1941 Saturday 06 December;
Its taped headlights lighting the way through the darkness, the Opel Blitz picked its path along the dirt road heading north to the military hospital in Dena, its white painted roof and big red cross marking it out as an ambulance. Inside, strapped on a hanging bunk, lay Generalmajor Walter Neumann-Silkow, commander of 15th Panzer Division, barely alive, heavily sedated with morphine, a shell splinter having shattered his mandible over an hour ago. 15th Panzer had failed to push the British 22nd Guards Brigade away from Bir El Gubi that afternoon, although their arrival earlier, along with 21st Panzer Division, had stopped the British forces advancing north to El Adem to cut off the Axis forces. Indeed, the British still hadn’t yet taken Strongpoint 182. The Italian Blackshirts there had repulsed all attacks since Wednesday.
The weather had improved, and yesterday had seen the beginning of heavy air activity from both sides. The Luftwaffe attacked British positions around Bir El Gubi, sparking many dogfights as British fighters sought to break up these attacks. There was a steady loss of German bombers, but the British were losing a lot of fighters, having nothing to match the Me 109F, who rate of climb and speed was noticeably better. Nevertheless, the RAF was making its own presence known. British medium bombers and Hurricane fighter-bombers attacked Axis traffic withdrawing past El Adem during the day. Wellingtons and FAA Albacores attacked the road from El Adem to Gazala by night, assisted by nightly bombardments from the Royal Navy’s Insect class gunboat Aphis.
For the troops on the ground, things had become very confusing, with Allied and Axis forces often mixed up, and having difficulty identifying one another, owing to the general practice of using captured vehicles and the camouflage effect of the all-covering dust and sand. Axis forces were facing low supplies of fuel, ammunition, and food, impacting on their performance, along with the exhaustion of the troops. The British were somewhat better off on the ground, but their commander, Ritchie, was hesitant, despite Allied intelligence telling him Rommel was retreating, and unsure where both his and Rommel’s forces were. For now, he was being guided by his two corps commanders, who had a better local feel for the battlefield.
For Rommel, the day's events confirmed that his only realistic option was retreat, as staying would quickly become a defeat in detail. He ordered some of the artillery and Lt Gen Navarini’s XXI Italian Infantry Corps HQ back to Gazala. He planned to use the old disused Gazala defensive line, with the four Italian infantry divisions in the line, the mobile Italian XX Corps on their southern flank, and echeloned back, the DAK. For his forces embedded in the frontier defensive fortifications, the order would be to hold on and buy time: there was no realistic prospect of relief. The rest of his forces would all begin their withdrawal tomorrow. Great skill would be required to make a fighting retreat, and not a rout, delaying the British advance with guile and misinformation as to Axis intentions.