My Grandfather was a member of the 2/43 Australian Infantry Battalion 8th Army . We his family are extremely proud of him and his mate's. LEST WE FORGET.
If you get to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra there's a place in there to ask about if they have more information on him as long as ya have his Service Number
My Grandfather was Haveldar (Sergeant) in the British Punjab 1st. Regiment, Third Brigade and fought in the battle of Al Alamein...He fondly remembers his Highlander comrades and his Infantry formation accompanied them - playing bagpipes and marching, while German fire was all around them....frying eggs on the Tanks Armour was something I vividly remember him mentioning, with a wry smile...Also he was chosen as one of two or three 'runners' to scout German formations from the relatively higher grounds of Quattara Depression...We, the Muslims of Northern Punjab are very proud of him, our Villagemen and their sacrifices...They were the Gallant Warriors..plain and simple..My Great Grandfather was a Lance Naik (or Corporal) in the First Baloch Regiment of British Army and this Muslim Punjabi contingent was part of soldiers sent to suppress the Boxer Rebellion (China) in 1900 and rescue the British garrison in Shanghai...its a shame that our soldiers did not get the recognition accorded to other Commonwealth Martial contributions...
The soldiers of The Punjab Regiments were rightly held in the very highest regard by thier comrades.. I can vouch for this, as my father, Staff Sergeant Robinson spoke warmly of thier valour and prowess. ❤️👌
You should be very proud of your family’s accomplishments. Just imagine all the knowledge they gained along the way from the hardships of being on campaign. That was just the first thing I thought of when I read your comment. Idk why.
@@ben-jam-in6941 Many Thanks for such a comment that exudes respect and recognition of fellow soldiers/comrades on the battle field - where all lives (and for that matter, death) are equal...For a thousandth time I have thought of writing a screenplay around a particular 'Sniper' incident that Dada Ji (Grandfather) mentioned...its stuff of legends and it was delivered in such a low key and powerful monotone...it puts the bullsh*t Hollywood 'Sniper' characters to shame...He himself was such a character who still had long flowing hair and mustache that he combed regularly...I am trying to imagine the trip of these soldiers on a train from Meerut Cantonment to Bombay...then Karachi and then Cairo...in the hull of the ship..he told me that they used to sing their local songs..to pass time..and to counter the sea-trip challenges...But this is a shared experience...of all soldiers...who went more for the 'Gallantry' than the money....we were Large Landowning family but Grandfather wanted to be a soldier like this Dad was...HONOUR was paramount to them...
@@heteroerektus3103 You should do it (the screenplay). It would be a great way of commemorating your family history and the wars in general. I know some of those boat journeys from one front to another were just horrible for the land loving soldiers who hadn’t been at sea often if at all before. Then add on other things like heat and being shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers for the entire trip and you have the definition of horrible.
Montgomery was the most savvy and adept commander in the North African campaign. He changed the allied mindset more or less overnight, getting rid of mindless tank charges and placing far greater emphasis on artillery and closer ground to air cooperation in addition to instilling greater morale with his hands on command ethos. Rommel was an excellent divisional or corps level armour tactician but he was out of his depth against Montgomery in the wider campaign strategy, particularly when it came to logistics. Unlike Rommel, Montgomery never outran his supply lines. His 8th Army also carried out the fastest long advance of any army in WW2. 1,300 km in just 20 days November 4th to 23rd 1942 from El Alamein to El Agheila. And that was after suffering 15,000 casualties in an intense two week battle and getting through half a million mines. His advance had to then halt while supplies caught up from Alexandria and the port of Benghazi repaired.
I agree with everything you said, except I think Monty was a far less capable general than Rommel. Rommel outran his supply lines because he was insane. And also knew that playing it safe was suicide since the Commonwealth far exceeded his manpower in the long run. And any general could have defeated an ulcer-ridden Rommel at the end of a 1,500m supply line, with 12-1 air supremacy, 10-1 tank advantage, and 3x infantry n artillery, plus supplies.
@@jackcoleman5955 axis troops...116,000[5][a] 547 tanks 192 armoured cars 770 - 900 aircraft 552 artillery pieces 496 - 1,063 anti-tank guns allied troops....195,000 1,029 tanks 435 armoured cars 730 - 750 aircraft 892 - 908 artillery guns 1,451 anti-tank guns- show me the 10 to 1 etc etc...as for the long line supply line what was Montys like after 20 days chasing Rommel over 1500 miles..as the gent wrote. As Generalfeldmarschall Kesserling noted ‘even a victorious army cannot keep up a pursuit of thousands of miles in one rush; the stronger the army the greater the difficulty of supply. Previous British pursuits had broken down for the same reason.’ and rather admiringly pointed out, ‘the British Eighth Army had marched halfway across North Africa - and over fifteen hundred miles - had spent the bad winter months on the move and in the desert, and had had to surmount difficulties of every kind.’
My Dad, although Royal Navy, was awarded the N Africa Star because the E. Med Fleet, in which he served, supported the 8th Army. He was a Naval Gunner.
It made me smile when they were talking about the amount of flies there were cos whenever I asked my grandfather to recount an experience during the war then no mater what he told me it always began the same . . “ Those damn flies “ he once told me that you couldn’t just kill all the flies in ones tent cos if you did you then had to contend with the stench of dead flies, Wow to actually know the stench of dead flies is what really stuck with me when he told me this story.
Wow. That is an entirely new and disgusting thought. And what were those flies eating? Poo, bodies and apricot jam. In your tent. I'm going to vomit if I think about this longer. Surely only huge tiredness got your Grandfather to sleep at all!
@@Nounismisation Hi , my Grandfather told me that he only ever once tried to kill all the flies in his tent , the stench kept him awake so he decided to count how many dead flies does it take to create such stench . It turns out he killed around 2,000 flies. He then realised why everyone was laughing at the ‘new Fella’, it turned out that every new member of the team learned for themselves why you don’t kill the flies . As a bonus for you my grandad also had something to say about the fighting in Europe , he would say , “You want to hear about the fighting in France , the problem with France was the damn French , they would run out of thier houses thanking us for liberation by piling us with booze , none of us could ‘shoot for shit’ once we got to France, God only knows how we won the bloody war , everyone on our side was pissed up all the time , but I will tell you this sonny , those damn Frenchies beat those Damn flies hands down. I remember every bloody day of them flies in N. Africa but the war in France was nothing but a drunken blur “ I’m not sure how true that last bit was cos my grandad did love a story but when he died R.I.P I did meet some of his war buddies and I found out that my grandad was more of a hero than he let on , it turns out that there was far more to him than he wanted to share . I guess I can’t blame him as everyone deals with the trauma of war in there own ways . Take Care . R .
@@Petal4822 hi , Apparently there were so many flies that They flung You out of the tent lol 😂. Seriously my grandad use to say that anywhere there was sweat then thousands of flies followed - We were in the dessert , sweating was inevitable . I hope that helps your query. Take Care . R .
I worked on this show long, long ago. It was great fun, except for getting ill and having to urgently relieve myself in the remains of an 88 gun emplacement.
Yeah, the Kiwis would have held the gap open better if the South Africans and Brit armour played the game. At the end, the kiwis were surrounded by the 15th and 21st Panzer and 2 x Italian divisons in the open. Fryberg was right to pull out as it would have meant the destruction of the 2nd NZ Div.
@@anthonyeaton5153 I was referencing Operation Crusader, not 2nd El Alamein, in which the South African leadership was stalling to relieve the New Zealands, who were battling objectives that did not pertain to releive Tobruk. Crusader is very convoluted that a 9 hour video documented the whole.
The Italians fought quite well under Rommel's command. I wonder why they didn't attack the minefields in daylight with the hundreds of bombers they had available
Churchill "Their very best tanks-the Shermans-were just coming out of the factories. The first batch had been newly placed in the hands of their divisions who had been waiting for them and looking forward to receiving them. The President took a large number of these tanks back from the troops to whom they had just been given. They were placed on board ship in the early days of July and they sailed direct to Suez under American escort for a considerable part of the voyage. 22 The President also sent us a large number of self-propelled 105 mm. guns, which are most useful weapons for contending with the 88 mm. high velocity guns, of which the Germans have made so much use. One ship in this convoy-this precious convoy-was sunk by a U-boat, but immediately, without being asked, the United States replaced it with another ship carrying an equal number of these weapons." Hansard Debate on the address 11 November 1942 on line The US Army had M3 mediums when it landed in North Africa. The M7 105mm howitzer was the first modern purpose built self propelled gun in British service.
My father was there with 3 of his brother one was M.I.A. along with my mom brother, unfortunately at the time they were on the loosing side with the italian army. My dad never spoke a word about his war experience, but I know first hand what combat is like. I served 1 year with the 173 ABN BGD in Vietnam
I know you when you are in Mumbai filming about our train and it service you are very thankful for exposing our needs to expand our railway or further partition for small share
@@NathanWatsonzero The Dutch Resistance, please. ( My grandfather fought for the Dutch Resistance, hiding downed Allied pilots in canals, breathing through straws, while holding a pistol with 2 bullets, in case the German patrol found them.) Also, how do military operations get their names. Why does the mortar loader always duck, and does the mortar automatically adjust itself each time it fires, or does the mortar hit the same spot all time?
