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Though Alexander had the misfortune to command two retreats (Dunkirk was the other), in both cases he got the job after other generals had been recalled, possibly too late. His own motto is: "Attack, attack and reattack, even when you are on the defensive." His politeness is unfailing, but staff officers confronting him for the first time remark his pale blue eyes with unwavering, pinpoint pupils, his clipped mustache and his clipped, machine-gun orders; they regard him as a somewhat dashing but thoroughly competent commander. His chief aide in the field as the battle joined was Lieut. General Bernard Law Montgomery, 54-year-old Ulsterman, who is merciless, almost brutal. In the two of them Rommel might indeed have met his equals.
"Sturm, Schwung, Wucht." And so it looked this week. Rommel began his action with feints towards the north, then a jab at the southern front. With his entire Afrika Korps of four divisions—tank columns and light infantry—he swept along the edge of the Qattara Depression, struck at the British lines, penetrated some distance into British mine fields, swung toward the seacoast. This was Rommel's Sturm, Schwung, Wucht.* The operation was reminiscent of the wide sweep he had made around Bir Hachéim in May. But Alexander and Montgomery were ready for him. They had learned some lessons about desert warfare:
> They were not caught by surprise. Reconnoitering by land and in the air had appraised them of Rommel's intentions.
> They lay low. Alexander's own philosophy of attack also recognized the possibility of entrapment. They waited to see which way Rommel's Sturm swung.
> They conserved their power. They sent medium tanks, among which were U.S. crews getting their first lesson in actual combat, to harass, work on the flanks, blunt the Sturm without meeting it in head-on collision. General Grants operated by U.S. crews waylaid one column of Mark Ills and Mark IVs and routed them. (Said Private Barney Rossi, of Brooklyn: "If we'd had our newest tanks we'd have moidered dem bums.")
> They used their artillery, turned strategically placed 25-pounders on Rommel, knocked out his tanks, even blew up some of his deadly 88-mm. cannon.
> They used their air power in teamwork with ground forces. At Rommel's advancing columns they unleashed the fiercest air attack the desert has yet seen. Along with the British planes were U.S. bombers of Colonel C. G. Goodrich's command and U.S. fighters under the command of Brigadier General Auby Strickland. They routed the Luftwaffe by the very weight of numbers, until they were able to blast Rommel at will, morning, noon and night.
They pounded his supply lines, even sent planes over the Mediterranean toward Crete and Sicily to attack ships moving in slow convoys with new supplies for Rommel's reserves. Sunk within four days were three Axis tankers, two freighters laden with motor vehicles, one destroyer.