Alamein

Stephen Bungay

• Publisher: Aurum
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781854109293, 9781781316733
• eBook ISBN: 9781781311608
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

El Alamein was the World War II land battle Britain had to win. By the summer of 1942 Rommel's German forces were threatening to sweep through the Western Desert and drive on to the Suez Canal, and Britain was in urgent need of military victory. Then, in October, after 12 days of attritional tank battle and artillery bombardment, Montgomery's Eighth Army, with Australians and New Zealanders playing crucial roles in a genuinely international Allied fighting force, broke through the German and Italian lines at El Alamein. It was a turning-point in the war after which, in Churchill's words, "we never had a defeat". Stephen Bungay's book is as much at home analysing the crucial logistics of keeping desert armies supplied with petrol and tank parts as it is reappraising the combat strategies of Montgomery and Rommel, and ranges widely from the domestic political pressures on Churchill to the aerial siege of Malta, key to the control of the Mediterranean. And in a chapter on "The Soldier's War", Bungay graphically evokes the phantasmagoric blur of thunderous cannonade and tormenting heat that was the lot of the individual men who actually fought and died in the desert.

Index

1st Armoured Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8

1st South African Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3

2nd New Zealand Division (‘the Div’) ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10

2nd Rifle Brigade ref 1

2nd South African Division ref 1, ref 2

3rd South African Brigade ref 1

4th Indian Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6

4th New Zealand Brigade ref 1

5th Indian Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5

5th Light Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3

6th Australian Division ref 1

6th New Zealand Brigade ref 1, ref 2

7th Armoured Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12, ref 13, ref 14, ref 15, ref 16

7th Black Watch ref 1

7th Panzer Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5

8th Armoured Brigade ref 1

8th Panzer Regiment ref 1

9th Armoured Brigade ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6

9th Australian Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9

9th Indian Brigade ref 1

10th Armoured Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6

10th Panzer Division ref 1

11 Group Fighter Command ref 1

11th Armoured Division ref 1

11th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery ref 1

12 Group Fighter Command ref 1

15th Panzer Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6. ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11

18th Indian Brigade ref 1

21st Army group ref 1

21st Panzer Division ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11

22nd Armoured Brigade ref 1, ref 2, ref 3

23rd Armoured Briga...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
• I THE STRATEGIC WAR
• II THE TACTICAL WAR
• III THE SUPPLY WAR
• IV THE SOLDIERS’ WAR
• V EL ALAMEIN – ROUND ONE
• VI THE POLITICAL WAR
• VII EL ALAMEIN – ROUND TWO
• VIII EL ALAMEIN – ROUND THREE
• IX PERSPECTIVES
• X REPUTATIONS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• NOTES
• INDEX
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• MAP: The Western Desert
• MAP: The Eastern Mediterranean
• MAP: The First Battle of El Alamein
• MAP: The Battle of Alam Halfa
• MAP: The Second Battle of El Alamein
• Monthly Tonnage of Axis Supplies Delivered 1941—42
• About the Author
• Copyright
• Sample Chapter from The Most Dangerous Enemy