Monty did nothing new. Just waited till he had 3 times the number of men and equpment and even then nearly blew it. If it wasnt for the Commonwealth effort, Monty would have been another casualty of Norh African campaign. No wonder he wore an Aussie hat.
What wold your plan be, attack before you have superior numbers, before your men was trained, while short of supplies? Thankfully you sit and make your plans with plastic troops on a carpet. Mongomery briely wore a Slouch Hat but switched to a RTR tank beret.
@@benwilson6145 Exactly. Churchill was impatient as the guy you replied. Monty waited to gain numerical advantage and supplies which would win even in an attritional attack that he did not intend.
36:54. “Are you touching the wire?” “Yes I am” “Well don’t” “I’m just touching it very gently” “Okay” Could you be any more British while disarming a mine? 😂😂😂
General Gort didn’t perish in a plane crash. He survived that plane crash and was trying to help many crew members to get out of the burning plane when it blew up and killed nearly everyone.
Fortunes of war. Would Gott have been a success? Churchill said of Monty that he was disagreeable to his men. Perhaps he would be disagreeable to the enemy too.
Please remember these brave men who sacrificed their lives for our peace and freedom. 26th February 1943: 155th Battery RA and Hampshires hold 10th Panzer at Sidi Nsir
I wonder if the impact of Bonner Fellers will be mentioned, sending his daily dispatches to Washington using a code the Germans were able to read before the information was read in Washington.
The Italians had burgled the British embassy in Cairo and photographed their code books. So the German could read British coded radio communications. But the British subsequently captured Rommel's signals unit in the desert.
Fascinating insight, what really changed this battle was the Sherman tank, until then British tanks had been slow and inferior and in effect attacks were suicide missions with them. And the somewhat-conceited Montgomery, at last a leader who showed strategic skill and foresight and one who communicated with his troops. God bless all the brave tank personnel and infantry, special thanks must go the wonderful ANZACS and South Africans and Indians (along with others like Polish, Czech, Greek, Free-French) who fought so gallantly alongside British soldiers. God bless you all.
I dont think it was the Sherman tank per se but rather Montgomery gathering his forces, together with his new tactics of getting rid of mindless tank charges and placing greater emphasis on artillery and closer ground to air cooperation. The new German Panzer IV specials had superior firepower to the Sherman and more accurate optics at long range. There weren't lots of them however.
You'll remember that the new M3 Grants were superior to all Axis tanks at Gazala but it made little difference. The allies were routed at Gazala despite superior tanks.
Too bad their info about the Shermans was wrong. Tank fires hardly ever have anything to do with the fuel. German tanks ran on petrol as well. It's almost always the ammunition that burns. The British had the bad habit of filling their tanks to the brim with ammunition, making a penetrating hit more likely to set a catastrophic fire. But not many tommy's were cooked though. The Sherman was very survivable by tank standards. The burn rate of shermans was about the same as other tanks, contrary to popular belief. Later in the war wet stowage of ammunition was introduced and the burn rate for the shermans dropped dramatically.
@@thevillaaston7811 They might have, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the Sherman wasn't more prone to fires than any other tank and after the introduction of wet stowage it was the least likely to catch fire after a penetrating hit. So I'm as real as can be on this subject :).
@@A.J.K87 Get real. My father was in a division that operated Churchill's and Shermans. None of the people wanted to be in Shermans, they were the biggest death trap in the allied tank types.
@@thevillaaston7811 With all respect to your father and his service, but the facts do not support that claim. In fact figures show that the Sherman was one of the most survivable tanks of the war. There may have been a perception that the Sherman was an inferior tank, but the numbers do not back up this perception. I US service roughly 50000 men served in armored force, of those 50000 only slightly less than 1500 lost their lives in all theatres of operations combined. That is a death rate of 3%. So the Sherman really wasn't a death trap. If you're interested you could look up a talk done by a man named Nicholas Moran on myths of American armour in ww2. It's a very enlightening talk in which he dispels a lot of myths surrounding the Sherman tank, all backed up by primary source evidence.
@@A.J.K87 Get real. www.dailymotion.com/video/x34edjb As for those statistics, how can any conclusions be drawn? Of that 50,000 it is a fair bet that not all them were in Sherman tanks, not all of them were in tanks at all. Further, US forces were not involved in a Kursk or a Caen. US forces were not involved in the ground campaign in Europe until its latter stages, and then against an enemy that was short of men, fule, modern tanks and air cover. For any sense to be made of those statistics, a minimum level of information would be the numbers that actually served in Sherman tanks, and the numbers that survived when a tank was knocked out. Also, the same level of statistics for other tank types would need to be aailable.
"Over the next six weeks Montgomery began to stockpile vast quantities of weapons and ammunition to make sure that by the time he attacked he possessed overwhelming firepower. By the middle of October the Eighth Army totalled 195,000 men, 1,351 tanks and 1,900 pieces of artillery. This included large numbers of recently delivered Sherman M4 and Grant M3 tanks." Jewish virtual library Bernard Law Montgomery page
Lt General Gott was the original replacement for Auchinleck, but he was killed when the plane transporting him was shot down. Most think he would been a disaster.
24 foot wide lanes for the tanks to pass over through the minefield - inevitably the narrow lanes become blocked with broken down tanks. The same thing happened at Market Garden later on. Monty just did not understand how tanks could break down and block a road.
I suspect he did understand perfectly well but decided to take the risk as part of his battleplan to beat the German's best general. Unfortunately, email hadn't been invented by 1942 otherwise he could, no doubt, have dropped you a line so that you could advise him with your extensive expertise.
@@castlerock58 rather than british might it is the Indian people's might that turned the tide in favour of the British .. We .have proved ourselves to be fearless from our past to this day so no need of the Brits still the British soldiers commanded from the back Indians fought
@Ruru Ghoshal the fuck that has been burried under the carpets ....No one speaks about indian contribution in WW2 ...still there are many forgotten ones and those heroes and their bravery that we Indians itself doesn't know
It's nice to see that we (other nations) have been actually acknowledged fighting at El Alamein in an English documentary about this battle. But you stuffed up at the end saying that Hitler could be defeated in WW2 at this battle? Rommel was first defeated at Tobruk when he could not take this town with several attempts in 1941, as historians I thought you would have known this??? Don't try to change history ok! They weren't completely defeated at Tobruk but they were stopped,...full stop! And that was the first time in WW2,...that's a defeat to me when an army can't advance any further???
@@tylerjerabek5204 Yeah ok now I know why you don't know the facts, the Tobruk Garrison was told or I should say ordered to hold Tobruk for as long as possible was because it was a deep water port. If the Germans and Italians captured Tobruk they could shorten their supply lines which could have changed the advance on Egypt and the Suez Canal. I don't know why British Historian's keep denying this fact, you don't only disrespect Australian troops you also deny your own troops and the Indians and the Polish troops that fought there??? I think you need to do a bit more research. I think your still caught up in the old English believe that only English Troops won battles, this is not true if you are a real historian!
Stu Whiteman While Tobruk was an important stubborn defence, it didn't stop the Axis from moving east to El Alamein. Had the Axis won there and moved to Alexandria then Tobruk would have been irrelevant. In Europe, the Germans held ports like Calais long after Normandy, but again it didn't stop the allies from moving east. The Axis were stopped from taking Tobruk, but they weren't stopped and defeated in North Africa until El Alamein. That was the decisive battle, and plenty of Commonwealth troops were involved and are remembered for it.
