All language subtitles for World at War e08 The Desert; North Africa (1940-1943).en

(narrator) This land was made for war.

As glass resists the bite of vitriol,

so this hard and calcined earth rejects
the battle's hot, corrosive impact.

Here is no nubile, girlish land,

no green and virginal countryside
for war to violate.

This land is hard, inviolable.

(narrator) Benito Mussolini

declares war on France and Britain.

Combattenti di terra, di mare,
dell'aria.

(crowd cheering)

(narrator) Like some Roman consul,

Mussolini longed for an African empire.

Already he had massacred the
Abyssinians and subjugated the Libyans.

Now he wanted more.

(man) We were certainly not ready
to go to war in 1940.

It was purely a political move
from Mussolini

who felt that Hitler
was winning too much too quickly

and that if he didn't make some sort of
gesture, take some sort of initiative,

he would not be able to sit
at the conference table.

(narrator) Mussolini's eyes
were on Egypt—

the Egypt of the Nile
and the Suez Canal.

In autumn 1940, he poured 250,000 troops
into Egypt's neighbour, Libya,

and another 300,000 into Ethiopia.

Facing them in Egypt
were just 30,000 British soldiers

of the Western Desert Force.

September 13, 1940, when the battle
for Britain was at its height,

Mussolini's men
set out to conquer Egypt.

Completely outnumbered,
the British troops simply fell back.

After four days, Mussolini's men
were to reach Sidi Barrani,

60 miles inside Egypt.

There they would stop,
still 300 miles short of Cairo.

(Colacicchi) Looking back,
it seems extraordinary

how we moved into Egypt by sending out
these enormous columns—

not very well protected
because we didn't have many tanks.

And then each one of them settling down
in a sort of fortified camp.

This helped, of course,
General O'Connor, I think, a lot.

(narrator) O'Connor,
the British commander,

had used the pause
to plan a counterattack.

The Italians had a series
of these fortified perimeter camps,

and we decided
that, as they were so far apart,

they would be unable
to support each other,

and we moved our troops round
to attack them from the rear,

the way that their rations would come.

(man) O'Connor undertook an operation
which was due to last about four days,

which was the limit for the available
tanks, which were nearly worn out,

and for our administration, in terms of
supplying water and fuel and ammunition.

He achieved complete surprise,

got behind the Italian positions
at Sidi Barrani, and, in the morning,

the Italian resistance collapsed.

(cheering)

(Belchem) O'Connor's
great achievement was

that, by using captured vehicles
and captured dumps of water and fuel,

he was able to maintain
this four-day battle

into what became an offensive
lasting over a period of weeks

and resulted in taking him
as far as Benghazi

and indeed, beyond, to El Agheila.

(narrator) An area the size of England
and France had been captured.

For the British, it was an unbelievable
victory and marvellously opportune

for, back home,
the Blitz was mounting in ferocity.

For Mussolini, a mere six months
after entering the war,

the defeat meant the pricking
of his imperial pretensions.

(Colacicchi) Mussolini had said,
“I want 1,000 Italian dead

to be able to sit
at the conference table.”

And, of course,
it cost many more than that.

(narrator) 200,000 Italians
were taken prisoner.

(man) They'd had enough.

In many cases they were
very, very happy to surrender.

To think that we were
vastly outnumbered,

and to see one Tommy taking literally
thousands back to the POW cage

was a great joy for us to see.

We used to call them “gentlemen”.
“There go the gentlemen.”

(narrator) Tripoli, Libya's capital,
was in O'Connor's grasp.

But Churchill withdrew
the cream of O'Connor's forces

to meet the Nazi threat in Greece.

(O'Connor) We couldn't do
Greece and Tripoli at the same time.

That was clear.

I say we could have done Tripoli
immediately

and still left the options open
for Greece.

We lost an enormous opportunity

to finish up North Africa,

and it was a fatal error

to go to Greece.

If we had advanced immediately,
we could have pushed him out.

I entirely blame myself
for not having done it.

I think it was quite inexcusable.
I ought to have.

(narrator) February 12, 1941.
Hitler comes to Mussolini's rescue.

