The Battle Of El Alamein: Montgomery vs Rommel | Greatest Tank Battles | War Stories

north africa 1942 close to 600 tanks of the german panzer army africa charge across the sahara desert into egypt and the british send almost 1200 tanks to stop them then all of a sudden the ground started to shake and that was the biologist started two legendary commanders montgomery and rommel fight for control of north africa there was only one thing left for us to do to harm the enemy as much as we could the stakes couldn't be higher and the fighting is ferocious this is el alamein one of history's greatest templars if there is a place called hell i should imagine it couldn't be any worse than what that was that's why i a scene i haven't forgotten to this day [Applause] [Music] [Music] the sahara vast stretches of seemingly endless desert empty and barren but just below the surface of this great sea of sand lies the evidence of a tremendous battle a clash of infantry and armor so enormous it changed the course of the second world war this is what i found today this is a german shrapnel from airplanes and this is british this is a german bullet because it is made of steel if it was english it would have been made of copper it's rusty this belonged to an english or germa soldier it belonged to a young man around 17 years old i found it there it's silver look at the teeth all this area was used by the german army [Music] the english were five kilometers from here the germans would fire east and the other side would fire back at them there were armies everywhere [Music] libya january 1942 for almost a year now this part of the sahara has been the battleground in a struggle for control of north africa on one side is the german italian tank force the panzer army africa its mission is to seize the middle east oil fields giving the third reich an endless supply of fuel for its war machine on the other side is the well-supplied british eighth army relying on sheer numbers and strong defenses to stop the germans [Music] the british are up against one of the most brilliant commanders of the war field marshal irwin rommel the desert fox throughout 1941 he keeps catching them off guard with lightning-fast surprise attacks but by november rommel's tank force is wearing out and the allies strike back over six weeks they drive the panzer army 800 kilometers west across the libyan desert [Music] by late january rommel is down to 228 tanks 139 panzer threes and fours and 89 italian tanks infamously known as metal coffins the british have more than 400 tanks including 160 valentines and more than 230 medium crusaders the allies appear to have the panzer army on the ropes but ramo isn't finished yet as he writes in his memoirs it was clear to us that the british would try to destroy our army with all the means at their disposal our southern flank lay wide open and they had a large choice of possible operations to choose from a constant threat would hang over our supply lines but the british were not to have the chance of exploiting their opportunities [Music] for i have decided to strike first [Music] the plan is pure desert fox push southeast through the unoccupied desert then swing north hitting the over-extended british flag spearheading rommel's attack are formations of the panzer mark iii special it's designed for tank to tank combat with 50 millimeters of frontal armor but it is the mark 3's armament that gives it the edge with a 50 millimeter main cannon able to fire armor-piercing rounds at ranges up to 650 meters in early 1942 the british 8th army has nothing that powerful our long five centimeter guns were outgunning the english ones they didn't have long barrels at that time yet their guns had shorter barrels and that meant less penetrating power so they could engage us further away you were definitely on the losing side from the point of your times [Music] the panzer was a was a better war machine than a crusader without it the crusader is the mainstay of british tank forces it's capable of a top speed of 24 kilometers per hour making it the fastest tank in the desert but the speed comes at a cost the crusader has just 32 millimeters of armor plating leaving it vulnerable to anti-tank fire and its light two pounder gun is all but useless against the panzers i suppose it would have penetrated if you were close enough but you would be too damn close all that counted was on one side the thickness of the armor and on the other side the penetrating power of the gun those two factors were constantly competing against each other that armor was built and better guns were built they only had the cruiser 2 cruiser 4 and the crusader and they were basically extinct rommel is betting his panzers can beat more than 400 british tanks and on january 21 1942 he attacks in the vanguard is gunner wilhelm hagios with the 15th panzer division [Music] we went uphill for a bit just a few meters then we were on the plateau and there was an english tank squad we opened [Music] we fire two tanks at a distance of about one thousand meters and then we suddenly spotted a crusader approaching our firing line from the right side [Music] we brought it down when it was around 600 meters of age [Music] yelling over the radio shoot shoot the crank like crazy until finally i had my sights on the time it filled my entire visual field that's how close it was and i brought it down right away with two shots we were surprised by these first american grand tanks the grands which arrived from the u.s just weeks before joined the crusaders on the battlefield as the newest addition to the british arsenal the grant was a very good tank and we first got the grants just before the battle of alabamian and it was a turning point take it from me [Music] to get those tanks fall it was like somebody given their pocketbook channel it was it was the thing the grants are a major improvement over the fast but vulnerable crusaders they have 51 