Tanks fit for action at the start of Alamein totaled 1,029: 252 Shermans, 170 Grants, 249 Crusaders, 119 Stuarts and 194 Valentines. The Sherman wasn’t the only tank whose gun could deal with the panzers. The final Crusader had improved armour and a 6-pdr gun and greater reliability. 6pdr armed Crusader tanks sliced through the Germans and Italians in the Desert. A big problem was the US derived Liberty engine, which Nuffield eventually ironed out the problems. Its speed a was a great problem for the Germans. They had nothing that fast. The British had some influence over the design of the Sherman: _Though reluctant to adopt British weapons into their arsenal, the American designers were prepared to accept proven British ideas. British ideas, as embodied in a tank designed by the Canadian General Staff, also influenced the development of the American Sherman tank._ British teams were in the United States in 1940 providing input on the designs of the Stuart, Grant, and Sherman tanks. A British brigadier named Geiger had a memorable meeting with the ranking general in the United States Army, George C. Marshall, to make sure his recommendations on internal layouts were incorporated. The US were eager to supply about 250 unproven Sherman tanks out of about 1,500 in total. The US were desperate to get the tank blooded in battle, so the British could do that for them. The Sherman on introduction was generally no better than British tanks, but more reliable being new. In fact it was worse than many especially the well armoured 6-pdr Churchill. The Sherman’s first showing was at El Alemein, as unproven it was pitted against lesser Italian units. The Sherman tank supplied was complex, as they never had a proper tank engine it had five Cadillac engines arranged in a circle, supposedly synched up - note: US forces never used this complex excuse for a tank engine - the Sherman was built from as many existing commercial vehicle parts as possible. The British worked with the makers to improve the complex engine and tank generally - the E8, the ultimate Sherman was derived from suggestions by the British. El Alamein was primarily fought by infantry with heavy artillery support in the way of 900 British25pdrs.DAF ground attack and bombers also flew many sorties against axis positions. Allied armour barely played a part because it was stuck in the minefields the Germans called “the Devil’s Garden”, until the final stages of the battle when the outcome was already decided. Further, they were found to be shaky at first and consume huge amounts of petrol. _......At the same time it is only right to remember that much of Eighth Army had had little experience of warfare of any sort.The original 51st Division had been forced to surrender at St Valery during the Battle of France-to Rommel, as had not been forgotten-and its present successor had seen no action. Alam Halfa had been 44th Division’s first battle and its experiences then and thereafter had not been happy ones: 69th Brigade had not seen combat since it had been reformed in mid-September; 9th and 24th Armoured Brigades were totally inexperienced new arrivals; and 8th Armoured Brigade had been in action as a formation only in its unsatisfactory clash with von Vaerst during Alam Halfa._ In addition, the new equipment reaching Eighth Army *greatly increased the problems of inexperience* - 8th, 9th and 24th Armoured Brigades for instance *all received their new Shermans too late to gain any real practice with them before the battle began. They also found that there was a dearth of spare parts and many important items of equipment, such as compasses, were missing altogether. The Shermans later gained a deserved reputation for reliability but in those early days when neither their crews nor the maintenance units were used to them, it is hardly surprising that, in the tactful words of Lucas Phillips, ‘several of them were found to be mechanically shaky’._* _......As a crowning misfortune, _*_the Shermans revealed another defect which had been concealed by the static nature of the fighting at Alamein: in these difficult conditions they consumed what the Official History calls ‘fantastic quantities of fuel’._* _......Currie’s brigade had been built up to 121 tanks of which seventy-two were Shermans or Grants and the rest Crusaders, but by this stage of the battle _*_a number of the Shermans in both 9th Armoured Brigade and 1st Armoured Division were very much ‘mechanically shaky’.”_* - Eighth Army's Greatest Victories: Alam Halfa to Tunis 1942-1943 by Adrian Turner
It's wonderful to FINALLY see someone acknowledging the potency of the Crusader Mk 3 with its 6 pounder gun (instead of just generalising all the negative impressions spawned by the 2 pounder version)! It happens to be my favourite tank : ) Tracking down actual firsthand accounts of how it fared against its direct opponents has proven very challenging however...
Monty has 10 times more tanks and artillery pieces and 6-7 times more men than the DAK. He was also much better supplied by the Americans than Rommel by the Italians. DAK only received about 20-30% of their supplies from the Italian Navy. Yet despite the overwhelming superiority in men and materials, Monty couldn’t manage to crush DAK but in fact was chased by Rommel twice across the Libyan desert.
@@californiadreamin8423 From the outset, the 8th Army had a significant advantage over the DAK in terms of both manpower and resources because Churchill insisted on that. Furthermore, by mid-1942, it benefited from continuous substantial replacements in tanks, fuel, and ammunition, courtesy of military support from the United States. By the time El-Alamein II rolled around, most of the British tanks were destroyed and Monty's boys were using new American M4 Sherman tanks. In most battles, the British were able to deploy 600-800 tanks against DAK but always ended up losing. Rommel never had more than 200 Panzers and a light infantry division. He had about 30 Panzers left after El-Alamein.
Monty may be a good general but I seriously doubt his XXX and XIII Corps could win against Rommel without US help, even if they outnumbered Rommel 20:1 in tanks and 10:1 in men.
@@DohuuVi What point are you trying to make ? Are you trying to say that Rommel didn’t take advantage of the daily detailed reports by Bonner Fellers of British plans, strengths and dispositions of British forces, sent to Washington, which were being read by Rommel before they were read in Washington. Is that what you’re trying to say ??? PS. When did Rommel twice chase the 8th Army twice across the Libyan desert ? Why don’t you answer ? PPS. The DAK weren’t invited to North Africa except to prop up the defeated Italian Army and prevent the Mediterranean coming under British control. Was it the British fault that the DAK were inadequately supplied ? It wasn’t a game of cricket.
Rommel was only there to tie down as many British troops as possible. Hitler never thought of North Africa as anything but a side show. Russia was where the war was at and where the best troops and all the tanks and supplies went. There was never a serious strategy to drive on to the Suez and then the middle east. In fact, Rommel's fuel and supplies began to dwindle to almost nothing while Monty took his time building up his forces' strength for a big push. I don't know if Monty was so good as Auchinlech was so bad.
Mainly because if the British had LOST in the desert the German Army would have taken Suez, linked up WITHOUT opposition in Crimea, taken ALL the Russian oil fields and that would have been that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't agree with the assessment that "they had shown for the first time in WWII that Hitler could be defeated". That glory belongs to the red army in the winter of 1941/42. Furthermore Operation Crusader had achieved victory as well. The difference being that this time the German army did not have a comeback. But (without wanting to slight Mr Montgomery) that had mainly economic reasons. The US industry was by now producing war material on a scale that was just unmatched by the Axis powers. I wonder if without the battle the German army might have withdrawn after the development on the eastern front. The loss of 25000 soldiers at El Alamein pales beside the losses of many battles on the Eastern Front in Russia. That being said it of course is the turning point in the desert war in hindsight. However, while it was the major front for Great Britain it was a secondary front in German strategy. The Africa Corps was officially under the command of the Italian army and was severely lacking in logistics, weapons and reinforcements - something that can't be said for the British 8th army. Again, not wanting to slight the achievements or the suffering of British soldiers - the battle kind of seems like a price boxer fighting against another price boxer who is locked in a fight with another boxer as well. 900 tanks vs 300 tanks says it all.
Tanks were predominantly destroyed by anti tank fire. The Germans had very effective anti tank guns , they were experienced troops and they were on the defensive, with excellent fields of fire. The British finally used their artillery in a very effective way, and fought the battle taking advantage of their strengths , not weaknesses. The tank units were no longer allowed to roam about the desert, a law unto themselves, but kept under strict control. Because the tank formations were highly suspect by the Infantry commanders, Montgomery was persuaded to change his initial plan not that long before the battle commenced. The idea was to defeat the Germans who were at the limit of their supply lines, not chase them away. This is what occurred.
Please explain to me exactly in what way Montgomery was brilliant. What was shown here was that he kept sending men to certain death with a series of schemes, each stupider than the last, and eventually won only because he vastly outnumbered Rommel and had air superiority. My uncle had an encounter with him in England before D Day. His view: a complete horse's ass. Another friend was in Bletchley Park. They kept being amazed at his antics: cautious when he should been bold, bold when he should have been cautious.
I was just thinking the same! He had plenty of disasters, (Market Garden?), under his belt, I think. I guess you have to be at the right place at the right time.
Montgomery did not have vastly overwhelming superiorty , by the beginning of the battle on 23rd October 1942 8th Army had less than 2 : 1 superiorty in manpower (198.000 men in 8th Army , 108.000 men in Panzer Army including Italians whom mostly became seasoned desert warfare vererans at this point if not in levels of German compatence) and remember they could not outflank or outmaneuver the enemy on Alamein line so they had to attack frontally to the teeth of enemy defences (and two million mines deployed mines) and in frontal attack you need at least 3:1 superiorty (even that is not guarantee of sucess) , Montgomery had less than that in men. So he build up his forces , kept his reserves till last moment for final attacks and used firepower advantage ruthlessly and better than other previous British generals. Rommel at the other hand despite being overstretched himself and should have retreated long time ago from an indefensible position at Alamein (due to his dreams of conquerer of Egypt , chance he missed in July and September) , kept attacking , counter attacking and exposing his forces to be crumbled by defensive British firepower (bite and hold tactic of British Army from WWI which Montgomery used efficiently in El Alamein) till his army was broken , its few remants were in full retreat in November 1942. Montgomery might have been an boorish egoist character but he was a proffessional soldier , better than Rommel or even Von Rundstedt. He knew what capabilities British Commonwealth forces were and what were their limits and weaknesses. Rommel at the other hand , over heated and eventually burned down his own army that used to be perfectly efficient war machine before.