A small mobile force
that had been hurriedly put together

set sail to Tripoli.

A force that was soon to be renowned
as the Afrika Korps.

The task of the German Africa army
was only

to tie down
as many British troops as possible

and to cover the southern flank
of Europe.

We had never the intention to conquer
Egypt or to cross the Suez Canal.

(narrator) The man Hitler chose
to save Mussolini from disaster

had made his name in France
the summer before—

Erwin Rommel.

In the port of Tripoli
in February / March '41,

Rommel told my friend Lieutenant Hunt,
an engineer:

“Hunt, here you can build me 150 tanks.”

The man looked stupefied,
and Rommel told him:

“Don't you have timber
here in the harbour and canvas of sails

to make 150 covers for Volkswagen?”

“So you can give me 150 tanks.”

And those tanks misled the British.

(narrator) Rommel knew nothing about
desert warfare, but was bold and daring.

(man) Rommel was perhaps the ideal
commander for this war theatre.

It was very wide in area,

but very limited in numbers of soldiers,

and so he could apply
practically naval tactics.

(Westphal) Towns and cities
were very few

and, therefore, we had no difficulties
with the Arabian population.

They didn't disturb us.

(narrator) The evening the Afrika Korps
arrived, they were ordered to the front.

Rommel believed in attack, and quickly.

On the last day of March, when not all
the troops promised had even landed,

he took on the British at El Agheila,

and in just 12 days pushed them back
the 500 miles to Egypt.

(man) It was as if the bogeyman
was just round the corner.

It was “Here comes Rommel,”

or “Rommel's coming down the desert
fast. Get the hell out of it.”

(narrator) Now it was the British turn
to be taken prisoner in their thousands.

(man) Rommel told me to go ahead
and we reached Derna,

picking up on our way English soldiers
and generals who came in one by one.

Amongst them,
the famous General O'Connor.

(O'Connor) It was miles behind
our own front.

We drove into the one bit of desert

in which the Germans had sent
a reconnaissance group.

It was a great shock, and I never
thought it would happen to me.

Very conceited, perhaps.

(narrator) And so the Rommel legend
took shape.

By mid-April, he had driven
the British back where they had started.

But one pinprick remained—Tobruk.

100 miles behind the front,
its Australian garrison held out,

denying Rommel a precious forward port
for his supplies.

While Tobruk remained in British hands,
it threatened Rommel's supply lines

and deterred him
from advancing any further into Egypt.

Unable to take Tobruk by direct assault,
Rommel prepared to besiege it.

The Luftwaffe, too, were called in.

Over 1,000 raids
were mounted against Tobruk.

Under Rommel's nose,

the Royal Navy replaced their garrison
with fresh troops—

Poles, South Africans, Indians, British.

(man) It was bare rations in Tobruk.

Although one must thank the navy.
They did a wonderful job.

(narrator) In 1941
the Royal Navy ruled the Mediterranean.

They had done so since
giving the powerful Italian fleet

a bloody nose at Taranto
the previous autumn.

And so British convoys made their way
through the Mediterranean

relatively unmolested.

More importantly, operating from Malta,

the Royal Navy could harass
Rommel's own convoys

passing from Italy to Tripoli.

The British supplies got through,
while Rommel's didn't.

Denied the petrol
necessary for his panzers,

Rommel couldn't advance
any further into Egypt that summer.

And, worse, no matter how hard he tried,

Rommel couldn't take Tobruk.

It remained a thorn in his side, and
became a symbol of British doggedness

every bit as much
as Churchill's bulldog face.

(man) We were pestered with
blaring loudspeakers on the perimeter.

We were called
the self-imposed prisoners of Tobruk

and Rommel's propaganda machine
bellowed at us to give up.

Well, we just took no notice.
We said, “We'll stick it out.”

We knew that they couldn't get in.

(man #2) There had been no light
at the end of the tunnel at all

since the withdrawal from Dunkirk.

I think for political
and, above all, for morale reasons—

the morale
of the people of this country—

it was terribly important
to show that we could hold the Germans.

