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El Alamein |
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Egypt, 23 October-5 November 1942 During 1940, 1941 and 1942, the British Empire and Commonwealth fought a prolonged war in Libya and Egypt against the Germans and Italians. The British objective was to prevent the oilfields of the Middle East and the key communications link of the Suez Canal from falling into enemy hands. During those years the battle moved back and forth between Benghazi on the Libyan coast and the desert plain of northern Egypt. By mid-1942, General Irwin Rommel, the so-called 'Desert Fox', had driven the British deep into Egypt to a line approximately 120 kilometres west of Alexandria. Here, on a fifteen mile front, stretching from the Mediterranean to a desert rise known as the Ruweisat Ridge, was fought the climactic action of the desert campaigns - the Battle of El Alamein. Along this front was ranged the British 8th Army under the command of General Bernard Montgomery composed predominantly of British, Indian, New Zealand, South African and Australian divisions amounting to 220,000 men, 1,100 tanks and 900 artillery pieces. The 8th Army's Australian component was the 9th Division AIF, under the command of Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, the last Australian division remaining in North Africa after the withdrawal of the 6 and 7th Divisions back to the Pacific in early 1942. Facing the British was a combined German and Italian force of 180,000 men (which included the famous German Afrika Korps). Rommel's army possessed 600 tanks and 500 guns. Montgomery's initial battle plan had four divisions, including the 9th, advance on a broad front to force a wedge through the enemy minefields. Once formed, his tanks would breakthrough to the rear. The battle opened with a huge and well-remembered bombardment from the 8th Army's artillery at 9.40 pm on 23 October. When it lifted the infantry moved to the attack with the three brigades of the 9th Division taking on the defences in the northern sector closest to the sea. Despite some initial success, especially in the Australian sector, the infantry attack failed to produce the required mine-free corridor for the tanks. Montgomery now postponed his armoured sortie and turned the 9th Division northwards towards the sea in an effort to cut off a German division. This move would, he reasoned, bring down the German reserves in a counter-attack upon the Australians as the enemy sought to extricate his trapped unit. On 25, 28 and 30 October, Moreshead's men mounted attack after attack. These assaults had the desired effect of pulling in significant German and Italian units but at significant cost to the Australians. The fighting here was fierce and protracted. By 1 November, some Australian battalions had been 'ground down'. The 2/48th came out of an attack on 30-31 October with 41 men compared with the 686 with which it had started the battle a week earlier. The 2/24th was in little better shape with just 54 survivors. In a desperate night relief, Morshead brought out these exhausted and depleted units and replaced them with two battalions of the 24th Brigade. As the official Australian historian wrote: [The survivors of the 2/24th and 2/48th Battalions] were taken back to the original front-line on the coast sector to sleep the night and muster next morning at their saddest roll calls ever. [Barton Maughan, Tobruk and El Alamein, Canberra, 1966, p.724] While the Australians absorbed Rommel's attention, Montgomery developed 'Operation Supercharge' - a tank breakthrough attack to the south at Rommel's weakest point where the German and Italian held parts of his front joined. 'Supercharge' began at 1.05 am on 2 November and, after fierce fighting and heavy losses, the required breakthrough was achieved. At dawn on 4 November, the enemy line cracked and Rommel began a withdrawal back towards the Libyan border. The Battle of El Alamein was over. The Allied pursuit of their beaten enemies lasted until the final surrender of all German and Italian forces in North Africa on 12 May 1943. Over 13,500 men of the 8th Army were killed, wounded or missing at El Alamein. Of these, 2,694 were Australians of the 9th Division, roughly one-fifth of the army's total casualties. The Australian dead numbered 620. It was the last major battle fought by Australian ground forces in the Middle East as the 9th Division was soon on its way home to Australia where further action awaited it in the Pacific. Symbolically, as Barton Maughan, Australia's official historian, concluded, El Alamein was the last great imperial battle fought and won by combined units of the British Empire and Dominions and directed by British and Dominion generals: The call to the battle was a roll call of the Empire, that grand but old-fashioned 'British Commonwealth of Nations', fighting its last righteous war before it was to dissolve into a shadowy illusion. [Barton Maughan, Tobruk and El Alamein, Canberra, 1966, pp.664-665] |
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