@@davidford694 In frontal attack you need to gather up a massive firepower , supply and equipment build up if you wish to suceed. Montgomery had that material firepower advantage because he had to. Not because he found everything ready. To breakthrough depends on attrition in frontal offensives and Montgomery basically realised that would be (his quote) a killing match. So he had to have more of everything and even that was not enough quarantee for sucess. One example , Battle of Gazala in May - June 1942 which 8th Army disasterously lost despite being on defensive killing ground with having minefield defensive advantage and having almost two times more tanks (including Grant tanks and new 6 pounder anti tank guns) and artillery plus Tobruk supply depots close by (which were delivered to enemy intact) than Panzer Army Afrika because previous British generals like Auchinleck , Ritchie , Gott , Norrie etc all divided their divisions into smaller battalion or brigade sized units dispersing their firepower and effectiveness. Montgomery had similar superiorty in El Alamein but he was on offensive exposing his army to enemy defensive firepower and minefields (even best tank you have or multiple ones would be knocked out by mines or German or Italian anti tank guns which Panzer Army Afrika had plenty of) so to use his material firepower advantage most efficient way , he deployed them into battle as big division sized units without any gaps enemy could exloit or open flanks to overturn as Rommel's Afrikakorps did so many times against other British generals. Montgomery realised British Commonwealth Army functioned best against German operational methods with firepower , attrition and bite and hold tactics , capturing a position and forcing enemy to counter attack in positional warfare. He was proved to be correct. As for rough numbers which you wish a comparison I suppose , in 23 October 1942 when battle started , Panzer Army Afrika had 455 tanks total (including 200 Italian tanks which were unlike previous models were in fighting condition at least) , 8th Army had 1.180 tanks but numbers difference is deceptive , 8th Army could not deploy its tanks at once at the same time because of the width of the front and bottlenecks in minefield corridors (and even in numbers 8th Army tank superiorty is less than 3:1) PLUS only 259 Shermsan and 120 Grant tanks were considered reliable medium models , the rest were Crusader (in sufficiently armed and malfuctioning in desert) , Valentine (insufficiently armed) , Stuart (thinly armored and insufficiently armed) models without common standart origins. And I am not even adding German and Italian anti tank gun advantage especially long range German 88 mm guns plus Devils Garden minefields with two million mines. Only clear firepower advantage about three to ome or more 8th Army had was either in artillery and airforce. The supply and logistics is vital of course that is why Montgomery always made supply build up and sustanence infrastructure first then started operations unlike Rommel who usually depended captured British supplies which dried up after July 1942 Panzer Army lived hand to mouth afterwards. Considering Montgomery had to attack frontally , preserving manpower was vital for him since British and Commonwealth was running out of manpower by this stage and heavy casaulties lowered morale and confidence of troops and army in general (a lesson Montgopmery learned in WWI trenches) Funny thing is because of these methodic principles he is blamed either being over cautious , "wasting lives" or incompatent yet he concluded every campaign he commanded from Alamein to Elbe River in Germany victoriously.
Monty told Churchill to back off and butt out. Speeches don't bring victory . aknowlegment of your own situation and tailoring with that in mind does. Far to much attributing to heroic disposition. Enigma ,quality of troops and equipment, material logistics All played a part .
"From late 1942, US tanks were required in increasing numbers to make up for the deficiencies of home-grown products. Only in 1944 was British industry able to deliver a tank reasonably fit for a fast-moving battlefield, and even then it was scarcely a match for its opponents." Imperial War Museum BRITAIN'S STRUGGLE TO BUILD EFFECTIVE TANKS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR page
Why were no American army divisions fighting the Germans in North Africa all through 1942? The USA had been at war with Germany since December 1941. Why didn't the US Army do its share against the Germans and Italians until near 1943?
it's preatty easy to win a decisive battle when you have total naval and air superiority, double the troops, three times the tanks and countless more various artillery pieces, better logistics and much better supply situation, full strenght armor divisions with brand new shermans, a united central command and full intelligence on the enemy (enigma decoded), i can't really see this great mind behind the victory.
@Massimo Pericolo Well, according to the recipes outlined in the classic "Art of War'" the "mediocre" Monty made certain that all the elements for winning the battle were in place before hand while the "brilliant" Rommel had his forces locked in place at the end of a very long and very tenuous supply line with limited opportunities to maneuver.
Why didn't Auchinleck win then, why did he need to be replaced? Why did O'Connor get captured? Yes, your right, even though the accepted ratio to overcome an entrenched opponent is 3:1, the British had 2:1, it was a doddle, a walk in the park, pretty easy. Monty, trusting his commanders on the ground, not micro managing, permeating confidence to the army. Monty retraining the army, infusing it with the will to fight, reorganising so it fought by Divisions, rather than by mobile columns (jock columns as they were sarcastically called), shredding the multiple plans, and replacing it with one plan. Telling his Staff Officers, "Here we will stand and fight, if we cannot stay here alive, let us stay here dead", coordinating attacks with the Desert Air Force, devolving the plan of attack from the officers down to the men before the attack, replacing incompetent officers. Switching his master plan in mid battle, as circumstances dictated. All counts for nothing, as you said, it's all "pretty easy", no arguments there, lol.
@@IanCross-xj2gj Churchill was not desperate for victory, he told mongo to wait until he got all of his forces and then attack together with the amarican landing in north Africa, he removed mongo as to hide its wast military supremacy against Rommel, making it look like Britain won on equal amount of power.
You guys are really over-selling the significance of El Alamein. I know how important it was for British morale but come on, in the grand scheme it’s a pretty minor battle. Still fascinating and worthy of study but you actually diminish it by pumping it up so much.
It was a vitally important battle, lose at El Alamein then Suez, Egypt, and the entire Middle Eastern oilfields are lost, in the whole of the Med countries would be lost, stupid comment.
in the GRAND scheme, if the British HAD lost, the Russians would have been defeated, it called strategy...why do you think fighting took place there? Are you really that dumb?
If the Axis took North Africa, the Mediterranean would have been an Axis lake, the Axis would have then taken the Middle East and East Africa and Turkey likely would have joined them. If this had happened, particularly in 1941 (rather than at the time of El Alamein) it could have been decisive for WW2.
We Muslims country as battle field.either side not respect the country men they only looking their interest now they must pay the consequences after decades that the minds of the native hit Hard still telling how England or Germany did to their land and exhaust the resources Now they are talking about immigration problem.None of the parties must not denied their problems why you so quite now let live together as once you used them
@@stephenvince9994 Qutubuddin Khan is saying that the Arab nations lost their sovereignty to the politics of the white man in generations past. And now, he argues, it is our turn to lose our sovereignty as they migrate into Western lands and gain the vote.
@@KayAteChef , thanks for your interpretation. Your Arabic is quite good. There is some truth to what he's saying, but I suspect the European countries are smart enough to monitor the migration and change their policies accordingly. Or, the Far Right would simply take over and kick them out of the countries.
My Grandfather was a member of the 2/43 Australian Infantry Battalion
8th Army .
We his family are extremely proud of him and his mate's.
LEST WE FORGET.
Agree with you
LEST WE FORGET
We keep them ‘Alive’ and not forgotten by the stories we share about them with one another .
Take Care . R .
God bless him and all that have served.
We shall NEVER forget our heroic Australian brothers. ♥️
@@williamrobinson7435 Agreed. Contributions of commonwealth forces must be recognized.
If you get to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra there's a place in there to ask about if they have more information on him as long as ya have his Service Number
My Grandfather was Haveldar (Sergeant) in the British Punjab 1st. Regiment, Third Brigade and fought in the battle of Al Alamein...He fondly remembers his Highlander comrades and his Infantry formation accompanied them - playing bagpipes and marching, while German fire was all around them....frying eggs on the Tanks Armour was something I vividly remember him mentioning, with a wry smile...Also he was chosen as one of two or three 'runners' to scout German formations from the relatively higher grounds of Quattara Depression...We, the Muslims of Northern Punjab are very proud of him, our Villagemen and their sacrifices...They were the Gallant Warriors..plain and simple..My Great Grandfather was a Lance Naik (or Corporal) in the First Baloch Regiment of British Army and this Muslim Punjabi contingent was part of soldiers sent to suppress the Boxer Rebellion (China) in 1900 and rescue the British garrison in Shanghai...its a shame that our soldiers did not get the recognition accorded to other Commonwealth Martial contributions...
The soldiers of The Punjab Regiments were rightly held in the very highest regard by thier comrades.. I can vouch for this, as my father, Staff Sergeant Robinson spoke warmly of thier valour and prowess. ❤️👌
@@williamrobinson7435 Nice to read testimonial stories of Indian soldiers, who contributed massively and deserve recognition.
You should be very proud of your family’s accomplishments. Just imagine all the knowledge they gained along the way from the hardships of being on campaign. That was just the first thing I thought of when I read your comment. Idk why.
@@ben-jam-in6941 Many Thanks for such a comment that exudes respect and recognition of fellow soldiers/comrades on the battle field - where all lives (and for that matter, death) are equal...For a thousandth time I have thought of writing a screenplay around a particular 'Sniper' incident that Dada Ji (Grandfather) mentioned...its stuff of legends and it was delivered in such a low key and powerful monotone...it puts the bullsh*t Hollywood 'Sniper' characters to shame...He himself was such a character who still had long flowing hair and mustache that he combed regularly...I am trying to imagine the trip of these soldiers on a train from Meerut Cantonment to Bombay...then Karachi and then Cairo...in the hull of the ship..he told me that they used to sing their local songs..to pass time..and to counter the sea-trip challenges...But this is a shared experience...of all soldiers...who went more for the 'Gallantry' than the money....we were Large Landowning family but Grandfather wanted to be a soldier like this Dad was...HONOUR was paramount to them...
@@heteroerektus3103 You should do it (the screenplay). It would be a great way of commemorating your family history and the wars in general.
I know some of those boat journeys from one front to another were just horrible for the land loving soldiers who hadn’t been at sea often if at all before. Then add on other things like heat and being shoulder to shoulder with other soldiers for the entire trip and you have the definition of horrible.
Montgomery was the most savvy and adept commander in the North African campaign. He changed the allied mindset more or less overnight, getting rid of mindless tank charges and placing far greater emphasis on artillery and closer ground to air cooperation in addition to instilling greater morale with his hands on command ethos.