millimeters of frontal armor providing greater protection for their six-man crews but its most unique feature is its powerful side mounted cannon a weapon that provides the allies with an effective countermeasure against flanking attacks by german panzers this tank had a 75 millimeter gun in a sponson so that was a disadvantage for us because when you were flanking them you were attacked from the left side and you had to turn the whole tank to fire and if there were other tanks in front of you you would show them your board side while turning it was a big surprise but even the new grand tanks aren't enough to stop rommel his flanking attack catches the eighth army by surprise over the next five months the desert fox pushes farther and farther east capturing the key ally port of tobruk and winning back all the ground he had lost by the end of june the panzer army is inside egypt and approaching the coastal village of el alamein rommel is now only 300 kilometers from the suez canal victory is within his grasp but the defensive-minded british have a nasty surprise in store for rommel at el alamein here along a 60 kilometer front they have massed a huge tank force they're determined to stop the panzer army at any cost the first battle of lma is about to begin [Music] el alamein egypt a remote desert outpost on africa's north coast today little evidence remains of its turbulent past but it was here at this isolated railway stop the two of the greatest tank battles of the second world war took place june 1942 for five months irwin rommel and the panzer army africa have been fighting their way east intent on overrunning british-held egypt swinging north and seizing the oil fields of the middle east rommel's advance has reached el alamein he is now just 300 kilometers from the suez canal but the fighting has worn down the panzer army we had lost a lot of tanks during the battles in libya and egypt our group only had 20 tanks we should have had 220. [Music] by the time they reach el alamein rommel has little to throw into the fight 2000 infantry a few dozen artillery and anti-tank guns and only 55 serviceable panzers any other commander would dig in or retreat but not rommel on july 1 1942 he continues his attack the main thing i had wanted to avoid was the war settling down at el alamein into mechanized static warfare with a stabilized front we plan to get through the alabama line and overrun it for the retreating remnants of the aids army a time to organize its defense the fighting goes on for 26 days but rommel can't break the british defenses the first battle of el alamein ends in a stalemate the battle has been costly for rommel his panzer army desperately needs men armor and supplies the german army was on the ropes the biggest problem in the desert was a lack of water you were always lacking water [Music] it was even worse in maine it was now 1500 kilometers to the standpipe and every drop had to be transported by road rommel's rapid advance across north africa has left him a long and vulnerable supply line reinforcements fuel ammunition food and water must be trucked 2 000 kilometers to the [Music] front using the roads was a dangerous way to transport the water and a lot of it was lost on the way the english constantly attacked our water trucks by late july the germans are losing 80 of their supplies to allied air attack in august the 8th army receives a half million tons of supplies including 368 new tanks and a new commander lieutenant general bernard montgomery rummel's time is running out he can't keep pace with the allies rapid resupply on august 30th he risks one last attack hoping to catch the british off guard and force them to retreat it's a nightmare from the start 256 german tanks advance towards tanks of the british 7th armored division and get bogged down in a minefield rommel trying once again to outflank the british orders his panzers to swing northeast and attack the alam alpha ridge leading the attack are 27 of the german's new panzer mark iv specials equipped with a high velocity 75 millimeter gun the panzer iv aus f2 is the most powerful tank on the battlefield the mark iv is well protected with 50 millimeters of frontal armor but its heavy armor comes at a price each tank weighs 23 tons and burns 470 liters of fuel per day fuel that has to be trucked across long and vulnerable supply lines rommel is betting that his superior panzers and mobile tactics can quickly take the ridge before his fuel runs out but montgomery is ready for him with 400 tanks and 200 anti-tank guns the key to the whole alamein position was adam halfer ridge i would not allow our tanks to rush out he would hold the alum hell for ridges securely and let him beat up against them the first evening when we got there we had a short gun battle with some english tanks it would have been better if the entire attack had been cancelled and we got bombarded by artillery on low flying planes for three days approaching one after the next but nothing happened to us no supply vehicles got through to us we only had a few scraps left to eat that for three days by september 2nd rommel has seen enough after losing 50 of his irreplaceable panzers he orders a withdrawal he no longer has the resources to mount mobile attacks the desert fox orders his men to dig in in el alamein the war in north africa had changed from mobile warfare into a kind of static warfare the entire front was moving up and the new front line was now between the mosque in el alamein and the katara depression it was a 60 kilometer front the german line at el alamein is ideally situated for defense to the north lays the mediterranean sea protecting the germans left flank to the south protecting their right the katara depression [Music] 26 000 square kilometers of deep soft sand impassable to heavy armor rommel's panzer army prepares defensive positions including powerful tank-busting minefields planted across the entire front