Background

On 7 February 1942 the War Office in London reported to the Prime Minister on the state of forces in North Africa,as it was known at the time in London. The document can be found in WO216/15 in the National Archives in Kew. It shows how much the main units which participated in the battle had suffered.

Notes

[1]The division had fought all of Crusader and all three of its Brigades, 5, 7, and 11 had suffered heavily.
[2]The Brigade would not have been in a good state.
[3]New arrival, fresh troops.
[4]These units were around Tobruk and the Libyan/Egyptian border. The list is missing ‘E’ Force.
[5]New arrival, Tobruk garrison.
[6]The brigade had escaped (barely) from Benghazi, losing about 20% of its strength there. 
[7]The brigade had been overrun at Sidi Rezegh. 
[8]Only two regiments were sent. See below.
[9]The division was only made up to its full tank strength by mid April 1942.
[10] This was the division that had been overrun in April 1941 during the Axis advance. It never was reformed.

Tank State

The same document also gives the tank situation in the Middle East, and it is here that we can see very clearly the hammering the Commonwealth forces had received in the recent operation, but also the effort that was made to rebuild them. A document in the same folder, from mid-October, shows the expectation that by 1^st November the 8^th Army would be able to field 508 cruiser tanks (340 British of varying marks, 168 US M3 tanks) and 150 infantry tanks, and this number almost certainly excluded the 95 British tanks in Tobruk (28 Cruisers and 67 Matildas).