Second Battle of El Alamein





Second Battle of El Alamein

October 23 to November 3, 1942.

Following the First Battle of El Alamein which had stalled the Axis advance
British general Bernard Montgomery took command of the Eighth Army from
Claude Auchinleck in August 1942. Success in the battle turned the tide in
the North African campaign.

The British Plan

With Operation Lightfoot, following a massive build-up of forces, Montgomery
hoped to cut two corridors through the Axis minefields in the north. Armour
would then pass through and defeat the German armour. diversionary attacks
in the south would keep the rest of the Axis forces from moving northwards.
Montgomery expected a twelve-day battle in three stages - "The break-in, the
dog-fight and the final break of the enemy."

The British practised a number of deceptions in the months prior to the
battle to wrong-foot the Axis command not only as to the exact whereabouts
of the forthcoming battle, but as to when the battle was likely to occur.
This operation was codenamed "Operation Bertram". A dummy pipeline was
built, stage by stage, the construction of which would lead the Axis to
believe the attack would occur much later than it in fact did, and much
further south. To further the illusion, dummy tanks made of plywood frames
placed over jeeps were constructed and deployed in the south. In a reverse
feint, the tanks for battle in the north were disguised as supply lorries by
placing a removable plywood superstructure over them.

The Axis were dug-in along two lines, called by the Allies the Oxalic Line
and the Pierson Line. They had laid around half a million mines, mainly anti-tank.

The Battle

The battle opened at 2140 hours on October 23 with an 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 day the assault to create the northern corridor fell three
miles short of the Pierson line. While further south they had made better
progress but were stalled at the Miteirya Ridge.

On October 24 the Axis commander General Stumme died of a heart-attack and
General Ritta von Thoma took command of the Axis forces, while Rommel was
ordered to return to Africa, arriving 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 north. There was a successful night attack over the 25-26th. The Axis
counter-attack failed. The Allies had lost 6,200 men against Axis losses of
2,500, but while Rommel had only 370 tanks fit for action Montgomery still
had over 900.

Montgomery felt the the offensive was losing momentum and decided to
regroup. There were a number of small actions but by October 29 the Axis
line was still intact. Montgomery was still confident and prepared his
forces for Operation Supercharge. The endless small operations and the
attrition by the Allied airforce 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 began on November 2 1942. By the 3rd Rommel had only
35 tanks fit for action. Despite containing the British advance, the
pressure on his forces made a retreat necessary. However the same day Rommel
received a "Victory or Death" message from Adolf 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 name "Lord
Montgomery of Alamein" when he was raised to the peerage. The success of his
plan led Montgomery to prefer overwhelming superiority in all his subsequent
battles, leading to a reputation, with some, for being overcautious.

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