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00:00They called it Ash Wednesday.
00:27Throughout Egypt, British officials began to destroy sensitive documents as their enemies
00:35advanced.
00:40In Cairo, the Egyptian capital, the British feared the worst.
00:45The Germans seemed likely to take the city, just as they'd already conquered most of Europe.
00:51In the Pacific, the Japanese had gravely weakened British and American power and taken Hong
00:57Kong and Singapore.
00:59In the Atlantic, German submarines threatened to starve Britain into submission.
01:05It was the darkest moment in the Second World War.
01:10Few of the British servicemen were professionals.
01:14Ever since Dunkirk, they had had to learn their new trade in the hard school of defeat.
01:21This series follows their struggle to turn back the tide of disaster through four campaigns
01:27on the road to victory, starting in the deserts of North Africa.
01:30The Germans had come to North Africa the year before to defend their Italian allies in Libya.
01:37But now their aim was to take Egypt, and with it the whole of the Middle East.
01:50The Germans had come to North Africa the year before to defend their Italian allies in Libya.
01:58And in Rommel, the German commander, they had sent one of their best generals.
02:13As the British had discovered to their cost.
02:16Rommel was a man who exploited every situation.
02:21He led from the front.
02:22He was most of the time in front with his soldiers.
02:24And we were against a very professional army, a very good army, and very well equipped, better
02:30equipped than we were.
02:36For the battered British soldiers, fighting Rommel in the desert became a struggle against
02:41nature as much as the enemy.
02:49This is a field of battle like no other.
02:53The desert is a harsh and waterless place.
02:57Living in it soaks up water.
02:59Travelling through it soaks up petrol.
03:02And for the inexperienced or unprepared, the whole environment soaks up resolve.
03:10Simply surviving here is an effort in itself.
03:20The ration was two water bottles per day, one in the morning, one in the evening.
03:25Two pints.
03:28And that had to do for everything.
03:29It had to do for drinking, for washing, for washing of clothes, everything.
03:38With no real landmarks, finding your way in safety is difficult.
03:42He was in the wilderness.
03:46You didn't know where he was.
03:48And, of course, the living conditions were more primitive than we'd ever known.
03:52And, you know, talk about boy scouts camping, there's no comparison, of course.
04:02Perhaps the most obvious thing about the desert was, to the men who fought here, the most peculiar.
04:08There were no civilians, and almost no buildings to get in the way.
04:13Put simply, desert fighting was a tactician's dream.
04:18And in Rommel, the British were facing a master tactician.
04:27In 1942, the German commander was hoping to knock Britain right out of the war.
04:34His plan was to smash through the British army and take Egypt and the Middle East, and with
04:40it the oil supplies, which kept the British war effort going.
04:48The British line rested on the coast at Ghazala.
04:52Rommel swung his massed tanks round the desert flank of the Allied line, and pushed in towards
04:58the British rear.
05:02His attack smashed into the disorganised British.
05:06Their tanks were split up in small units, and unable to stop the German advance.
05:13I watched the Germans come over this ridge.
05:17And we'd been told that the Germans had very little tanks.
05:20And I thought, well, I don't know where they've got all the tanks from, but somebody's given
05:24us wrong information here.
05:25It was chaos.
05:41It was chaos.
05:43I mean, I'm being honest about that.
05:45We suddenly found ourselves surrounded, and we were ordered to break out in transport every
05:51vehicle for itself.
05:54The eighth army was in retreat.
05:58We really believed, and we were made to believe, that we had held all the aces.
06:04And then it all went wrong.
06:06And it's very hard then.
06:09Broken British units raced back along the coast to Egypt.
06:13Some of them found themselves overtaken by the advancing Germans.
06:16And we went through German positions.
06:21When they realised that what was happening, started firing at us, and we were going through
06:24crossfire to get out.
06:34When we eventually got back, there was only enough men to form one company out of two companies.
06:42I must admit, we probably thought, well, this could be the end.
06:53The headlong British retreat continued for 300 miles deep into Egypt.
