Word: qattara
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Eighth was holding a thin, 40-mile front between the Qattara Depression and the sea. For two years the troops of the Eighth had waged a seesaw desert campaign. Sometimes they had been badly led, never had they had adequate equipment. They had retreated before Graziani singing: "Oh, Sidi Barrani-Oh, Mersa Matrûh-The Eyties will get there, then what will we do?" Then under Wavell they had driven Graziani westward to El Aghéila. Rommel had punched them back. Under Auchinleck, Cunningham and Ritchie had recovered that ground. Again Rommel had punched them back, this time...
...mile line between the Mediterranean and the wild, serrated Qattara Depression, the Germans had a fixed and deeply fortified front. Before and between their positions they had planted many thousands of land mines, barely covered by the sand, in wait for British tanks, artillery, trucks and troops. On the Eighth Army's side of the line, between the Germans and Alexandria, the British also had permanent fortifications and mines. Patrols from each side constantly wormed into the mine fields, cautiously uncovered the buried boxes of T.N.T., neutralized them with a twist of a screw and threw them aside...
...Sturm, Schwung, Wucht." And so it looked this week. Rommel began his action with feints towards the north, then a jab at the southern front. With his entire Afrika Korps of four divisions-tank columns and light infantry-he swept along the edge of the Qattara Depression, struck at the British lines, penetrated some distance into British mine fields, swung toward the seacoast. This was Rommel's Sturm, Schwung, Wucht.* The operation was reminiscent of the wide sweep he had made around Bir Hachéim in May. But Alexander and Montgomery were ready for him. They had learned...
...Long Wait. For more than two months General Sir Harold Alexander's British had crouched along the 35-mile front stretching from the Qattara Depression to the sea. Daily they had made sorties and feints, lashing at Rommel's advance posts, scuttling back to their own lines to bind their wounds and bat the flies. The flies were the worst. They swarmed over the unburied dead. They swarmed over the living, drove soldiers close to madness, until morale ran out and men prayed only for some kind of action. Now they...
...British Commander in Chief of the Middle East, General Sir Claude John Eyre ("The Auk") Auchinleck. The Auk decided to plug Rommel at the neck of a funnel-the 35-mile gap between El Alamein on the coast and the northern tongue of the steep-sided, marsh-bedded Qattara Depression.* El Alamein is 70 miles from Alexandria...