(narrator) The Desert War
was in stalemate,

a time for taking stock of tactics
as well as supplies.

Rommel's tactics had more effect
than those of the British,

especially in his use of tank.

(Belchem) We had been trained
to fire on the move,

to execute the sort of cavalry charge
on tracks,

and handle armour in that way.

The Germans had studied this problem
much more than we between the wars

and also, of course, Rommel had
experience from northern France

and so had many of his tank crews.

And they appreciated that
the tank's best action against his enemy

is to wait for him to come on,
sitting in a hull-hidden position.

If they're caught in the open,

to decoy the enemy
onto their own antitank gun lines.

(narrator) Rommel's main antitank
weapon was the Krupp-made 88mm.

It had decimated the French tanks
in May 1940

and was doing the same now
to the British tanks.

(man) It was effective
at 1,000 yards and over.

It could pinpoint you, zero into you
and it would brew a tank up easily.

(man #2) They could shoot at us before
we were even within striking distance.

We couldn't hope to hit them with
the two-pounders or the six-pounders.

(narrator) Rommel not only had the edge
in tactics and equipment,

he also enjoyed the confidence
of his political chief, Hitler.

Wavell, his opposite number,

was pressured by Churchill
to provide a victory.

When he didn't, he was replaced
by General Sir Claude Auchinleck.

“The Auk”, in turn, appointed
as his commander in the field

Lieutenant General Cunningham.

Cunningham had defeated
the Italians in East Africa

and put back Haile Selassie
on the throne of Abyssinia.

But he was an infantryman
and knew nothing about tanks.

The tank held the key to success
in the desert,

but British tanks
left much to be desired.

(man) They were very poor,
mechanically.

There were parts missing,
parts not connected properly.

(narrator) Unlike the Germans,
the British had few tank transporters,

so their tanks had to move
long distances as well as fight

on their tracks.

(man) Every track is connected
to the next track by a pin—

a lot of moving parts-

which, in the desert, was sometimes
powdery but hard, gritty sand.

Well, water is a lubricant

and a tank track
is best suited to muddy conditions.

(narrator) To Churchill, the Desert War
had been too long in stalemate.

He needed victory,

especially after the humiliating
failures in Greece and Crete.

No sooner were Cunningham
and Auchinleck appointed

then they, too,
were pressured into an offensive.

The British now had more equipment,
but their tactics hadn't changed.

Rommel might have been tempted
to echo Wellington:

“They came on in the same old way and
we stopped them in the same old way.”

In just five days that November,

Cunningham lost 300 tanks—
two-thirds of his force—

many through mechanical failure.

(man) Say the track came off
and jammed,

well, if you were in action,

you couldn't do anything about it
but bail out.

And then you couldn't recover the tank.

At that time in the desert
we had no means of recovery of tanks.

(man #2) You'd always
leave the battleground.

Jerrys, they used to seem to stay there.

We might have had a successful day

but the Jerrys always seemed
to deny us the battlefield.

(man) Their equipment had to come
equally as far as ours,

but they seemed to value it more

and did every effort to recover
their tanks as soon as it got dusk.

(narrator) By bluff and guile,

Rommel convinced Cunningham
he had lost the battle,

but Auchinleck
was determined to stay put.

He sacked Cunningham, who wanted
to withdraw, and appointed Ritchie.

The gamble to stay and fight came off.

When defeat
stared the British in the face,

the battle's balance
swung dramatically their way,

as Rommel's panzers ran out of fuel.

Tobruk was relieved.

Rommel was forced to withdraw
500 miles back to his starting point,

and, on Christmas Eve 1941, Benghazi
changed hands for the third time.

But with Commonwealth forces again
poised to push the Axis out of Africa,

they were again denuded of troops and
equipment, this time for the Far East,

where Japan's entry into the war

threatened British bases
in Burma and Malaya.

An opportunity of gaining something
which was real and important

in the Middle Eastern theatre

was lost for the sake of something
which was very doubtful

and unlikely to pay off
in the Far East.

(narrator) Within a couple of weeks,
Rommel counterattacked.