Rommel was an excellent divisional or corps level armour tactician but he was out of his depth against Montgomery in the wider campaign strategy, particularly when it came to logistics. Unlike Rommel, Montgomery never outran his supply lines.
His 8th Army also carried out the fastest long advance of any army in WW2. 1,300 km in just 20 days November 4th to 23rd 1942 from El Alamein to El Agheila. And that was after suffering 15,000 casualties in an intense two week battle and getting through half a million mines. His advance had to then halt while supplies caught up from Alexandria and the port of Benghazi repaired.
I agree with everything you said, except I think Monty was a far less capable general than Rommel.
Rommel outran his supply lines because he was insane. And also knew that playing it safe was suicide since the Commonwealth far exceeded his manpower in the long run.
And any general could have defeated an ulcer-ridden Rommel at the end of a 1,500m supply line, with 12-1 air supremacy, 10-1 tank advantage, and 3x infantry n artillery, plus supplies.
@@jackcoleman5955 axis troops...116,000[5][a]
547 tanks
192 armoured cars
770 - 900 aircraft
552 artillery pieces
496 - 1,063 anti-tank guns
allied troops....195,000
1,029 tanks
435 armoured cars
730 - 750 aircraft
892 - 908 artillery guns
1,451 anti-tank guns-
show me the 10 to 1 etc etc...as for the long line supply line what was Montys like after 20 days chasing Rommel over 1500 miles..as the gent wrote.
As Generalfeldmarschall Kesserling noted
‘even a victorious army cannot keep up a pursuit of thousands of miles in one rush; the stronger the army the greater the difficulty of supply. Previous British pursuits had broken down for the same reason.’
and rather admiringly pointed out,
‘the British Eighth Army had marched halfway across North Africa - and over fifteen hundred miles - had spent the bad winter months on the move and in the desert, and had had to surmount difficulties of every kind.’
My dad was an Infantry Staff Sergeant during this lot. This excellent film is a credit to his memory.
My Dad, although Royal Navy, was awarded the N Africa Star because the E. Med Fleet, in which he served, supported the 8th Army. He was a Naval Gunner.
It made me smile when they were talking about the amount of flies there were cos whenever I asked my grandfather to recount an experience during the war then no mater what he told me it always began the same . . “ Those damn flies “ he once told me that you couldn’t just kill all the flies in ones tent cos if you did you then had to contend with the stench of dead flies, Wow to actually know the stench of dead flies is what really stuck with me when he told me this story.
Wow. That is an entirely new and disgusting thought.
And what were those flies eating? Poo, bodies and apricot jam. In your tent.
I'm going to vomit if I think about this longer. Surely only huge tiredness got your Grandfather to sleep at all!
@@Nounismisation
Hi , my Grandfather told me that he only ever once tried to kill all the flies in his tent , the stench kept him awake so he decided to count how many dead flies does it take to create such stench . It turns out he killed around 2,000 flies.
He then realised why everyone was laughing at the ‘new Fella’, it turned out that every new member of the team learned for themselves why you don’t kill the flies .
As a bonus for you my grandad also had something to say about the fighting in Europe , he would say ,
“You want to hear about the fighting in France , the problem with France was the damn French , they would run out of thier houses thanking us for liberation by piling us with booze , none of us could ‘shoot for shit’ once we got to France, God only knows how we won the bloody war , everyone on our side was pissed up all the time , but I will tell you this sonny , those damn Frenchies beat those Damn flies hands down. I remember every bloody day of them flies in N. Africa but the war in France was nothing but a drunken blur “
I’m not sure how true that last bit was cos my grandad did love a story but when he died R.I.P I did meet some of his war buddies and I found out that my grandad was more of a hero than he let on , it turns out that there was far more to him than he wanted to share .
I guess I can’t blame him as everyone deals with the trauma of war in there own ways .
Take Care . R .
@MichaelKingsfordGray who's a coward?
Could they not have flung the flies out of the tent.
@@Petal4822 hi , Apparently there were so many flies that They flung You out of the tent lol 😂.
Seriously my grandad use to say that anywhere there was sweat then thousands of flies followed - We were in the dessert , sweating was inevitable .
I hope that helps your query.
Take Care . R .
I worked on this show long, long ago. It was great fun, except for getting ill and having to urgently relieve myself in the remains of an 88 gun emplacement.
Great to see The Australian 9th Division get a proper mention. They were also the Rats Of Tobruk
Yeah, the Kiwis would have held the gap open better if the South Africans and Brit armour played the game. At the end, the kiwis were surrounded by the 15th and 21st Panzer and 2 x Italian divisons in the open. Fryberg was right to pull out as it would have meant the destruction of the 2nd NZ Div.
@@craigrik2699 I read that the British and South Africans did attack but failed to reach to their objectives to even assist the New Zealanders.
@@inovakovskythanks for the reminder I had nearly forgotten after being bombarded by Australians constantly banging on about it.
@@anthonyeaton5153 I was referencing Operation Crusader, not 2nd El Alamein, in which the South African leadership was stalling to relieve the New Zealands, who were battling objectives that did not pertain to releive Tobruk. Crusader is very convoluted that a 9 hour video documented the whole.
The Italians fought quite well under Rommel's command.
I wonder why they didn't attack the minefields in daylight with the hundreds of bombers they had available
Churchill "Their very best tanks-the Shermans-were just coming out of the factories. The first batch had been newly placed in the hands of their divisions who had been waiting for them and looking forward to receiving them. The President took a large number of these tanks back from the troops to whom they had just been given. They were placed on board ship in the early days of July and they sailed direct to Suez under American escort for a considerable part of the voyage. 22
The President also sent us a large number of self-propelled 105 mm. guns, which are most useful weapons for contending with the 88 mm. high velocity guns, of which the Germans have made so much use. One ship in this convoy-this precious convoy-was sunk by a U-boat, but immediately, without being asked, the United States replaced it with another ship carrying an equal number of these weapons."
Hansard Debate on the address 11 November 1942 on line
The US Army had M3 mediums when it landed in North Africa. The M7 105mm howitzer was the first modern purpose built self propelled gun in British service.
Beautiful script and mesmerizing narration.
To the New Zealand Division-Onward.
My grandfather was in this battle the New Zealand division respect
My father was there with 3 of his brother one was M.I.A. along with my mom brother, unfortunately at the time they were on the loosing side with the italian army. My dad never spoke a word about his war experience, but I know first hand what combat is like.
I served 1 year with the 173 ABN BGD in Vietnam
I know you when you are in Mumbai filming about our train and it service you are very thankful for exposing our needs to expand our railway or further partition for small share
This was a really good video. Many More, please.
What did you have in mind?
@@NathanWatsonzero The Dutch Resistance, please. ( My grandfather fought for the Dutch Resistance, hiding downed Allied pilots in canals, breathing through straws, while holding a pistol with 2 bullets, in case the German patrol found them.)
Also, how do military operations get their names.
Why does the mortar loader always duck, and does the mortar automatically adjust itself each time it fires, or does the mortar hit the same spot all time?
Monty did nothing new. Just waited till he had 3 times the number of men and equpment and even then nearly blew it. If it wasnt for the Commonwealth effort, Monty would have been another casualty of Norh African campaign. No wonder he wore an Aussie hat.
And used Dorman Smiths plans.
What wold your plan be, attack before you have superior numbers, before your men was trained, while short of supplies?
Thankfully you sit and make your plans with plastic troops on a carpet.
Mongomery briely wore a Slouch Hat but switched to a RTR tank beret.
He wore an Aussie hat to scare away the flies :p
@@benwilson6145 Exactly. Churchill was impatient as the guy you replied. Monty waited to gain numerical advantage and supplies which would win even in an attritional attack that he did not intend.
@@inovakovsky and he knew about the Torch Landings .he grew stronger, Rommel weaker
36:54. “Are you touching the wire?”
“Yes I am”
“Well don’t”
“I’m just touching it very gently”
“Okay”
Could you be any more British while disarming a mine? 😂😂😂
I say
General Gort didn’t perish in a plane crash. He survived that plane crash and was trying to help many crew members to get out of the burning plane when it blew up and killed nearly everyone.
Strayfer Gott
Fortunes of war. Would Gott have been a success? Churchill said of Monty that he was disagreeable to his men. Perhaps he would be disagreeable to the enemy too.
Churchill did NOT choose Montgomery as his first choice. he chose Gort who was killed in aplane crash on the way out there. Then he chose Montgomery.
Strayfer Gott
Thank god they put Monty in charge he turned the tide
Commonwealth Victory, not British!
Exactly. There would have been no victory at El Alamein if it wasn't for the Aussies, Kiwis, Indians, and South African troops.
British Commonwealth! Actually British Empire - remember this was 1942, not 2020! But all of these men deserve our gratitude.
And many more including Free French, Poles, Czechs, Palestinian and many more.
One and the same.
Exactly! South Africa, New Zealand and Australia were essential to this victory! So much for British gratitude!
I wish my dad worked at the BBC. I wouldn't mind a nice paying job on the telly.
Please remember these brave men who sacrificed their lives for our peace and freedom.
26th February 1943: 155th Battery RA and Hampshires hold 10th Panzer at Sidi Nsir
How quickly and easily we forget.
