Word: alamein
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...sands of the Sahara the infantry waited in slit trenches for their signal. Faces and clothes were grimed with the dust. They were in full battle kit. Their weapons glinted in the bright sun. These were Montgomery's shock troops. They had done the job before at El Alamein where the long trek had started. They were eager to do it again for the harsh, implacable man whom they adored...
When the British cleared pathways for their tanks through the German mine fields at El Alamein they sent out sappers to do the job. All night long they dug their way through, a fresh man stepping in each time to take up the work when the man ahead of him was blown to kingdom come. For some of the battalions who did the job it was as costly as a charge into the face of machine-gun fire-and required a far cooler type of courage. Mines were responsible for a big share of the British casualties at El Alamein...
...motorized infantry drew abreast of his rear guard. They moved fast and stealthily. Near Wadi Matratin the British sliced in and cut off this Axis tail. Most of the isolated troops were part of a German Panzer division. Mussolini's warriors, left in the lurch at El Alamein, were in the forefront of this latest retreat and far along the coast. In a three-day-long battle some of the Germans succeeded in fighting their way through and tying themselves on again to the main columns. The British catch was not large but it showed that the British pursuit...
Seven Days. They arrived equipped for fast, offensive warfare. There were few heavy trucks to carry supplies. (Rommel had used 50,000 trucks in his advance on El Alamein.) There was little material for repairing and maintaining airfields. These things had been sacrificed to make room for men and the arms they could carry. The intention was to swoop into Tunis and Bizerte and seize them before the Axis could get set for a defense...
...cautiously poked at him, Erwin Rommel had crouched in the bottleneck of El Aghéila, holed up. Montgomery had been in no hurry to attack. He had had to bring up supplies across the 700 miles of desert which Rommel had already covered in his retreat from El Alamein. Until he was ready, he had kept Rommel in a state of nervousness with jabs of armored cars and tanks. First clue to his readiness came last week. Heavy artillery began to bellow from behind the British lines. Over the Axis position rolled a cloud of some 300 Allied planes...