Word: alamein
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...Alamein in North Africa that Montgomery became a national hero, and the controversy over his talents began. Leading the battered British Eighth Army, Montgomery pushed the Afrika Korps of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the vaunted "Desert Fox," out of Egypt and into full retreat to Tunisia-where the Germans ran into Eisenhower's North African forces. El Alamein sent the British into ecstasy. "Before it," said Winston Churchill of the famous battle, "there were no victories; after it, there were no defeats...
Though El Alamein was indeed a turning point in the war, Montgomery may have got more credit for it than he deserved. The British commander executed the battle plan meticulously, but many analysts believe that the British victory was more a product of superiority in manpower and equipment than Monty's strategic skill. When his painstakingly prepared attack finally came on Oct. 23, 1942, Montgomery had 230,000 men and 1,100 tanks facing Rommel's 80,000 men and 260 tanks. Yet when the battle was over, the British losses were triple those of the enemy...
Arnhem Bridge. El Alamein epitomized Montgomery's battlefield style: a long, careful buildup of matériel superiority followed by a massive frontal attack with secondary flanking pushes. These tactics were successful in many battles-at Mareth, Tunisia, the Sangro River in Italy, and Caen, France-but they also led to some disasters. The most notable was the ill-starred 1944 operation "Market Garden," a Montgomery plan to march straight into Germany's Ruhr Valley by seizing five bridges that crossed the Rhine in Holland. The drive collapsed at the crucial crossing, Arnhem Bridge, with a devastating defeat...
...battles before the eclipse of British military prowess by the rise of the superpowers. As British Military Historian Michael Howard has written, "It is doubtful whether he will be regarded by posterity as one of the great captains of history." But in the popular mind, the hero of El Alamein probably has a secure place alongside, if not Alexander and Napoleon, then at least Marlborough and Wellington, which even Monty might agree is acceptable soldier's company...
Died. Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, 88, Britain's most celebrated and controversial military leader during World War II, who in 1942 led his countrymen to their initial victory over the Germans at El Alamein in northern Egypt; at Isington Mill, Hampshire (see THE WORLD...