Shep's Place Family Tree

‎[Surgical Plates & Screws History:
­http­://­www­.­ehow­.­com­/­about_6707980_surgical­-­plates­-­screws­-­history­.­html­
Was Max treated this way or did he have a temporary protective plate which was removed when the bone knitted itself together again?]‎

Max, who was a sharp shooter, signed up for service in World War II in Adelaide. The doctor from the hospital saw him in the line, and tried to talk Max out it, especially since he was young and had the brain or head injury. Max argued with the doctor and said, "I'll go if you don't tell anyone about it."

Max enlisted in the 2/48th infantry battalion which was part of the Australian Infantry Forces 9th Division and participated in the siege of Tobruk ‎(April to November 1941)‎ and in the second battle of El Alamein ‎(October 1942)‎. The family story about his death is that when Max crawled out to pull in one of his mates, he was shot. The bullet came from nowhere. He died at El Alamein and is buried there.

Australian War Memorial
­http­://­www­.­awm­.­gov­.­au­/­find­/­index­.­asp­

Maxwell Chapman Boase
Number: SX7832
Date of Enlistment: 5 July 1940
Rank: Private
Unit: 2/48 Australian Infantry Battalion
Service: Army
Conflict: 1939-1945
Date of Death: 26 October 1942
Place of Death: Egypt
Cause of Death: Killed In Action
Memorial Panel: 63
Buried: El Alamein War Cemetery XVI. G. 8.
Next Of Kin: Frederick Boase

Source: AWM147 Roll of Honour cards, 1939-1945 War, 2nd AIF ‎(Australian Imperial Force)‎ and CMF ‎(Citizen Military Force)‎

Australian War Memorial Encyclopedia
TOBRUK
AWM FILE OF RESEARCH 581
24 APRIL 1958

Tobruk, like Gallipoli, is a name that means much in the war annals of Australia. A parallel can also be drawn between Tobruk and Milne Bay. At Milne Bay the hitherto invincible Japanese suffered their first defeat - at Tobruk the all-conquering German forces received their first set-back - in each case at the hands of Australians.

January, 1941, saw the British forces, with the Australian 6th Division in the fore, sweep the Italians from the Western Desert all the way to Benghazi and beyond. An extended supply line and the committal of British forces, ‎(including the 6th Division)‎ to honour our pledge to Greece, made our position precarious and with the arrival of General Rommel and his Afrika Corps on the scene it was now our turn to retreat.

The 6th Australian Division was relieved by the newly-formed 9th Australian Division under Major-General L.J. Morshead on the 8th of March, 1941, and their role of garrisoning the Western Desert soon changed when Rommel launched his counter-attack. In the face of superior armour, something the British forces lamentably lacked, retreat was inevitable. The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Archibald Wavell, decided however, that Tobruk must be held for, as he said when he handed over the Cyrenaican Command to General Lavarack, "There is nothing between you and Cairo".

Tobruk's strength as a fortress lay in the fact that for an attacker there was no cover around the perimeter as the area is an almost perfectly flat plateau. With the harbour as the heart of the fortress, the defences built to protect it ran in a rough semicircle across the desert from the coast eight miles east of the harbour to the coast again nine miles west of it. The defences had been hewn from the desert and consisted mainly of dozens of strong points. These posts were protected by barbed-wire fences and anti-tank ditches. Supplemented by captured Italian weapons the strength of the garrison lay in its fire-power, and the extensive use of minefields offset to some extent the weakness in infantry.

This was the position when the Germans launched their ill-fated attack on April 13th, 1941. Known as the "Easter Battle", the Germans had confidently expected a walk-over - instead it had ended in their being completely routed. The spirit of co-operation, trust and comradeship between the men of the garrison, consisting of two thirds Australian and one third British, was the real strength of Tobruk. No other Middle East front saw understanding between the men of these countries so complete.

On Easter Sunday the enemy made his attack with infantry action against the perimeter. The vigorousness of his attack was matched however by the vigour of our defence, and his success in this phase was very limited.

On the morning of Easter Monday the Germans launched their attack by tanks. The familiar pattern employed by these "Blitzkrieg" experts was to have the tanks break through the defences - a deep armoured thrust - and through the gap would pour the infantry. In Poland, France and Belgium these tactics had never failed. Once the tanks had broken through it had always been the beginning of the end and the rolling up of the defences had been a matter of course - until Tobruk.

Here the enemy's tanks did not so much break through as they were let through. The Australians lay low until the German infantry appeared in the wake of the tanks. These were engaged by our fire with the result the tanks were left to advance without the support they had expected, and the further they advanced the more intense became the fire they encountered. For there was the secret of our defence - a defence in depth. The combined force of our artillery and tanks lay waiting for them. They were hit with every calibre weapon at our command capable of damaging them. The fire of our 25-pounders at point-blank range was particularly devastating. As the enemy armour in retreat poured through the gap they had made in our lines, they came under the fire of Brens, mortars, rifles and shells and terrible confusion resulted.

