Despite the Italo-German force’s attempts to hold back the Allies
in Egypt by laying over half a million mines over the desert in late 1942,
their enemy was steadily closing in on the once-mighty Afrika Korps.
Led by the infamous General Erwin Rommel, the Axis forces in and around El Alamein were beginning to
crumble due to General Bernard Montgomery's ingenious yet controversial war techniques.
What’s more, Rommel's health was quickly deteriorating,
opening an opportunity for the Allies amidst the lack of solid leadership in Egypt.
By then, the Allied forces were ready to seize the Mediterranean
town of El Alamein after a first attempt to take it in July ended in a stalemate.
The second battle broke out in October with a severely outnumbered Axis force that was
immensely weakened due to a lack of supplies. Still, the confrontation took off with a slow
start and heavy resistance, but a major tank engagement soon gave the Allies the upper hand.
It was the beginning of the end for the Axis powers in the desert, as two of the
most legendary World War 2 generals faced off for the fate of North Africa and their own pride...
El Alamein
The conflict in the North African desert began in 1940
with Italy's invasion of Egypt from its colony of Libya,
threatening some of Britain's most vital strategic assets, such as the Suez Canal and Persia.
When the Italians were defeated a year later, Germany intervened on behalf of its ally.
Under the leadership of General Erwin Rommel, the Axis then enjoyed several
victories across the desert for months, recapturing Libya and threatening Egypt.
Already infamous for his skillful leadership in the battles for France and Northern Africa,
Rommel was a master of desert terrain warfare operations, earning the nickname Desert Fox.
With a seemingly endless frenetic energy and directing his troops from the front rather than
a secluded and safe building, the Desert Fox led the Afrika Korps to many impressive feats.
Rommel also had a knack for handling armored formations,
and with a qualitative superiority over German units, especially in the earlier years of the war,
the Afrika Korps constantly outmatched the allies, even against overwhelming odds.
However, by late 1941, the Desert Fox forces in the area were beginning to overstretch their
supply lines, and were forced to fall back in the face of a determined British offensive.
As such, Rommel's forces started a new drive along the eastern North African coast
in January of 1942, but the British were able to keep them in check for a few months.
Then, in May, the mostly recovered Axis forces were able to destroy most of the
British tank force, take the key port city of Tobruk, and move eastward into Egypt,
reaching the British defenses at El Alamein on June 30.
The El Alamein line ran for 40 miles from the coast to the Qattara Depression, considered
impassable by tanks and other military vehicles due to salt lakes, high cliffs, and escarpments.
Still, Rommel attacked the El Alamein line on July 1,
with a British counterattack led by General Claude Auchinleck the following morning.
The first battle of El Alamein continued well into mid-July, with the British stopping
the offensive by the end of the month. But the fight ultimately ended in a stalemate.
It was then that Prime Minister Winston Churchill
arrived in the Egyptian capital to make significant changes.
Preparing For Battle
After the stalemate at the end of the first battle of El Alamein,
Churchill decided to replace General Auchinleck as Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East
with General Sir Harold Alexander. At the same time,
the 8th Army, the leading force in Egypt, was given to Lieutenant General William Gott.
However, Gott's transport was shot down by the Luftwaffe before he could take up command,
and the 8th Army was then assigned to Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery.
One of Britain's most capable yet controversial commanders, Montgomery’s first line of action was
to transform the troops’ fighting spirit, as he was determined to win El Alamein once and for all.
Knowing the depth and unwavering persistence of Rommel's defenses,
Montgomery carefully prepared a new offensive that would be known as the Second Battle of El Alamein.
Due to the impenetrable Qattara Depression to the south, the British had built a defensive line at
El Alamein, and the planned offensive called for infantry to advance across the minefields,
allowing the engineers to open two routes for the armor to pass through.
After clearing through the mines, the armor would then reassemble and the infantry troops would
face the initial Axis defenses. Subsequently, the British would break into the Axis line,
forcing them to counterattack and thus wearing down their offensive capability.
This proposed strategy suited the British 8th Army,
whose main strength lay in its artillery and infantry formations.
By mid-October of 1942, Montgomery commanded almost double the men and tanks that Rommel's
German-Italian Army had, with over 190,000 men from across the British Empire, France, Greece,
and Poland, and equipped with over 1,000 tanks, 1,400 anti-tank weapons, and 900 artillery pieces.
In addition, the British also had the advantage of air superiority.
Rommel was aware that an attack was imminent, and he prepared his defenses as best he could.
At El Alamein, the Desert Fox commanded 116,000 German and Italian soldiers, 540 tanks,
500 artillery pieces, and 490 anti-tank guns. And choosing to take a defensive stance,
the general fortified his position with over 500,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.
However, as the bulk of the Germans’ war materials was on the Eastern Front, Rommel and his men were
experiencing a critical lack of resources, and the commander had to rely on captured Allied supplies.
Even worse, with his health on the decline,
Rommel had to take a leave of absence in September to travel back to Germany,
passing down the troops’ command to a subordinate shortly before the British attack.
A Slow Start
On the night of October 23, 1942, Montgomery ordered a heavy bombardment of the Axis lines
with his powerful multinational force that lasted for five continuous hours.
