El Alamein

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A World War II battle in the Egyptian desert in late October 1942, between Allied forces under the British command of Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, and German and Italian Axis forces under the command of Erwin Rommel. The fighting extended into early November and was eventually won by the Allied forces to become the first British land victory over the German army in the war.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

El Alamein, battle of, 1942. Fought in Egypt, El Alamein was the first decisive, irreversible British victory over German ground forces, which were forced to retreat 1, 500 miles to Tunisia. Rommel, short of fuel and against British air superiority, could not fight a mobile battle to balance Montgomery's superiority in combat troops. The 8th Army had nearly 200, 000 men, more than half from Britain, against about 100, 000 Italians and Germans. The battle caused silenced church bells in Britain to be rung in celebration and made Montgomery a national hero.

Village in northwest Egypt, on the Mediterranean, northeast of the Qattara depression, site of the battle of El Alamein, where the British drove back the Germans in a pivotal battle of World War II, 23 October - 4 November 1942.

General Bernard Law Montgomery's British and Commonwealth Eighth Army met and overcame General Erwin Rommel's German - Italian Afrika Korps at al-Alamayn, approximately 80 miles (128.7 km) west of Alexandria. The retreat of Rommel's forces ended the Axis threat to conquer Egypt and seize the Suez Canal. Montgomery had some 195,000 men, 1,150 tanks, and 1,900 guns against Rommel's 100,000 men, 530 tanks, and 1,325 guns. Montgomery attacked at 9:30 P.M. on 23 October with an artillery barrage from 1,000 guns. The Afrika Korps held and counterattacked on 27 October. Montgomery resumed the offensive the next day, with a weeklong tank battle. British air superiority and force of numbers wore down the Afrika Korps, and Rommel withdrew a few miles to the west on 1 November. Another attack on 3 November resulted in Rommel's ordering another withdrawal, at first countermanded by Adolf Hitler, but finally approved. Montgomery's pursuit on 5 November stalled because of a rainstorm, and Rommel was able to disengage his force and retreat to the Libyan border by 7 November. The Afrika Korps had 59,000 men killed, wounded, and captured and lost some 500 tanks and 400 guns, against Eighth Army losses of 13,500 men, 500 tanks, and 100 guns. Moreover, most of the British tanks were reparable while Rommel had only twenty operational tanks at the end of the fighting.

Bibliography

Pitt, Barrie. The Crucible of War. London: Cassell, 2001.

— DANIEL E. SPECTOR

El Alamein العلمين
Commonwealth War Cemetery at El Alamein
El Alamein Location in Egypt
Coordinates: 30°50′N 28°57′E / 30.833°N 28.95°E / 30.833; 28.95
Country	Egypt
Governorate	Matruh Governorate
Time zone	EST (UTC+2)
- Summer (DST)	+3 (UTC)

El Alamein (or Al Alamayn) (Arabic: العلمين‎, which means "the two flags") is a town in northern Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea coast in Matruh Governorate. It is 106 kilometres (66 mi) west of Alexandria and 240 kilometres (149 mi) northwest of Cairo. The population was about 7,397 in 2007.^[1]

Until recently, it has mainly been a port facility for shipping oil, but like the whole north coast of Egypt is now developing as a luxury resort.

Two important World War II battles were fought in the area:

• At the First Battle of El Alamein (July 1, – July 27, 1942) the advance of Axis troops on Alexandria was blunted by the Allies, when the German Panzers tried to outflank the allied position.
• At the Second Battle of El Alamein (October 23 – November 4, 1942) Allied forces broke the Axis line and forced them all the way back to Tunisia. Winston Churchill said of this victory: "This is not the end, this is not the beginning, nor is it even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." He also wrote "Before Alamein, we had no victory and after it we had no defeats".

Contents 1 Tourism 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

Tourism

El Alamein has a war museum with collectibles from "the civil war" and other North African battles. Visitors can also go to the Italian and German Military Cemetery on Tel el-Eisa Hill just outside the town. The German cemetery is an ossuary with the remains of 4,200 German soldiers, built in the style of a medieval fortress. The Italian cemetery is a mausoleum containing many galleries of tombs. Many tombs bear the soldier's name; many are simply marked "IGNOTO", unknown.

There is also a Commonwealth war cemetery with graves of soldiers from various countries who fought on the British side. This has monuments commemorating Greek, New Zealand, Australia, South African and Indian forces. [Note: Remains of United States soldiers were not buried here.] The Commonwealth cemetery, as is common at many such cemeteries in the world, consists of parallel rows of gravestones, each one bearing an engraving of the deceased soldier's unit emblem, his name and an epitaph from his family.

See also

• Marina El Alamein (tourist resort)
• Enham Alamein (village in Hampshire in England, renamed after the battle)
• El Alamein Fountain (war memorial commemorating the battle, in Sydney, Australia)

References

1. ^ "Al ‘Alamayn at encarta". Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwbepIOi. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: El Alamein

• Falling Rain Genomics, Inc. "Geographical information on Al `Alamayn, Egypt". http://www.fallingrain.com/world/EG/22/Al_Alamayn.html. Retrieved 2008-03-29. 

Coordinates: 30°50′N 28°57′E / 30.833°N 28.95°E / 30.833; 28.95

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