07:00The lack of obstructions in the desert meant that movement along the Mediterranean coast was
07:05astonishingly fast.
07:08Because the desert had no value in itself, vast areas of it could be given up in order
07:14to buy time.
07:15The front line now was just 60 miles from the Nile.
07:25Back in Cairo, the panic began.
07:29GHQ was beginning to muster papers, and there were things being destroyed, and there was a certain
07:38amount of preparation for what might happen if we lost the front.
07:44And in the Egyptian bazaars, the rumours ran rife.
07:58Many Egyptians were unhappy with British domination, and looked forward to a German victory.
08:05The British knew that information was reaching the Germans.
08:09In every alley, there might be enemy sympathisers.
08:14Behind each shop front, perhaps a spine.
08:24As the retreat continued and the situation got worse, the commander-in-chief sacked the
08:29army commander and took charge himself.
08:33His name was Claude Auchinleck.
08:35He was a soldier of huge experience and great tenacity.
08:47As the battered British and Commonwealth units arrived, he ordered them to take up defensive
08:52positions near an obscure railway halt called Alamein.
08:57This would be the last line of defence before the Nile Delta.
09:03The Alamein position was the strongest natural barrier in the western desert, for it was impossible
09:10to outflank.
09:12To the north lay the Mediterranean Sea.
09:14From there, the British line stretched south for 30 miles, where it rested on another impulsable
09:20barrier.
09:24I'm standing right on the edge of the Katara depression, which falls away 200 feet below
09:29sea level, into a sea of shifting sand, passable to a few camels, but a showstopper for a Second
09:37World War army.
09:39If Romer was going to attack, he'd have to break the British line.
09:44All this was closed to him.
09:59In fact, the position at Alamein had been known to the British for some time.
10:04Auchinleck had had the area fortified in depth, well before Rommel's offensive.
10:09To avoid being seen by air patrols, the British dug deep.
10:15And these fortifications were so solid that traces of them still survive.
10:18So this is where the broken Eighth Army will survive.
10:46So this is where the broken Eighth Army rallied.
10:50With some of its units taking up position in concrete emplacements like this.
10:55I think this one has been some sort of headquarters.
10:58It's well tucked into the desert, and it's littered with rusty oil and petrol cans.
11:04In front, there were deep minefields.
11:07Behind, Auchinleck had massed the army's artillery, ready to pour concentrated fire onto the Germans
11:14when they attacked.
11:16With its back against the wall, the Eighth Army just held out at Alamein.
11:31It had not been beaten, but it had been shaken.
11:40Some of the soldiers had been fighting here for more than two years, and many were exhausted.
11:46Partly, it was due to the tough conditions in the desert.
11:50Out here, there were precious few home comforts for the troops.
11:55I can't even remember when we were actually in the line when you would have a proper meal.
12:00When you'd open a tin of a can of bully beef, of course, it sort of half floated out of the
12:06can because the heat had melted all the fat that's in there, and you used to get these
12:10very hard biscuits, and half of them was left over from the 1914 war.
12:14There'd be flies round you before you'd say, Jack Robertson, you'd have a brew.
12:20In fact, you couldn't drink it without flies settling on it, so you'd use a muslin, you
12:24know.
12:25That bad.
12:28You'd sort of boil over all through the day, and then at night time, you couldn't wrap yourself
12:33up enough to keep warm.
12:36The desert sores, that was another problem.
12:39If you knocked yourself, which was inevitable on a tank, as soon as you knocked yourself
12:43at all, it became festered within a matter of hours, and it spread like an ulcer.
12:50The soldiers began to distrust the high command, which seemed unable even to provide them with
12:56adequate equipment.
12:58We knew, you see, we knew that the tanks we had were not really up to scratch.
13:03We couldn't match the German tanks.
13:05And we kept on asking, and we couldn't understand that each time we got new tanks, they had this
13:11silly little pea-shooters, as we called it.
13:16The inevitable result would be that we'd be, we'd suffer.