In the first phase of the battle, known as Break-in,
four infantry divisions from the British XXX Corps advanced over the German mines
behind the line of fire, as the men did not weigh enough to trip the devices.
Right behind them, a team of engineers began to work on Operation Lightfoot,
a slow, painstaking, and hazardous process that had them opening two channels within
the minefields through which the armored forces could safely advance.
Then, as the armored advance began, the terrain was so rugged and there
was so much dust that only about half the infantry went through, and no tanks at all.
Meanwhile, the assault was further supported by diversionary attacks to the south.
As daybreak approached, Rommel's temporary replacement, Lieutenant General Georg Stumme,
passed away of a heart attack, further hampering the German defense.
Major-General Ritter von Thoma then took control and coordinated a series of counterattacks against
the slow yet continually advancing British infantry. Still, the Allies bravely defended
the initial assaults, launching the first significant tank engagement of the battle.
After the British successfully opened a 6-mile wide and 5-mile deep inroad into
the enemies’ position, General Montgomery decided to shift some XXX Corps forces
northward and inject more power into the offensive. That is where the bulk of the
fighting happened for the next week, near a kidney-shaped depression and Tel el Eisa.
Upon his return from sick leave on the evening of October 25, Rommel was astonished to find his
once-feared army stretched thin, and realized that the Axis forces were critically low on
fuel and mechanized forces to fight a mobile war, lacking enough supplies to withdraw and
thus leaving them exposed in the open. Instead, Rommel decided to erect strong defensive positions
protected by deep minefields, nicknamed the devil's gardens.
However, the British failed to take advantage of the lack of German tanks,
and were continually stopped by their anti-tank guns.
Incensed, Prime Minister Churchill would say:
[QUOTE] "Is it really impossible to find a general who can win a battle?"
Dogfight
As Montgomery realized the strength of Rommel's defense positions,
he resisted Churchill's impatient pleas for an early massive attack.
Still, he was forced to revise his plans and decided that the second phase of the battle,
Dogfight, had to be fought within, rather than beyond, the already fortified positions.
Consequently, the British established a forward line between October 26 and 31, starting where
the Axis forces would be engaged and worn down, a tactic Montgomery often used. The idea was that
the enemy's defensive positions were continuous with a series of brutal close-quarter fighting.
Simultaneously, the British fended off several German counterattacks ordered by Rommel,
but their tanks continued to be held up in the congested and slow-moving minefield corridor,
suffering punishing losses from enemy anti-tank guns.
Despite the difficulties, Montgomery held his nerve and continued boosting his troops’ morale,
assuring his soldiers that they had more men, tanks, guns, and aircraft than their enemy.
Montgomery then launched a diversionary attack to draw in any scarce Axis reserves,
and the general then paused and regrouped before launching a final defining blow.
Supercharge
Rommel began to realize that El Alamein was lost after assaulting the Australians once
more without success, and on November 1, he began planning a retreat 50 miles west.
Early the following day, Montgomery launched Operation Supercharge.
The operation's objectives were to destroy enemy armor and force Rommel's men to fight in the open,
reducing their remaining petrol stock, attacking and occupying hostile supply
routes, and causing the definitive disintegration of the enemy’s army.
Supercharge's intensity and destruction were more extraordinary than anything
witnessed before during the Second Battle of El Alamein,
and the Allied troops fought with great courage and intrepidity.
Attacking behind the security of an intense artillery barrage,
the 1st Armored Division and the 2nd New Zealand Division met stiff resistance
but still managed to destroy over a hundred Axis tanks.
Rommel would write on November 3: [QUOTE] "The battle is going very heavily against us.
We're being crushed by the enemy weight... We are facing very difficult days,
perhaps the most difficult that a man can undergo".
Knowing the situation was hopeless, Rommel urgently contacted Adolf Hitler
and asked for permission to withdraw, but the Führer vehemently refused.
The general then assessed his remaining armored vehicles and found that fewer
than 50 tanks remained, but they were soon destroyed by the relentless British forces.
After more days of brutal fighting, the British finally achieved a decisive
breakthrough on November 4, when General Montgomery launched his last assaults,
reached the open desert, and opened a 12-mile hole in the German lines.
Rommel had no other choice, and he ordered his remaining men to begin retreating west.
A Tide-Turning Victory
As a result of the Second Battle of El Alamein, four German and eight Italian divisions were
eliminated as fighting units, and the British captured almost 30,000 prisoners of war.
Montgomery described El Alamein as General Rommel's first decisive defeat.
The battle also turned the tide of the war in North Africa in favor of the Allied forces,
and the victory gave Churchill the great Commonwealth victory that he so desired,
albeit achieved with a lot of American-made equipment.
El Alamein also boosted national morale and was one of the most celebrated victories
of World War 2, and has since become enshrined in British military mythology
as a significant strategic turning point in the war.
After the significant triumph, Churchill ordered that the church bells be rung in celebration,
the first time they had been heard since 1939 with the outbreak of the war.
Still, while some critics considered Montgomery’s advance in El Alamein as too slow,
the battle also reinforced his reputation as a great commander, turning him into a household
name and securing him vital commands in later operations in Italy and Northwestern Europe.
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