Against the weakened British forces,
he recaptured Benghazi

and once more threatened Tobruk.

He was stopped at Gazala.

Once again, it was stalemate.

The peculiar conditions of the desert
bred a comradeship that was unique.

To many, the Desert War
was a private war,

the last to retain
any pretence of chivalry.

(man) As soon as we stopped anywhere
and there was a lull and a rest,

you'd clear off a patch of the desert
and say:

“Right. Now we'll have
a game of football.”

(man #2) The sportsmanship showed
in both sides.

Football games were not interrupted by
artillery fire during certain periods.

(Belchem) The staple diet
was biscuits and bully beef.

(man #3) We had bully beef fried,
bully beef boiled,

bully beef with dog biscuits.

(man #4) Oh, and dog biscuits.
Dogs would refuse to eat them.

(narrator) With food a problem
and water scarce,

dysentery was a constant danger.

The Germans invented a water can
which the envious English,

after seeing theirs burst countless
times on the bumpy desert surfaces,

copied and christened the “jerry can”.

(man) We were rationed at one stage
there on a cup of water a day

to bath and shave.

What often happened was
the sections collected their ration,

put it into a helmet
and each would shave out of that.

(narrator) Above all, it was hot.

Very, very, very hot.

(man) It was so hot
you could fry an egg on the mudguard.

It's literally true.
You could break an egg on the outside.

It was so hot it would sizzle.

(narrator) The fly was perhaps
the desert soldier's greatest scourge—

not just as a nuisance
but as a carrier of disease.

The flies were indifferent
as to which side they plagued.

(man) There were competitions
as to who killed the most flies.

The flies were that fattened
with living on the dead

that any time you killed them,

the smell got into you
and caused stomach upsets.

And we had orders
from division headquarters

to cut out this business
of killing the flies.

We just had to let them go.

(Westphal) I think one fly has,
within one year, nine million children.

(narrator) There was, too,
the occasional scorpion and viper.

And when the wind blew,
the sand and dust got in everywhere.

(man) The fine dust
used to clog up everything.

The jets would clog up
in the carburettors.

Your watches would stop.

(man #2) We had great problems with our
intestines that gave a form of diarrhoea

which was very severe
because of the sand passing through.

(man #3) You had, for instance,
to go from your quarters to the latrine,

and you had literally to do it
with a march compass.

There are cases
where soldiers did not return

when they had forgotten
their march compass.

In the sandstorm, of course,
the fighting stopped,

which was enjoyed at the beginning.

Then after three days you think:

“Better the sandstorm stops
and the fighting starts again.”

(narrator) Ritchie planned an offensive
for May with Grant tanks from America.

But Rommel, as usual, got in first.

Ritchie had learnt little
from previous mistakes.

Like the Italians, he had set up

a series of fortified camps

and laid mines galore.

But as O'Connor had done

with the Italians

Rommel simply went round
the open flank.

(man) We were down south,
just in front of Bir Hakeim

and, during the morning, we saw
this dust going up from where Jerry was.

He was coming up through
where the Seventh Armoured Div were.

And it was like a fox in a hen coop—

everybody dashing about
all over the place.

(narrator) Ritchie's new tanks
were proving a disappointment.

Once again, the British armour
was out-manoeuvred.

The Battle of Gazala was Rommel's.

The way was open to the prize that had
eluded Rommel the previous summer,

the prize that Churchill, for one, had
determined ever to deny him—Tobruk.

Tobruk's fortifications
had been neglected.

They were no longer as formidable
as they had been the previous summer.

(newsreel) 27 Juni. Das Oberkommando
der Wehrmacht gibt bekannt.

Berlin Radio broadcast
news of Tobruk's surrender.

For Churchill
it was a particularly dark moment.

For Rommel, the peak of his career,

and a grateful Führer
made him field marshal.

The British now fell back into Egypt,
further than ever before.

(De Guingand) I've never seen such
chaos. You couldn't save the situation.

I've never seen a desert road
crammed with every sort of vehicle,

every unit muddled up higgledy-piggledy.

No one knew what was going on and…

Luckily our air force
was stronger than the enemy's,

otherwise I think
we would have been routed.

