt to break the lines. In early July, the Allied Commander in Chief, General Sir Claude Auchinleck began a series of attempts to push back the Germans and Italians.
The Australian 9th Division was holding the north of the Allied line, not far from the town of El Alamein, and took part in all three of Auchinleck's pushes.
The first of these occurred on 10 July, with elements of the 9th assigned to take a series of high points in the area between the coast and the railway line, then sweep around to take Tel el Eisa station. These high points were important because of the flatness of the terrain. High points were affording the enemy good observation positions, and were preventing the Allies from observing enemy activities to the west.
The action was to be carried out by the 2/24 and 2/28 battalions, with the start point about four thousand yards east of the German and Italian positions. The three high points were designated Trigs 26, 23 and 33 the 2/28 was to take 26 and 23 then swing back to the south east to take the railway station, while the 2/24 took 33.
Italian memorial at Trig 33
The advance began at 3:40am, but did not go entirely to plan. Moving up, some of the transport vehicles also became bogged in salt flats. Then, shortly after the start, an enemy aircraft dropped a flare, lighting up the area. The Australians stood stock still, but there was no action from the other side.
Before dawn, the Italians holding trig 26 awoke to discover they'd been overrun and captured. An Allied barrage was then put down on trigs 23 and 33 and the Italians at 23 were also quickly overrun. So far, the Australians had suffered no casualties.
What the Australians didn't know was that Rommel's best intelligence unit 621 company was operating very close to the front line, and would soon be overrun by the 2/24 battalion.
One of the problems in retelling this story is that it is impossible to pinpoint the exact location of 621 company at the time it was overrun. German, British and Australian records give no map references. There's been speculation that nothing was officially recorded for reasons of security, and that explanation seems reasonable. Most of the German accounts talk of 621 company being "by the sea", so it can be speculated that it was located some distance north of trig 33. In fact, there's very little detail on the incident at all. The Australian Official History talks about 100 Italian prisoners being taken some time shortly after 6:30am on the 10th, but nothing more. Presumably the 100 so-called Italians were in reality, Germans members of 621 company.
Approximate location of Company 621 on 10 July 1942
The best picture of what happened at 33 comes from German sources, in particular, an officer on Rommel's intelligence staff, Hans-Otto Behrendt. His book Rommel's Intelligence in the Desert Campaign is a thorough investigation of what happened, and of the consequences for the Afrika Corps. Behrendt describes the capture of 621 company as a "catastrophe (with) serious consequences for Panzerarmee Afrika". He quotes a fellow officer who said Rommel was furious when he heard the news.
According to Behrendt's research it is clear the unit was established too close to the front line. 621 was commanded by one of Rommel's bright young officers, Captain Alfred Seebohm. Seebohm was not only an outstanding intelligence officer, he was also a high calibre fighting soldier, having twice extricated his company from allied hands once he had been taken prisoner, but managed to escape (in January, 1942). But, his luck ran out on 10 July.
The problems for 621 began when the first of the Italians the Sabratha Division were overrun by the 2/48 at trig 26. They were taken by surprise, and many woke from their sleep to find themselves prisoners (there are reports that some of the officers were wearing pyjamas!). Then the Bersaglieri Regiment was captured at trig 23 (again by the 2/48). This left the German intelligence unit very exposed with nothing between them and the Australians.
Seebohm established his position close to the front line much closer than was perhaps prudent because he believed it would gain him the best results.
The end for 621 came swiftly. At dawn under artillery fire and smoke shells, the 2/24 advanced on the German position, and at the same time, what were described by the Germans as British tanks encircled it. In the heat of battle, it appears the Germans got that bit wrong. There were no allied tanks in the area at the time, and it was almost certainly Bren carriers that the Germans saw.
Realising what was happening Seebohm set up a defensive perimeter and decided to fight, but against Bren guns, mortars and fire from heavy anti-tank weapons, the outcome was inevitable. Seebohm was seriously wounded, and died soon after being admitted to a military hospital in Alexandria. Although a small number of Germans escaped with some of their vehicles and monitoring gear, about 110 were captured along with most of their equipment, and most importantly a large cache of intelligence. (A Company of the 2/24 that finally captured 621, was led by Everard Baillieu, a member of the prominent Melbourne business family. One of the Australian intelligence officers who interrogated the POWs was Murray Farquhar, who later rose to become Chief Magistrate of NSW before ending up behind bars after being found guilty of corruption).
So what was captured and did it help the war effort? There were many documents which revealed that the Germans were aware of such things as British calls signs, map reference codes and radio codes. These were valuable in working out the allies' order of battle and identifying various units. There were other documents that revealed the Germans knew quite a bit about the allied movements. All this was learned by listening to the battlefield chatter, and proved the Germans were good at wireless intelligence and the British were a bit lax with their wireless security. And this, of course, is the major reason for Rommel managing to hold on in North Africa for so long. His supply lines were stretched; he was desperately short of tanks and in particular fuel. The allies knew almost exactly what he was up to because of Ultra - the intelligence gained from cracking the German Enigma codes. However, because Rommel also had good battlefield intelligence, it allowed him to remain a capable foe for longer that he should have.
There were two other important pieces of information gained from the capture of 621 company. The first was confirmation that the Germans had broken the American diplomatic code known as Black Code. The US military attachι in Cairo, Colonel Fellers, had been faithfully reporting the state of the allied war effort to his superiors in Washington; unaware that the codes he used had fallen into German hands. Although it had been realised before 10 July that there was a security breach at the embassy, this was confirmation.
The other piece of information uncovered concerned the existence of a spy ring operating for the Germans in Egypt and called the Kondor Mission. This is another story in itself, and centres on the use of the novel "Rebecca" as a code key. Behrendt, however, says this particular ring was of little use to the Germans.
621 company was reformed in September, but was never again as effective as it had been. Although it had some further minor successes, the operation of 10 July meant that the allies adopted rigorous wireless discipline and security and used methods of deception. In his book "Bodyguard of Lies" Anthony Cave Brown describes the capture of 621 Company as "quite the most important intelligence coup of the whole North African campaign".
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