Conflict: World War II
Combatants: Allies vs. Axis
Location: Egypt
Outcome: Allied victory
On this day in 1942, troops and artillery of the 2nd New Zealand Division cleared the minefield near Kidney Hill opening the way for British General Bernard Montgomery's tanks to assault Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's dug-in 164th Division. Panzers counterattacked but failed to halt the British advance. After two days of fighting Rommel, in defiance of Hitler's orders, withdrew the Afrika Korps and the Axis line collapsed.
Points of Interest:
Anglo-American forces destroyed or disabled three hundred Axis tanks in the course of the the Second Battle of El Alamein.
General Ritter von Thoma, commander of the Afrika Korps, was one of the prisoners taken by the British at the Second Battle of El Alamein.
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Sources:
Dupuy, Trevor N., Johnson, Curt, & Bongard, David L. (1992). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military Biography. New York: Castle Books (HarperCollins).
Dupuy, R. Ernest & Dupuy, Trevor N. (1993). The Harper's Encyclopedia of Military History. New York: HarperCollins.
Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles: Accounts of Over 1,560 Battles from 1479 B.C. to the Present. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
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