Thus ended the Afrika Corps' first attempt to capture the garrison. Tobruk was a nut they could not crack and further attempts such as the Battle of the Salient in April-May had little more success. While Rommel gained a small amount of territory with his far superior forces, the men of the Fortress inflicted such heavy casualties he did not seriously attack Tobruk again in 1941. Under the inspired leadership of General Morshead the actual defensive task of holding Tobruk was, in reality, held by offensive tactics.

This then was the pattern of Tobruk. A thorn in the side of the German army, upsetting his plans for an attack on Egypt, and giving us time to build up our forces for a counter offensive.

For over six months Australians had defied and denied him possession of the area, and although they were evacuated by sea in October for a "rest", having been relieved by the Polish Carpathian Brigade, one battalion, the 2/13th remained to fight its way out and join up with the advancing British Eighth Army on the second advance westwards.

The heroic defence of Tobruk is a notable military achievement and a worthy addition to the long list of deeds of valour performed by Australian soldiers. At the unveiling of the Memorial in the Tobruk War Cemetery, the late Chester Wilmot, in a description of the ceremony, concluded by saying "Their real monument is their name and their most honoured resting place is in the grateful hearts of their fellow men".

­http­://­www­.­awm­.­gov­.­au­/

Australian War Memorial Encyclopedia

El Alamein

Three major battles occurred around El Alamein between July and November 1942, and were the turning point of the war in North Africa. The Australian 9th Division, led by Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, played a key role in two of these battles, enhancing its reputation earned defending Tobruk during 1941.

The struggle for North Africa saw the pendulum swing sharply in favour of the Axis from January 1942. The Axis forces comprised German and Italian troops and were known as Panzerarmee Afrika, led by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, "The Desert Fox". Opposing him was the British Eighth Army commanded by General Claude Auchinleck. This army comprised British, Australian, New Zealand, South African, and Indian troops. By the end of June, Rommel had forced the Allies back deep into Egypt, and the capture of Cairo and the Suez Canal seemed a very real possibility.

The Allies pinned all their hopes on their new defensive position near the tiny railway stop of El Alamein. Here, the battlefield narrowed between the coast and the impassable Qattara Depression. Rommel, wanting to maintain the pressure made another thrust on 1 July, hoping to dislodge Eighth Army from the Alamein position and open the way to Cairo and Suez. The Allies however had regrouped sufficiently to repulse the attack and make some counterattacks of their own. In these first days of July, the fate of the whole campaign hung in the balance. Both sides by now critically weakened and disorganised, missed opportunities for decisive victories. Both now took time over the next few days to reorganise and lick their wounds.

Before dawn on 10 July the 9th Division launched an attack on the northern flank and succeeded in taking the important high ground around Tel el Eisa. This caught Rommel off guard as he had concentrated his forces for his own offensive in the south. The Australians spent the next few days fighting off heavy counterattacks as Rommel redirected much of his forces against them. The 9th Division infantry owed much to Australian, British and South African artillery, as well as the Desert Air Force ‎(DAF)‎, in repelling these counterattacks. Australians were also present in the DAF, flying with of Nos. 3 and 450 Squadrons, RAAF. Allied infantrymen had varying opinions regarding armoured support, feeling that sometimes the tanks provided welcome support and protection, but also that sometimes they failed them completely.

Fighting then spread to other parts of the front and continued for most of July. By the end of the month, both sides had fought each other to a standstill. On the 27th, one Australian Battalion, the 2/28th, was virtually wiped out when they were surrounded by German tanks and help failed to arrive in time.
‎(See Remembering 1942, "Ruin Ridge", on the Australian War Memorial website
­http­://­www­.­awm­.­gov­.­au­/­atwar­/­remembering1942­/­alamein­/­index­.­htm­).

When the fighting died down at the end of July, Eighth Army, despite its severe losses, could take some comfort knowing that it had stopped Rommel's drive into Egypt and now held the important high ground near the coast. This provided good observation of the enemy and an excellent position from which to launch further offensives.

From August until the end of October, the Allied army grew steadily in strength with the arrival of more troops and equipment. The Axis forces, on the other hand, were weakening, with their supply lines strangled by Allied air and naval attacks. A change in command of the Eighth Army occurred in mid-August when Auchinleck was replaced by General Bernard Montgomery. "Monty" - as he was universally known - set about making positive changes in the Eighth Army, training it and preparing it for the battles to come.

On the last day of August Rommel launched another offensive. In this last and desperate attempt to oust the Allies from the Alamein line, German and Italian armoured forces massed in the southern sector and made a sweeping hook that drove the Allies back to the Alam el Halfa Ridge. The Allied strength, however, soon proved itself as they pushed the Axis forces back over the next few days. In addition, they faced incessant Allied bombing from the DAF, an acute shortage of petrol for their tanks, and a diversionary raid by Australians in the north. After this battle, Rommel went on the defensive, and prepared for the Allied offensive he knew would soon come.