God bless the ANZACs
Gallipoli
@@alidawahfan1176 From Gallipoli until today we still refer to our service men and woman as Anzac's.Onward.
He had clearly already done so.
Outstanding.
I wonder if the impact of Bonner Fellers will be mentioned, sending his daily dispatches to Washington using a code the Germans were able to read before the information was read in Washington.
The Italians had burgled the British embassy in Cairo and photographed their code books. So the German could read British coded radio communications. But the British subsequently captured Rommel's signals unit in the desert.
@@IanCross-xj2gj Are you sure ? I understood that the Italians burgled the US embassy in Rome and copied the code….the “Black Code”.
@@IanCross-xj2gj The US embassy in Rome just before the US entered the war.
Great documentary!
Fascinating insight, what really changed this battle was the Sherman tank, until then British tanks had been slow and inferior and in effect attacks were suicide missions with them. And the somewhat-conceited Montgomery, at last a leader who showed strategic skill and foresight and one who communicated with his troops. God bless all the brave tank personnel and infantry, special thanks must go the wonderful ANZACS and South Africans and Indians (along with others like Polish, Czech, Greek, Free-French) who fought so gallantly alongside British soldiers. God bless you all.
I dont think it was the Sherman tank per se but rather Montgomery gathering his forces, together with his new tactics of getting rid of mindless tank charges and placing greater emphasis on artillery and closer ground to air cooperation.
The new German Panzer IV specials had superior firepower to the Sherman and more accurate optics at long range. There weren't lots of them however.
You'll remember that the new M3 Grants were superior to all Axis tanks at Gazala but it made little difference. The allies were routed at Gazala despite superior tanks.
Too bad their info about the Shermans was wrong. Tank fires hardly ever have anything to do with the fuel. German tanks ran on petrol as well. It's almost always the ammunition that burns. The British had the bad habit of filling their tanks to the brim with ammunition, making a penetrating hit more likely to set a catastrophic fire. But not many tommy's were cooked though. The Sherman was very survivable by tank standards.
The burn rate of shermans was about the same as other tanks, contrary to popular belief. Later in the war wet stowage of ammunition was introduced and the burn rate for the shermans dropped dramatically.
Get real. Even the Germans called the Sherman Tommy Cooker.
@@thevillaaston7811 They might have, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the Sherman wasn't more prone to fires than any other tank and after the introduction of wet stowage it was the least likely to catch fire after a penetrating hit. So I'm as real as can be on this subject :).
@@A.J.K87
Get real. My father was in a division that operated Churchill's and Shermans. None of the people wanted to be in Shermans, they were the biggest death trap in the allied tank types.
@@thevillaaston7811 With all respect to your father and his service, but the facts do not support that claim. In fact figures show that the Sherman was one of the most survivable tanks of the war. There may have been a perception that the Sherman was an inferior tank, but the numbers do not back up this perception. I US service roughly 50000 men served in armored force, of those 50000 only slightly less than 1500 lost their lives in all theatres of operations combined. That is a death rate of 3%. So the Sherman really wasn't a death trap. If you're interested you could look up a talk done by a man named Nicholas Moran on myths of American armour in ww2. It's a very enlightening talk in which he dispels a lot of myths surrounding the Sherman tank, all backed up by primary source evidence.
@@A.J.K87
Get real.
www.dailymotion.com/video/x34edjb
As for those statistics, how can any conclusions be drawn? Of that 50,000 it is a fair bet that not all them were in Sherman tanks, not all of them were in tanks at all. Further, US forces were not involved in a Kursk or a Caen. US forces were not involved in the ground campaign in Europe until its latter stages, and then against an enemy that was short of men, fule, modern tanks and air cover.
For any sense to be made of those statistics, a minimum level of information would be the numbers that actually served in Sherman tanks, and the numbers that survived when a tank was knocked out. Also, the same level of statistics for other tank types would need to be aailable.
"Over the next six weeks Montgomery began to stockpile vast quantities of weapons and ammunition to make sure that by the time he attacked he possessed overwhelming firepower. By the middle of October the Eighth Army totalled 195,000 men, 1,351 tanks and 1,900 pieces of artillery. This included large numbers of recently delivered Sherman M4 and Grant M3 tanks."
Jewish virtual library Bernard Law Montgomery page
Lt General Gott was the original replacement for Auchinleck, but he was killed when the plane transporting him was shot down. Most think he would been a disaster.
24 foot wide lanes for the tanks to pass over through the minefield - inevitably the narrow lanes become blocked with broken down tanks. The same thing happened at Market Garden later on. Monty just did not understand how tanks could break down and block a road.
@MichaelKingsfordGray no it's actually my MI5 cover identity
I suspect he did understand perfectly well but decided to take the risk as part of his battleplan to beat the German's best general. Unfortunately, email hadn't been invented by 1942 otherwise he could, no doubt, have dropped you a line so that you could advise him with your extensive expertise.
Wish my Father and I had the relationship they share.
Steel Commanders
Rule the battlefield
Spearhead Flanders
Tankers leading the
Storm of panzers
Battle calling the
Steel Commanders
The battle that turned the tide in North Africa in World War II.
Why aren’t there more of this?
3 million of Indians lost their life in WW2 for a foreigner. ...coz just for freedom 😭😭😢
Im sure the Japanese would of treated you splendidly...
@@MrOllievirus ya they did ... But not as cruel as the west have done to us ....
The Japanese killed 17 million Chinese. Mostly civilians. India would have faced something similar if the axis had won.
@@castlerock58 rather than british might it is the Indian people's might that turned the tide in favour of the British ..
We .have proved ourselves to be fearless from our past to this day so no need of the Brits still the British soldiers commanded from the back Indians fought
@Ruru Ghoshal the fuck that has been burried under the carpets ....No one speaks about indian contribution in WW2 ...still there are many forgotten ones and those heroes and their bravery that we Indians itself doesn't know
Monty showed the same excessive optimism in planning as with Market Garden...
I can see you’ve been reading Stephen Ambrose.
great war tv seris , bbc best docs on the planet.
49:15 "Tank commanders told to accept 100% casualties." Gulp 😮 50:50 9th Armoured brigade total heroes, IMO. Facing massed anti-tank guns.
And so at a stroke, Gott is written out of history. Probably another disastrous pick by Churchill. Fate does work in mysterious ways.
It's nice to see that we (other nations) have been actually acknowledged fighting at El Alamein in an English documentary about this battle.
But you stuffed up at the end saying that Hitler could be defeated in WW2 at this battle? Rommel was first defeated at Tobruk when he could not take this town with several attempts in 1941, as historians I thought you would have known this??? Don't try to change history ok! They weren't completely defeated at Tobruk but they were stopped,...full stop! And that was the first time in WW2,...that's a defeat to me when an army can't advance any further???
Except that El Alamein is east ofTobruk, in Egypt
The Axis were trying to get to the Suez, so Tobruk was NOT a full permanent stop
@@tylerjerabek5204 Yeah ok now I know why you don't know the facts, the Tobruk Garrison was told or I should say ordered to hold Tobruk for as long as possible was because it was a deep water port. If the Germans and Italians captured Tobruk they could shorten their supply lines which could have changed the advance on Egypt and the Suez Canal. I don't know why British Historian's keep denying this fact, you don't only disrespect Australian troops you also deny your own troops and the Indians and the Polish troops that fought there??? I think you need to do a bit more research.
I think your still caught up in the old English believe that only English Troops won battles, this is not true if you are a real historian!
Stu Whiteman
While Tobruk was an important stubborn defence, it didn't stop the Axis from moving east to El Alamein. Had the Axis won there and moved to Alexandria then Tobruk would have been irrelevant.
In Europe, the Germans held ports like Calais long after Normandy, but again it didn't stop the allies from moving east.
The Axis were stopped from taking Tobruk, but they weren't stopped and defeated in North Africa until El Alamein. That was the decisive battle, and plenty of Commonwealth troops were involved and are remembered for it.
Those bouncing Betty mines are no joke. Would suck to be on the bad end of one.
They aimed at the bagpipes noise
Does anyone know what tv show this is? I know this isn't part of the 20th century battlefields so what tv series is this?
It is a stand alone documentary called "Battle plan" made for the 60th anniversary
@@NathanWatsonzero Ah. Thank you.
Tanks fit for action at the start of Alamein totaled 1,029: 252 Shermans, 170 Grants, 249 Crusaders, 119 Stuarts and 194 Valentines.
The Sherman wasn’t the only tank whose gun could deal with the panzers. The final Crusader had improved armour and a 6-pdr gun and greater reliability. 6pdr armed Crusader tanks sliced through the Germans and Italians in the Desert. A big problem was the US derived Liberty engine, which Nuffield eventually ironed out the problems. Its speed a was a great problem for the Germans. They had nothing that fast.
The British had some influence over the design of the Sherman:
_Though reluctant to adopt British weapons into their arsenal, the American designers were prepared to accept proven British ideas. British ideas, as embodied in a tank designed by the Canadian General Staff, also influenced the development of the American Sherman tank._
British teams were in the United States in 1940 providing input on the designs of the Stuart, Grant, and Sherman tanks. A British brigadier named Geiger had a memorable meeting with the ranking general in the United States Army, George C. Marshall, to make sure his recommendations on internal layouts were incorporated.