(man) The state of despair
had to be masked,

and it was masked in a typically
British way—by nonchalance.

When Rommel was expected in Cairo
that evening,

Lord Killearn, my ambassador,

instantly gave a dinner for 80 people
at the Mohammed Ali Club

and said, “When he comes down,
he'll know where to find us.”

(narrator) Past Mersa Matruh, past
Maaten Bagush, past Fuka, past Daba,

the British fell back,
until, on June 30, 1942,

they reached a railway halt
just 60 miles from Alexandria—

El Alamein.

It was no chance choice of Auchinleck's

that the decisive battle for Egypt
should be fought here at El Alamein.

This bit of desert
was not like any other

over which the war had been fought.

As always, the sea was to the north,

but, here, just 40 miles inland,
was another sea—

a sunken sea of quicksand
and salt marsh,

impassable to tanks.

The Qattara Depression.

Until now the fluid strategy
of desert warfare

had sprung from there being
always an open flank.

But at Alamein, Rommel would have
to think of something different.

Auchinleck prepared
for the final battle for Egypt,

for, after Tobruk,
he had sacked Ritchie

and taken command
of the Eighth Army himself.

But Churchill was already planning
to sack him too.

Rommel didn't wait
for Churchill's decision.

He threw his tired troops into
a last, desperate attempt to take Egypt.

In July, in perhaps the most decisive
battle of the Desert War,

Auchinleck halted him.

(De Guingand) It was
a frightfully important battle,

and it was touch and go that we might
have lost our whole Middle East base.

(narrator) Churchill went to see for
himself in August the troops' morale.

Tobruk's fall had exasperated him,

but he was heartened by the reception
he got from the Eighth Army.

He'd already decided to appoint
Alexander in place of Auchinleck.

The new Eighth Army commander
was to be Montgomery,

although Montgomery had not set foot
in the desert during the war.

(man) When Montgomery came
we were a bit apprehensive about him

because we'd never seen this man
who had white knees and what have you.

(Durrell) The presence of your PM
suddenly was a very tonic thing.

He was wearing a siren suit,
smoking an immense cigar,

but he had “WC” on his slippers—

he was wearing
old-fashioned dancing pumps

that you used to wear
with dinner jackets,

with W on one foot and C on the other.

And he gave us a very good pep talk.

(narrator) For Rommel,
the laws of desert warfare

now began to work against him.

The further the advance,
the longer the supply line.

(Westphal) I think we had
crossed the Rubicon, like Caesar,

when we went to Egypt.

The eyes of Hitler were directed
every day to the Russian front—

the deciding front—

and our role was not so important.

He was content
if we had no difficulties,

but he was not able to guarantee

the supplies came
to the North African force.

(narrator) Only one in four of Rommel's
supply ships ever got through.

His solution—late in the day—
crush Malta.

Göring's Luftwaffe believed it could
annihilate the island single-handed.

(siren)

Stukas, Heinkels, Junkers,
Dorniers, Messerschmitts

day in, day out, hundreds at a time,
were ordered against the island.

Malta became
the most bombed place on earth.

Malta held out.

Equally bad for Rommel,

the Desert Air Force could now operate
from its home bases along the Nile,

just 100 miles behind the line.

(man) In the desert,
fighting is characterised

by the opposition of tanks
in large quantities,

of artillery, of air support.

Air support, for instance, didn't play
a considerable role in Russia,

where troops had enough cover.

In Africa, air superiority
was all decisive.

(narrator) Montgomery
had air superiority.

Desperately short of fuel, Rommel's
convoys had to run the gauntlet,

the 1,400 miles
from his main base at Tripoli,

whereas Montgomery was only
60 miles from his at Alexandria.

(Westphal)
The distance from the ports—

Benghazi, Tripoli
and, perhaps, Tobruk-

had become too big.

(man) During the jigsaws
up and down the desert,

when we pushed Rommel back

we used to accuse him
of putting oil in the wells,

which we thought
was really a dirty trick.

Then when we came back down,

he would blame us
for putting oil in the water.