On the night of 23 October 1942, a massive artillery barrage heralded the great Allied offensive. The infantry successfully captured most of their objectives; however, the tanks were unable to follow through and continue the thrust. With the Axis forces stubbornly holding their lines intact, Montgomery worried that his offensive was becoming bogged down. Changing tactics from the drive westwards, he ordered the Australians of 9th Division to switch their attack northward. What followed was a week of extremely fierce fighting, with the Australians grinding their way forward over well-defended enemy positions. As had happened in July, their gains so worried Rommel that he again diverted his strongest units to stop them. Places such as Thompson's Post, the Fig Orchard, the Blockhouse and the Saucer became an inferno of fire and steel as the Australians weathered the storm of bombs, shells and bullets.

With Rommel's attention firmly on the Australians in the north, naturally this left his line weakened further south, and on 2 November the British tanks struck a decisive blow there. The Panzerarmee had suffered crippling losses and Rommel was forced to order a general withdrawal, or face total annihilation. His army now began a headlong retreat that would soon see them ejected from Africa altogether.

Between July and November 1942, the Australian 9th Division suffered almost 6,000 casualties. Although the price was fearfully high, they had without doubt played a crucial role in ensuring an Allied victory in North Africa.
Further reading:

Maughan, Barton, Tobruk and Alamein: Australia in the war of 1939-45, vol. III, Canberra, Australian War Memorial, 1966
Johnston, Mark & Stanley, Peter, Alamein: the Australian story, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 2002

Wikipedia

Second Battle of El Alamein

The battle opened at 2140 hours on October 23 with a sustained artillery barrage. The initial objective was the Oxalic Line with the armour intending to advance over this and on to the Pierson Line. However the minefields were not yet fully cleared when the assault began.

On the first night, the assault to create the northern corridor fell three miles short of the Pierson line. Further south they had made better progress but were stalled at Miteirya Ridge.

On October 24 the Axis acting commander, General Georg Stumme - Rommel was on sick leave in Austria - died of a heart-attack while under fire. After a period of confusion while Stumme's body was missing, General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma took command of the Axis forces. Hitler initially instructed Rommel to remain at home and continue his convalescence but then became alarmed at the deteriorating situation and asked the Desert Fox to return to Africa if he felt able. Rommel left at once and arrived on October 25.

For the Allies in the south, after another abortive assault on the Miteirya Ridge, the attack was abandoned. Montgomery switched the focus of the attack to the northern flank, along the coast, where the Australian 9th Division, under Major General Leslie Morshead, began the first of many night attacks, intended to divert attention from the main area of attack. The first night attack, on October 25-26 was a success and Rommel's immediate counter-attack failed. By this stage the Allies had lost 6,200 personnel, against Axis losses of 2,500, but while Rommel had only 370 tanks fit for action Montgomery still had over 900. There were many small actions including a notable last stand in the defence of Outpost Snipe but, by October 29, the Axis line was still intact.

Montgomery was still confident and prepared his forces for the main assault, known as Operation Supercharge. The endless small operations and attrition from attacks by the Allied air forces had by then reduced Rommel's effective tank strength to only 102. The second major Allied offensive of the battle was along the coast, initially to capture the Rahman Track and then take the high ground at Tel el Aqqaqir. The attack, led by the New Zealand 2nd Division under Major General Bernard Freyberg, began on November 2 1942. By the 3rd Rommel had only 35 tanks fit for action. Despite containing the Allied advance, the pressure on his forces made a retreat necessary. However the same day Rommel received a "victory or death" message from Hitler, halting the withdrawal. But the Allied pressure was too great, and the German forces had to withdraw on the night of November 3-4. By November 6 the Axis forces were in full retreat and over 30,000 soldiers had surrendered.

Winston Churchill famously summed up the battle on 10 November 1942 with the words "now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

The battle was Montgomery's greatest triumph. He took the title "Viscount Montgomery of Alamein" when he was raised to the peerage.

The Torch landings in Morocco later that month marked the effective end of the Axis threat in North Africa.

­http­://­www­.­awm­.­gov­.­au­/
­http­://­en­.­wikipedia­.­org­/

The Advertiser
March 2002

The Battle of El Alamein was one of Australia's finest victories, Governor-General Peter Hollingworth said yesterday.

Dr. Hollingworth is in Egypt accompanying 10 Australian veterans on the 60th anniversary of the World War II battle which marked the beginning of the retreat of Axis forces from North Africa.

Dr. Hollingworth said the scale of sacrifice in the battle demonstrated the willingness of free peoples to pay a heavy price for ensuring that liberty should triumph over terror and oppression.

Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale said that on October 23, 1942, the Allied forces began an offensive designed to overwhelm Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps and repel German forces back across the desert.