The US were eager to supply about 250 unproven Sherman tanks out of about 1,500 in total. The US were desperate to get the tank blooded in battle, so the British could do that for them.
The Sherman on introduction was generally no better than British tanks, but more reliable being new. In fact it was worse than many especially the well armoured 6-pdr Churchill. The Sherman’s first showing was at El Alemein, as unproven it was pitted against lesser Italian units. The Sherman tank supplied was complex, as they never had a proper tank engine it had five Cadillac engines arranged in a circle, supposedly synched up - note: US forces never used this complex excuse for a tank engine - the Sherman was built from as many existing commercial vehicle parts as possible. The British worked with the makers to improve the complex engine and tank generally - the E8, the ultimate Sherman was derived from suggestions by the British.
El Alamein was primarily fought by infantry with heavy artillery support in the way of 900 British25pdrs.DAF ground attack and bombers also flew many sorties against axis positions. Allied armour barely played a part because it was stuck in the minefields the Germans called “the Devil’s Garden”, until the final stages of the battle when the outcome was already decided.
Further, they were found to be shaky at first and consume huge amounts of petrol.
_......At the same time it is only right to remember that much of Eighth Army had had little experience of warfare of any sort.The original 51st Division had been forced to surrender at St Valery during the Battle of France-to Rommel, as had not been forgotten-and its present successor had seen no action. Alam Halfa had been 44th Division’s first battle and its experiences then and thereafter had not been happy ones: 69th Brigade had not seen combat since it had been reformed in mid-September; 9th and 24th Armoured Brigades were totally inexperienced new arrivals; and 8th Armoured Brigade had been in action as a formation only in its unsatisfactory clash with von Vaerst during Alam Halfa._
In addition, the new equipment reaching Eighth Army *greatly increased the problems of inexperience* - 8th, 9th and 24th Armoured Brigades for instance *all received their new Shermans too late to gain any real practice with them before the battle began. They also found that there was a dearth of spare parts and many important items of equipment, such as compasses, were missing altogether. The Shermans later gained a deserved reputation for reliability but in those early days when neither their crews nor the maintenance units were used to them, it is hardly surprising that, in the tactful words of Lucas Phillips, ‘several of them were found to be mechanically shaky’._*
_......As a crowning misfortune, _*_the Shermans revealed another defect which had been concealed by the static nature of the fighting at Alamein: in these difficult conditions they consumed what the Official History calls ‘fantastic quantities of fuel’._*
_......Currie’s brigade had been built up to 121 tanks of which seventy-two were Shermans or Grants and the rest Crusaders, but by this stage of the battle _*_a number of the Shermans in both 9th Armoured Brigade and 1st Armoured Division were very much ‘mechanically shaky’.”_*
- Eighth Army's Greatest Victories: Alam Halfa to Tunis 1942-1943 by Adrian Turner
It's wonderful to FINALLY see someone acknowledging the potency of the Crusader Mk 3 with its 6 pounder gun (instead of just generalising all the negative impressions spawned by the 2 pounder version)! It happens to be my favourite tank : ) Tracking down actual firsthand accounts of how it fared against its direct opponents has proven very challenging however...
A good post.
Monty has 10 times more tanks and artillery pieces and 6-7 times more men than the DAK. He was also much better supplied by the Americans than Rommel by the Italians. DAK only received about 20-30% of their supplies from the Italian Navy. Yet despite the overwhelming superiority in men and materials, Monty couldn’t manage to crush DAK but in fact was chased by Rommel twice across the Libyan desert.
If you could supply details of when and where the 8th Army was chased by Rommel after the Battle of Alamein, I’d be most interested.
@@californiadreamin8423 From the outset, the 8th Army had a significant advantage over the DAK in terms of both manpower and resources because Churchill insisted on that. Furthermore, by mid-1942, it benefited from continuous substantial replacements in tanks, fuel, and ammunition, courtesy of military support from the United States. By the time El-Alamein II rolled around, most of the British tanks were destroyed and Monty's boys were using new American M4 Sherman tanks. In most battles, the British were able to deploy 600-800 tanks against DAK but always ended up losing. Rommel never had more than 200 Panzers and a light infantry division. He had about 30 Panzers left after El-Alamein.
Monty may be a good general but I seriously doubt his XXX and XIII Corps could win against Rommel without US help, even if they outnumbered Rommel 20:1 in tanks and 10:1 in men.
@@DohuuVi What point are you trying to make ? Are you trying to say that Rommel didn’t take advantage of the daily detailed reports by Bonner Fellers of British plans, strengths and dispositions of British forces, sent to Washington, which were being read by Rommel before they were read in Washington. Is that what you’re trying to say ???
PS. When did Rommel twice chase the 8th Army twice across the Libyan desert ? Why don’t you answer ?
PPS. The DAK weren’t invited to North Africa except to prop up the defeated Italian Army and prevent the Mediterranean coming under British control. Was it the British fault that the DAK were inadequately supplied ? It wasn’t a game of cricket.
Yawn 🥱
Rommel was only there to tie down as many British troops as possible. Hitler never thought of North Africa as anything but a side show. Russia was where the war was at and where the best troops and all the tanks and supplies went. There was never a serious strategy to drive on to the Suez and then the middle east. In fact, Rommel's fuel and supplies began to dwindle to almost nothing while Monty took his time building up his forces' strength for a big push. I don't know if Monty was so good as Auchinlech was so bad.
Should have mentioned that Rommel was in hospital in Germany until the 3rd day of Alamein.
Perhaps they have mentioned that Rommel and Patton never met in battle.
And was absent when DDay began.
Are there more episodes like there was with 20th century battlefields?
No. This was a one off on the anniversary
Look for 20th Century Battlefields 🤓🇬🇧🏴
@@ianjacques-keen5945 I did that's what i said lol
Tank Parade At El Alamein (1942) - UA-cam
Hey...that's Simon Pegg at 5.59....an early performance
If only it was Simon Pegg. But sadly, it isn’t.
It was not first major defeat of Germans, they were crushed in battle of Moscow 6 months earlier . But I guess anything Russian is no-go.
Mainly because if the British had LOST in the desert the German Army would have taken Suez, linked up WITHOUT opposition in Crimea, taken ALL the Russian oil fields and that would have been that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well then the Battle of Britain was the first major German defeat of WW2, over a year before Moscow.
Peter looks a lot like Montgomery
Except Peter was a foot taller.
I don't agree with the assessment that "they had shown for the first time in WWII that Hitler could be defeated". That glory belongs to the red army in the winter of 1941/42. Furthermore Operation Crusader had achieved victory as well. The difference being that this time the German army did not have a comeback. But (without wanting to slight Mr Montgomery) that had mainly economic reasons. The US industry was by now producing war material on a scale that was just unmatched by the Axis powers. I wonder if without the battle the German army might have withdrawn after the development on the eastern front. The loss of 25000 soldiers at El Alamein pales beside the losses of many battles on the Eastern Front in Russia.
That being said it of course is the turning point in the desert war in hindsight. However, while it was the major front for Great Britain it was a secondary front in German strategy. The Africa Corps was officially under the command of the Italian army and was severely lacking in logistics, weapons and reinforcements - something that can't be said for the British 8th army. Again, not wanting to slight the achievements or the suffering of British soldiers - the battle kind of seems like a price boxer fighting against another price boxer who is locked in a fight with another boxer as well. 900 tanks vs 300 tanks says it all.
Tanks were predominantly destroyed by anti tank fire. The Germans had very effective anti tank guns , they were experienced troops and they were on the defensive, with excellent fields of fire. The British finally used their artillery in a very effective way, and fought the battle taking advantage of their strengths , not weaknesses. The tank units were no longer allowed to roam about the desert, a law unto themselves, but kept under strict control. Because the tank formations were highly suspect by the Infantry commanders, Montgomery was persuaded to change his initial plan not that long before the battle commenced. The idea was to defeat the Germans who were at the limit of their supply lines, not chase them away. This is what occurred.
Please explain to me exactly in what way Montgomery was brilliant. What was shown here was that he kept sending men to certain death with a series of schemes, each stupider than the last, and eventually won only because he vastly outnumbered Rommel and had air superiority.
My uncle had an encounter with him in England before D Day. His view: a complete horse's ass. Another friend was in Bletchley Park. They kept being amazed at his antics: cautious when he should been bold, bold when he should have been cautious.
I was just thinking the same! He had plenty of disasters, (Market Garden?), under his belt, I think. I guess you have to be at the right place at the right time.
