What Was the Battle of El Alamein?

Question: What Was the Battle of El Alamein?

Answer: The 1942 Battle of El Alamein in Egypt was actually two pivotal battles of World War II that, thanks to British Lt. Gen. Bernard Montgomery and his Eighth Army, shifted the momentum of the war for the first time from the Axis powers to the Allies. The first battle, from July 1 to July 27, arrested the advance on Alexandria of German Field Marshal Edwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps army. The second and more decisive battle, from Oct. 23 to Nov. 4, turned back the Rommel, forcing him to retreat to Tunisia. Like the Battle of Midway in the Pacific that June, the Allies’ first decisive victory at El Alamein was a turning point in the war.

Background

El Alamein, also known as Al Alamayn or, in Winston Churchill’s retelling, Alamein, is a small Mediterranean coastal town in northern Egypt, 66 miles (106 km) west of Alexandria and 149 miles (240 kilometres) northwest of Cairo. It had little strategic significance in World War II, other than being a railway town — and the site of two battles that made it significant.

In the first Battle of El Alamein, Rommel’s Afrika Korps sought to take advantage of a demoralized British force dug in around El Alamein after defeats at Gazala in Libya and Mersa Matruh in northwest Egypt. The British and Commonwealth forces (including South African and Australian soldiers) resisted, however, ending the battle in stalemate. German forces were exhausted and poorly supplied. British forces had an opening. Montgomery began a build-up of the Eighth Army that Germans couldn’t match.

Buildup to Battle

Hitler had promised Rommel more fuel, tanks and men. None materialized. Rommel himself was sick and flew back to Germany for treatment. Meanwhile, Montgommery built a 2-to-1 advantage in forces:

• 195,000 men to 104,000 German and Italian men.
• 1,029 tanks to 489 German and Italian tanks, many of which were inoperable or obsolete.
• 2,311 artillery pieces to 1,219 German and Italian artillery pieces.
• 530 serviceable planes to 350 serviceable German and Italian planes.

The German-Italian army couldn’t compete with those numbers because by then the Allies’ Mediterranean campaign had become effective enough to sink most Axis resupply ships making their way to North Africa. Rommel knew that Germany’s fate in North Africa was doomed, calling the impending hostilities a “battle without hope.”

The Battle

At 9:25 p.m. local time, Montgommery ordered the beginning of an artillery bombardment involving some 1,000 guns, followed at 10 p.m. with an infantry assault on Rommel’s line, which ran 30 miles to the Qattara Depression. The assaults on the coastal road proved fruitless. On Nov. 2, Rommel opted to attack 10 miles south of the coastal road in a mammoth tank battle called “Operation Supercharge”—and broke through thanks mainly to Australian troops.

On Nov. 4, British Field Marshal Harold Alexander wrote Prime Minister Winston Churchill: “After twelve days of heavy and violent fighting the Eighth Army has inflicted a severe defeat on the German and Italian forces under Rommel’s command. The enemy’s front has broken, and British armoured formations in strength have passed through and are operating in the enemy’s rear areas. Such portions of the enemy’s forces as can get away are in full retreat, and are being harassed by our armoured and mobile forces and by our air forces. Other enemy divisions are still in position, endeavoring to stave off defeat, and these are likely to be surrounded and cut off.”

Going against Hitler’s orders, Rommel retreated to Tunisia, ceding northwestern Africa to the Allies and opening the way for the first major Allied landing of the war. That landing took place, with 100,000 American and British forces (the Americans were under the command of Gen. George S. Patton) on Nov. 8, 1942. After a chase along the northern coastal rim of the African continent, Axis forces capitulated on May 13, 1943, on Cap Bon Peninsula, near Tunis.