And now it seems that, all the time,
it was the oil wells below the ground

seeping through into the water well.

(narrator) In September the Afrika
Korps' morale was dealt a blow

when Rommel fell ill.
Hitler ordered him home.

But his men were left behind
under the desert sun for a second year.

(man) When you are in the desert, you
feel like a man on the moon would feel.

You are alone with the universe.

(narrator) For the men of the Afrika
Korps, there was no question of leave,

only the certainty that, sooner or
later, the British would attack them.

(man) The homesickness of the soldier

who would have preferred
to be at home and not at war.

(woman) ♪ Vor der Kaserne
Vor dem großen Tor

♪ Stand eine Laterne
Und steht sie noch davor

(narrator) It was no accident
that the desert campaign

produced the most memorable song
of the Second World War.

(woman sings “Lili Marlene” in German)

(man) Lili Marlene
was a piece of our home.

(narrator) Lili Marlene
was equally popular with the British.

(men sing “Lili Marlene” in English)

(man) We were always
in touch with home.

We heard the news and, of course,
we heard the opposition's news—

witness “Underneath the lamppost
by the barrack gate”.

♪ For you, Lili Marlene

♪ My own Lili Marlene

(narrator) For the British, home
comforts were close at hand in Cairo,

just the place for a spot of leave
with its bars, bazaars

and, um… other distractions.

(man) They used to take your money,
yes.

(lively music)

I should say 75% of them

if they could find another woman,
they'd have her.

(Durrell) It really was weird

when you think of the whole of Europe
blacked out and in darkness.

In despair, you know?

In Cairo, seething with light,
you rang up people,

you went out to dinner,
you had a hot bath and a whisky,

and on Monday
you'd be back on the line.

(narrator) Montgomery saw his main task
as raising the troops' morale.

He was the first commander to project
himself like an American politician.

Press men and photographers kept at
arm's length by Wavell and Auchinleck

now found themselves welcome.

(Belchem) He immediately went round
all the formations of the Eighth Army,

gathering people round to talk to them.

He used also the press, the radio
and gimmicks, such as his hats.

(man) They wanted something to be able
to identify themselves with and look at,

something other
than the strict uniform.

(De Guingand) It was remarkable. In
days, there was a different atmosphere,

a feeling of confidence.

He told us that
the bad old days were over

and he was now determined
there was going to be success.

He said, “Now the only order

is everyone stays where they are, fights
where they are and dies where they are.”

(narrator) Montgomery saw to it
his army had the latest weapons.

Pressed by Churchill
to take the offensive,

“Monty”, as he was soon known,
was not going to be rushed.

He was determined, as he put it,

to have everyone tough and hard
for the coming battle.

Because its first few hours
were going to be dominated by the mine—

the Germans had laid
over half a million of them—

the offensive had the codename
Operation Lightfoot,

a sick joke if ever there was one.

A mine detector
had been devised for use at Alamein,

but many were found to be faulty,

so most of the detecting
had to be done in the old way—

by men prodding the ground with
bayonets and lifting the mines by hand.

The German minefields at Alamein
were five miles deep.

To assault them,

Montgomery had assembled
a quarter of a million troops—

British, Australians, New Zealanders,

Indians, South Africans,

Greeks, Poles, Czechs and Free French.

Twice as many men as Rommel had.

Nothing was being left to chance.

(man) We were fully trained.
We were really confident.

(man #2) Every single solitary man
knew exactly what he had to do.

(man) Everything was in your favour.

We had no fear as such.

It's an old adage, you know,

that it'll never happen to you
personally, you think.

(narrator) October 23, 1942.

In the darkening desert, 1,100 tanks
and 1,000 guns moved into position.

(man) I was with my battalion,

laying mines
in front of our own positions,

and the Battle of Alamein started

by seeing the whole horizon on fire.

(man #2) A lot of people think
that Alamein was a big barrage

and everybody waiting behind,

queuing up ready to go
once the barrage finished.

But it wasn't like that. There was some
bloody fighting there, believe me.

(man #3) We moved off
before the barrage

and we were allowed a walking pace—

that was so the artillery
fell in front of us.