Montgomery did not have vastly overwhelming superiorty , by the beginning of the battle on 23rd October 1942 8th Army had less than 2 : 1 superiorty in manpower (198.000 men in 8th Army , 108.000 men in Panzer Army including Italians whom mostly became seasoned desert warfare vererans at this point if not in levels of German compatence) and remember they could not outflank or outmaneuver the enemy on Alamein line so they had to attack frontally to the teeth of enemy defences (and two million mines deployed mines) and in frontal attack you need at least 3:1 superiorty (even that is not guarantee of sucess) , Montgomery had less than that in men. So he build up his forces , kept his reserves till last moment for final attacks and used firepower advantage ruthlessly and better than other previous British generals. Rommel at the other hand despite being overstretched himself and should have retreated long time ago from an indefensible position at Alamein (due to his dreams of conquerer of Egypt , chance he missed in July and September) , kept attacking , counter attacking and exposing his forces to be crumbled by defensive British firepower (bite and hold tactic of British Army from WWI which Montgomery used efficiently in El Alamein) till his army was broken , its few remants were in full retreat in November 1942. Montgomery might have been an boorish egoist character but he was a proffessional soldier , better than Rommel or even Von Rundstedt. He knew what capabilities British Commonwealth forces were and what were their limits and weaknesses. Rommel at the other hand , over heated and eventually burned down his own army that used to be perfectly efficient war machine before.
@@merdiolu How did the armies' equipment, ammunition, fuel, and general materiel situation compare? Men alone can't do much.
@@davidford694 In frontal attack you need to gather up a massive firepower , supply and equipment build up if you wish to suceed. Montgomery had that material firepower advantage because he had to. Not because he found everything ready. To breakthrough depends on attrition in frontal offensives and Montgomery basically realised that would be (his quote) a killing match. So he had to have more of everything and even that was not enough quarantee for sucess. One example , Battle of Gazala in May - June 1942 which 8th Army disasterously lost despite being on defensive killing ground with having minefield defensive advantage and having almost two times more tanks (including Grant tanks and new 6 pounder anti tank guns) and artillery plus Tobruk supply depots close by (which were delivered to enemy intact) than Panzer Army Afrika because previous British generals like Auchinleck , Ritchie , Gott , Norrie etc all divided their divisions into smaller battalion or brigade sized units dispersing their firepower and effectiveness. Montgomery had similar superiorty in El Alamein but he was on offensive exposing his army to enemy defensive firepower and minefields (even best tank you have or multiple ones would be knocked out by mines or German or Italian anti tank guns which Panzer Army Afrika had plenty of) so to use his material firepower advantage most efficient way , he deployed them into battle as big division sized units without any gaps enemy could exloit or open flanks to overturn as Rommel's Afrikakorps did so many times against other British generals. Montgomery realised British Commonwealth Army functioned best against German operational methods with firepower , attrition and bite and hold tactics , capturing a position and forcing enemy to counter attack in positional warfare. He was proved to be correct.
As for rough numbers which you wish a comparison I suppose , in 23 October 1942 when battle started , Panzer Army Afrika had 455 tanks total (including 200 Italian tanks which were unlike previous models were in fighting condition at least) , 8th Army had 1.180 tanks but numbers difference is deceptive , 8th Army could not deploy its tanks at once at the same time because of the width of the front and bottlenecks in minefield corridors (and even in numbers 8th Army tank superiorty is less than 3:1) PLUS only 259 Shermsan and 120 Grant tanks were considered reliable medium models , the rest were Crusader (in sufficiently armed and malfuctioning in desert) , Valentine (insufficiently armed) , Stuart (thinly armored and insufficiently armed) models without common standart origins. And I am not even adding German and Italian anti tank gun advantage especially long range German 88 mm guns plus Devils Garden minefields with two million mines. Only clear firepower advantage about three to ome or more 8th Army had was either in artillery and airforce. The supply and logistics is vital of course that is why Montgomery always made supply build up and sustanence infrastructure first then started operations unlike Rommel who usually depended captured British supplies which dried up after July 1942 Panzer Army lived hand to mouth afterwards. Considering Montgomery had to attack frontally , preserving manpower was vital for him since British and Commonwealth was running out of manpower by this stage and heavy casaulties lowered morale and confidence of troops and army in general (a lesson Montgopmery learned in WWI trenches) Funny thing is because of these methodic principles he is blamed either being over cautious , "wasting lives" or incompatent yet he concluded every campaign he commanded from Alamein to Elbe River in Germany victoriously.
@@merdiolu No coincidence, then, that he beat Rommel when he was virtually out of fuel and other supplies? Would have happened anyway?
Sigh...’they had petrol engines not diesel... one hit to the fuel tank ...Tommycookers... ‘
The only nation using diesel engines in tanks in significant numbers was the USSR and only T34 and larger.
Monty told Churchill to back off and butt out.
Speeches don't bring victory .
aknowlegment of your own situation and tailoring with that in mind does.
Far to much attributing to heroic disposition.
Enigma ,quality of troops and equipment, material logistics All played a part .
"From late 1942, US tanks were required in increasing numbers to make up for the deficiencies of home-grown products. Only in 1944 was British industry able to deliver a tank reasonably fit for a fast-moving battlefield, and even then it was scarcely a match for its opponents."
Imperial War Museum BRITAIN'S STRUGGLE TO BUILD EFFECTIVE TANKS DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR page
Why were no American army divisions fighting the Germans in North Africa all through 1942? The USA had been at war with Germany since December 1941.
Why didn't the US Army do its share against the Germans and Italians until near 1943?
it's preatty easy to win a decisive battle when you have total naval and air superiority, double the troops, three times the tanks and countless more various artillery pieces, better logistics and much better supply situation, full strenght armor divisions with brand new shermans, a united central command and full intelligence on the enemy (enigma decoded), i can't really see this great mind behind the victory.
@Massimo Pericolo Well, according to the recipes outlined in the classic "Art of War'" the "mediocre" Monty made certain that all the elements for winning the battle were in place before hand while the "brilliant" Rommel had his forces locked in place at the end of a very long and very tenuous supply line with limited opportunities to maneuver.
Why didn't Auchinleck win then, why did he need to be replaced? Why did O'Connor get captured?
Yes, your right, even though the accepted ratio to overcome an entrenched opponent is 3:1, the British had 2:1, it was a doddle, a walk in the park, pretty easy.
Monty, trusting his commanders on the ground, not micro managing, permeating confidence to the army.
Monty retraining the army, infusing it with the will to fight, reorganising so it fought by Divisions, rather than by mobile columns (jock columns as they were sarcastically called), shredding the multiple plans, and replacing it with one plan. Telling his Staff Officers, "Here we will stand and fight, if we cannot stay here alive, let us stay here dead", coordinating attacks with the Desert Air Force, devolving the plan of attack from the officers down to the men before the attack, replacing incompetent officers. Switching his master plan in mid battle, as circumstances dictated.
All counts for nothing, as you said, it's all "pretty easy", no arguments there, lol.
getting out of the sherman was easier the the british tanks
No
They're not convincing, those young actors in uniform, just reciting the lines.
interesting 20min the rest is ken burns like crap
Ram,ram,ji,
Montgomery was a stooge, Auchinleck was the real hero.
Churchill sacked the Auch. He thought the general had become defeatist. Churchill was desperate for victory in the desert. Well, the fortunes of war.
@@IanCross-xj2gj Churchill was not desperate for victory, he told mongo to wait until he got all of his forces and then attack together with the amarican landing in north Africa, he removed mongo as to hide its wast military supremacy against Rommel, making it look like Britain won on equal amount of power.
@@domenicozagari2443We won't agree on this point then. 😮
@@IanCross-xj2gj ok :)
I think George S Patton had a hand in defeating the Afrika Corps too
Really?...
When did that happen?
@@thevillaaston7811 El Guettar north Africa
@@brianallen858
El Guettar did not take place until the end of March 1943. The outcome in North Africa had long since been decided before then.
@@brianallen858 El Guettar was a stalemate, El Alamein resulted in the Germans being driven back into Tunisia.
@@Bullet-Tooth-Tony- thanks very much for the confirmation of my comment, I really appreciate that my brother, I'm really grateful 🇮🇪🇮🇪
You guys are really over-selling the significance of El Alamein. I know how important it was for British morale but come on, in the grand scheme it’s a pretty minor battle. Still fascinating and worthy of study but you actually diminish it by pumping it up so much.
It was a vitally important battle, lose at El Alamein then Suez, Egypt, and the entire Middle Eastern oilfields are lost, in the whole of the Med countries would be lost, stupid comment.
in the GRAND scheme, if the British HAD lost, the Russians would have been defeated, it called strategy...why do you think fighting took place there? Are you really that dumb?
If the Axis took North Africa, the Mediterranean would have been an Axis lake, the Axis would have then taken the Middle East and East Africa and Turkey likely would have joined them.
If this had happened, particularly in 1941 (rather than at the time of El Alamein) it could have been decisive for WW2.
We Muslims country as battle field.either side not respect the country men they only looking their interest now they must pay the consequences after decades that the minds of the native hit Hard still telling how England or Germany did to their land and exhaust the resources Now they are talking about immigration problem.None of the parties must not denied their problems why you so quite now let live together as once you used them
Hmmmm Not sure what the fuck you are going on about. Learn English if you intend to lecture in it.
@@stephenvince9994 Qutubuddin Khan
is saying that the Arab nations lost their sovereignty to the politics of the white man in generations past. And now, he argues, it is our turn to lose our sovereignty as they migrate into Western lands and gain the vote.
@@KayAteChef Why? There is no place like home!
@@KayAteChef , thanks for your interpretation. Your Arabic is quite good.
There is some truth to what he's saying, but I suspect the European countries are smart enough to monitor the migration and change their policies accordingly. Or, the Far Right would simply take over and kick them out of the countries.