Battle of El Alamein

"BEFORE Alamein there were almost no victories, after it there were no defeats."

Winston Churchill summed up the importance of El Alamein perfectly.

By October, 1942, Britain no longer stood alone against Nazi Germany, but the American influence had still not made a difference and, as Churchill said, we'd had no victories.

At least no victories to speak of. In North Africa the war had ebbed and flowed. First the British took an advantage, then the Italians, then the British again and then the Germans, who had replaced the beaten and demoralised Italians.

But the distances and the lack of water meant that no one had been able to follow up on their advantage.

Lieutenant General (later Field Marshal) Bernard Montgomery came late to this mishmash and, almost immediately, saw the solution.

He realised that advancing hundreds of miles left supply lines strained and vulnerable.

But first he needed that advantage.

When Monty arrived to take control of the British Eighth Army, he found his troops backed up in a tiny railway halt -- El Alamein -- just 60 miles from Alexandria. To go forward was the only way -- to go back was to lose Egypt.

Montgomery's plan was to cut two corridors through the enemy minefields in the north. Tanks would then pass through and defeat the German armour.

He expected a 12-day battle in three stages -- "the break-in, the dog-fight and the final break of the enemy".

The Axis of German forces were dug in along two lines, called by the Allies the Oxalic Line and the Pierson Line.

The battle started at 9.40pm on October 23 with a sustained artillery barrage. The initial objective was the Oxalic Line, with the armour intending to advance over this and on to the Pierson Line.

On the first day, the assault fell three miles short of the Pierson line, while further south they had made better progress but were stalled at the Miteirya Ridge.

Montgomery then switched the focus of attack to the north. There was a successful night attack October 25 and an Axis counter-attack failed.

The Allies had lost 6,200 men against Axis losses of 2,500. But, while Rommel had only 370 tanks, Montgomery still had more than 900. The second major Allied offensive of the battle began on November 2, 1942. By the third, Rommel had only 35 tanks fit for action. The Allied pressure was too great and the German forces had to withdraw on the night of November 3. Three days later, the Axis forces were in full retreat and more than 30,000 soldiers had surrendered.

Rommel retreated. Those soldiers on foot, including large numbers of Italian soldiers, were unable to move fast enough and were taken prisoner.

For a while, it looked like the the British would cut off Rommel's army but a sudden rainstorm on November 6 turned the desert into a quagmire and Rommel and the remainder of his army managed to escape.

On November 8, Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of Morocco and Algeria, took place. Rommel's depleted army now faced a war on two fronts.

The British Army recaptured Tobruk on November 13, 1942, bringing the battle at El Alamein to an end.

During the campaign, half of Rommel's 100,000 man army was killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

He also lost more than 450 tanks and 1,000 guns. Allied forces suffered 13,500 casualties and 500 tanks were damaged, but 350 of these were repaired and took part in future battles.

'It was the biggest roar you could imagine...'

PETER Hodgkinson left his sweetheart, Stella, on the platform at Bolton Station when he went to war in February, 1941. He arrived back in August, 1945, to find her standing on the same platform.

Although as a Royal Engineer, Peter was not directly involved in fighting, he was often on the battlefield as the fighting raged around him.

Perhaps his most dangerous experience was during the second night of the Battle of El Alamein.

"We had to clear paths through the minefields," says Peter, who is now aged 82. "We laid white tape to show the path and marked the mines for our colleagues behind to defuse.

"It wasn't frightening, it was just something we did."

Then he smiles: "Mind you, in the pitch black with the enemy goodness knows how close, you did wonder.

"I was never 100 per cent sure about those mines."

To Peter, the main memory of Alamein is of noise and dust.

"We knew when the first barrage was to start and we all stood in the dark, waiting. When they opened up it was the biggest roar you could imagine.

"We weren't on sand, it was all rocks and stones, but every vehicle threw up clouds of dust. Everything was covered in it."

Towards the end of the battle and just afterwards, Peter was involved in rebuilding the pipeline that carried water for most of the length of the North African coastal road.

"One thing about the desert is that you really appreciate how precious water is," he remembers.

Peter, from Bromley Cross, is a committee member of the Bolton Branch of the 8th Army Veterans Association.

Together with many of his old comrades and his wife, Stella, Peter will be at a ceremony in Westminster to commemorate the anniversary of the battle.