cindy and toval's garden these so-called devils gardens were mine fields that had been created by a hummel we used every explosive we had in these minefields these devils gardens were very very [Music] dangerous [Music] this area is called el meteria this whole area was mined from the railway station and the sea to the depression 70 kilometers all mined so many people lost their lives in the war seven or eight of my relatives were killed my brother was killed by a mine he never got a funeral in 1946 they withdrew and left behind the mines but they were surrounded in barbed wire they were marked with a sign of death the skull and crossbones but the signs were removed the minds are still here and there will never be an end to that rommel's battered and exhausted troops complete their defensive line at el alamein while across no man's land montgomery's forces grow stronger and stronger he has assembled 10 infantry divisions and more than 1 000 tanks all well stocked with food water ammunition and fuel montgomery is ready for a final showdown with the germans and on the evening of october 23rd he unleashes a massive artillery barrage the guns blasted away nobody realizes the noise that there is it was just like daylight with just one wall of flame if there is a place called hell i should imagine it couldn't be any worse than what that was the second battle of el alamein one of the largest armored battles of the second world war has begun october 23 1942 allied commander bernard montgomery attacks field marshal irwin rommel's panzer army africa and it begins with a massive artillery barrage it's just like taillight with just one wall of flame i know it was horrific and no message of death go through there really was [Music] montgomery follows up with 700 tanks in a three-pronged armored attack two in the center and south are diversions intended to pin down the bulk of the panzer army but montgomery's main force will attack german lines in the north aiming to occupy the coast road and the strategically important kidney ridge we've not rolled that knife going through at all we pulled out the kidney and uh we finished up there in the dark when daylight broke we were amazed there was a massive vehicle parked into this small bridge another card all at once at half a dozen planes with some bombs and the opposite chaos and behind this was the minefield they had five or six times the number of tanks that we did the english started their tax with 300 400 500 tanks while we had only about 50. that was the ratio at the time the german defensive line on kidney ridge is thin one regiment of 600 infantry 18 anti-tank guns [Music] and 47 panzers [Music] the british attacked them in force fielding 150 tanks of a second armored brigade [Music] then the order come through with it we went up on the ridge and did a bit of shooting i'm searching for the target that's much my job you're gonna carry out my orders there's so much dust flying about that is really chaos just secures the vehicle which is creating it it could be a truck it could be a tank i'll say a target that travis left travis left travis left on tank mike four and fire it will i was wounded right on the first day we got hit immediately in the early morning [Music] the shell penetrated our armor and exploded inside our tank this is a splinter from a tank shell from an english gun these splinters were flying around inside our tank the only thing you know in that moment is i need to get out fast [Music] i managed to open the hatch right away and fell out more or less well i lifted myself with my arms because my legs were already broken open the hatch pull yourself out and then drop yourself down it was two meters to the ground you knew it was going to hurt but you had no other choice the heavily outnumbered germans have one big advantage over the british the 88 millimeter flat gun the most feared piece of artillery of the second world war the 88 a modified anti-aircraft gun accurately fires high-velocity anti-tank rounds that can penetrate the heaviest armor even at distances of more than two thousand meters [Music] when they use the 88 million tank gun then of course there we were definitely on the losing side [Music] there was another regiment on our right which was one of the two regiments that had come from palestine never been action before you're going to actually try and keep the hole down and just get up high enough to be able to use your gun and it's sitting out there on top of the ridge an 88 millimeter fired sick rounds and drew up five tanks [Music] [Applause] three and a half thousand feet a second you can see the shell screaming across the ground they're there before in a flash yeah all of a sudden something attracts you there's a tank burning just next to you and you're relieved it sounds a horrible thing to say somebody just died in that tank probably but you're relieved but you know from your gunnery experience that half a degree on that site and it was you and that's something that's difficult to live with actually the feeling i mean difficult to live with by the end of the first day of battle montgomery's tank forces have made only modest gains at a cost of 1600 casualties and 120 tanks but kidney rage remains in german hands montgomery now prepares for an even larger attack one he hopes will break rommel's stubborn panzer army africa for good october 23 1942 allied commander bernard montgomery launches a three-pronged armored attack in an attempt to crack german defenses at lma [Music] ronald's men are too well dug in the attack failed even though montgomery's forces outnumber rommels 2-1 the central advance has stalled near ruisat ridge and hundreds of british tanks are trapped in german minefields the next day we sat around we were shelled fairly frequently it was artillery shielding mainly so we were all right in the tanks [Music] four lanes were going to be cleared and we would then go through but of course it