(man #4) In the morning
we were disappointed, to say the least.

When the tanks should've passed us,
they hadn't arrived. Nobody had arrived.

By the time the sappers got the mines up
and there was a road made,

the Germans realised the reason,
and they pinpointed that opening.

(man #3) There was uncertainty that
the ground would erupt underneath you,

but you forget about running through a
minefield when a shell suddenly drops

and machine-gun fire opens up
and mortar fire.

There were squeals, shouts.

(Harding) It was a battle of attrition.

It was fought in a way,
and rightly in a way,

in which you had to continue
the offensive

until you had broken
the enemy's power of resistance.

And this does take time.

(man #3)
If infantry destroys the antitank gun

and the minefields are clear,

then the tank can come forward
and exploit the situation.

But until that happens,
no success, no tanks.

(narrator) Montgomery lost 200 tanks
in the first two days,

as many as the Germans had started with.

Rommel, now back in Africa,
though clearly far from well,

immediately counterattacked,
angry his panzers had not done so

when the British had been bogged down
in the minefields.

It was too late.

Rommel was thrown back,
with losses he could ill afford.

Casualties were heavy on both sides.

(man) They really hung on, see.
It was really stubborn.

When we'd finished, then we realised
the casualties we'd left behind.

You kept saying to yourself, “It won't
happen to me. He'll catch it, I won't.”

All of a sudden it dawns on you,

“One day you won't always
get away with it, lad.”

(narrator) It was a killing match,
as Monty had predicted.

A messy, horrid killing match.

A First World War battle
fought with Second World War weapons.

The battle of attrition
was going Montgomery's way.

The moment had come
for him to let loose his armour.

800 tanks, mostly Shermans,
the latest and best tank from America,

were thrown against
the Germans and Italians.

And Rommel had less than 100 tanks.

Again, the fighting was bitter.

Rommel began to yield a little.

For two days more the battle raged.

It was the biggest tank battle
of the Desert War.

Rommel was now down to only 35 tanks,
compared with Montgomery's 600.

Just when he was thinking of slipping
away to hold a line 60 miles back,

Hitler ordered him to stay.

(man) It's a particularly nasty form
of ending one's days

if one is trapped in a tank

and the tank brews up and is on fire.

You will never lose the awfulness

of screams of men trying to get out.

(narrator)
The British armour was through

and by the afternoon of November 4,
the 12th day of the battle,

Rommel was in full retreat.

Thousands of Italians were left behind.
The Germans had pinched their transport.

Rommel's deputy, Von Thoma,
was captured too.

Alexander signalled Churchill
to ring out the victory bell,

which Winston did—

the first time church bells had been
rung in Britain since Dunkirk.

(thunder)

Heavy rain fell on November 6
to impede both pursued and pursuer.

Montgomery's corps commanders
were all for rushing ahead

to trap Rommel
before he could reorganise.

Monty was not going to risk
being trapped himself.

(Harding) Montgomery was very conscious

that we had already been twice up
and twice back,

and he was determined
not to push back for a third time.

(narrator) The air force saw to it

that Rommel's retreat
was not without incident.

(man) He had nowhere to run.
All he could was run into the sand.

(man #2) This is where desert warfare
was something on its own.

You just sat out there
or moved out there

and you were exposed to everything.

(gunfire)

(narrator) Past Mersa Matruh,
Sidi Barrani, through Halfaya Pass,

Rommel was pushed back,
turning to fight a little every day.

On November 13,
to Churchill's great joy,

Tobruk was retaken.

A week later it was Benghazi's turn
to change hands

for the fifth and positively final time.

In mid-January 1943, Tripoli fell—

the prize that had eluded O'Connor
two years before.

At last the British people
had something really to cheer about.

And Churchill?
The big victory he had been hoping for

before America would dominate the war.

(Churchill) You have altered the face
of the war in the most remarkable way.

I must tell you that your fame,

the fame of the Desert Army,
has spread throughout the world.

(bagpipes playing)

Now, this is not the end.

It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps,
the end of the beginning.