didn't go completely to plan the first suppers would be machine gun killed eventually we've got the old clearance to go we got through we got what we thought out of the minefield the tapes had vanished and when it tapes furnace you're supposed to be free this is the whole battalion you know this is 57 tanks following in line and opening out we went down into the body came along and went up onto the other side we fell under the ridge as soon as we got up the other side we couldn't get over the top because it was fading straight up you could see the shell of the airplane shell coming along towards it across the desert in the daylight you could see the shot coming at you that was a tremendous idiot that the german heart we then start taking on the anti-tank ones failing their chain firing all our aids and machine gunning and of course a tank battle started we like three or four tanks before you could say jack johnson you know got blown up you know you you just there you'll win it all up you know then again the next the next thing open my tank we stood one of our own minds and went sky high they all bailed out the two and the bottom were pretty well knocked up i was all right i was in the turret commander was all right he got out i jumped out uh pretty smartish and when i when i landed down here is a teller mine between me feet i jumped out and i thought i missed out well how lucky can you get what i'm going on a lovely moonlight night then what happened getting the light weight i came across dropping all his flares and he saw all his tanks all nicely in a straight line and he start dropping bombs [Music] despite the fierce armored assault the panzer army continues to hold the line rommel expects montgomery's next attack to come in the north and he redeploys all of his remaining forces among them is 20 year old rudolph schneider from ronald's own [Music] we took position in an area that was very flat in the east you could see the rising sun the sun blinds you the noise the rumbling was our only indication of the enormous number of vehicles and tanks that were approaching us and we saw 400 or 500 british things approaching the german lines from the east english until the british armor was as close as 800 to 1200 meters from our lines before that there was absolute silence [Music] the hundreds of approaching tanks include the allies newest weapon a tank so fast and powerful that it would soon become the best known piece of mobile armor of the second world war october 25th 1942 the allied offensive at el alamein enters its third bloody day and the cost on both sides has been enormous but despite his mounting losses montgomery continues to order wave after wave of massive armored assaults directly into the thin german line we saw 400 or 500 british tanks approaching the german lines from the east surge sherman tanks were approaching us at the time we didn't know that these were shermans it's a landmark moment in the history of warfare the first battlefield appearance of the m4 sherman tank outfitted with 51 millimeters of frontal armor the sherman weighs an incredible 30 tons but the most crucial feature of this new tank is its powerful 75 millimeter cannon capable of firing high-velocity armor-piercing rounds at ranges up to 800 meters the sherman is now the most powerful tank on the el alamein battlefield guns also had to wait until they were within 800 meters of the german front line and then the inferno erupted terrible noise enormous explosions terrible screaming we were just trying to defend ourselves to survive and the tanks were still approaching our [Music] lines when the drivers figured out they were close to our trench they would simply use their how he would trash his right thread which would rotate his thing to bury our [Music] soldiers [Music] the soldiers in the trench were buried alive or decapitated afterwards you are just glad to have survived [Music] there were around 300 to 450 destroyed british vehicles in the lowlands they were burning wounded men were all around that's why it was an inferno a scene haven't forgotten to this day rommel's exhausted panzer army holds the line for the next five days but by the first of november the germans are down from 500 tanks to just 35. [Music] montgomery finally has the panzer army on the ropes he now launches operation supercharge another all-out attack meant to break rommel's line once and for all i knew that we couldn't win anymore and there was nothing left for us to do [Music] knew that this was the end of the africa campaign but nobody would talk about it not a word in terms of equipment this was inevitably the end of the german army the fighting goes on for two more days until rama with only 12 panzers remaining finally orders a retreat ending the second battle of el alamein it's the first major allied victory of the second world war and comes at a steep price on both sides [Music] of ronald's forces 5 000 are killed 8 000 wounded and 35 000 captured montgomery's losses include 2300 killed and over 2200 missing 8 500 are wounded and 500 of his tanks are destroyed [Music] i've seen life just so cheap just flip you know flip away you know and you get hardened to it [Music] you learned after a while that you didn't get too close to anybody that was it that was it you just had to live you took carry on you're a survivor and that was it one christmas in the desert up we've been killing people all day come on lunch let's sing a few accounts peace out nurse good will the man i'm afraid i'm sorry padre not for me and my religion was knocked out of me [Music] [Music] [Applause] hey

Channel: War Stories

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Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, el alamein, second battle of el alamein, general montgomery, bernard montgomery, rommel, ww2 african campaign

Id: IomnYXZImQk

Length: 46min 33sec (2793 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 05 2021