13:19And we'd lose a lot of people.
13:23Most of all, it was failure that demoralised them.
13:27After months in the desert, they'd shown that they were as tough as their enemies.
13:32But despite that, their operations had not been successful.
13:37It seemed that their generals had let them down.
13:40And now there were signs that for some of them, it was all becoming too much.
13:46Many officers had taken to questioning orders.
13:49Others had been relieved because of exhaustion.
13:53Commonwealth troops often distrusted British officers.
13:57Infantry was suspicious of armour.
14:00Brave but baffled was how the Prime Minister Winston Churchill described them.
14:06And now it was time for him to take a hand.
14:11The Prime Minister flew to Egypt to see things for himself.
14:26He wasn't pleased with what he found.
14:29He urgently needed a victory.
14:32And Auchinleck was adamant that there could be no offensive until at least September.
14:38A visit to the front left him even more depressed.
14:42The next day, he acted.
14:45A new commander-in-chief was appointed.
14:52He was General Sir Harold Alexander.
14:55A charming and steady warrior with a reputation for calm efficiency.
15:03And there was a new commander for the Eighth Army too.
15:05Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery.
15:09His task was to destroy the Africa Corps and throw Rommel out of Africa.
15:15Rommel was still hopeful of a final victory.
15:18A victory which might even be a war winner.
15:23Far away in Russia, the German armies had reached the Caucasus.
15:28From there, they might be able to threaten Persia and Iraq.
15:32Combined with a desert thrust through to Cairo, such a move might still give Hitler control
15:37over all the oil in the Middle East and knock Britain out of the war.
15:47But Rommel was a long way from his bases, and short of supplies.
15:53Worse, British attacks at sea were interrupting the convoys from Italy.
15:58If he was going to make a move, he knew he had to do it soon.
16:17Rommel's new opponent swept into his task like a tornado.
16:25Arriving in Egypt two days before he was supposed to take over, he took off for the desert almost
16:30immediately and began issuing orders.
16:33There will be no further withdrawal.
16:36I have ordered that all plans and instructions dealing with further withdrawal are to be burned.
16:42A veteran of the Western Front in the First World War, Montgomery had a reputation for prickliness
16:48and insubordination, but also as a consummate professional dedicated to the art of war.
16:55Our mandate from the Prime Minister is to destroy the Axis forces in North Africa.
17:01It can be done, and it will be done, beyond any possibility of doubt.
17:06Nobody had ever seen an army commander in person in a field of conflict, and you couldn't help
17:14but be inspired.
17:17We will stand and fight here.
17:20If we can't stay here alive, then let us stay here dead.
17:24I want to impress on everyone that the bad times are over.
17:28They are finished.
17:32And for the baffled soldiers of the Eighth Army, there was now at least some certainty
17:37about the future.
17:46A fortnight after Montgomery took over the British Army, Rommel made his move.
17:54He gathered his armoured forces and punched at the southern end of the British line, moving
18:00them by night towards a ridge called Alam Halfa.
18:06It was down this track that Rommel moved the hundreds of vehicles of the Africa Corps that
18:11night.
18:12Although the walls of the escarpment on either side prevented the British on the ground from
18:16seeing it, this huge concentration of armour was desperately vulnerable to air reconnaissance,
18:23and the RAF spotted it.
18:32Montgomery's army was expecting them.
18:35Both military logic and intercepted signals had predicted the attack.
18:42Monty knew that the battle at Alam Halfa would be crucial.
18:45If he lost, he was finished, and so was the Eighth Army.
18:53This was to be a purely defensive battle.
18:56There was to be no wild armoured charge into the German ranks.
19:01Montgomery thought that too many tank officers were still cavalry soldiers at heart.
19:06They hadn't learnt the lessons of armoured warfare.
19:10The senior officers had led cavalry charges, because that's the way they did it.
19:15And we as tank men, who had been trained to use ground and hold down positions, we were
19:20appalled at the tactics of draw cutlasses or sabres and charge.
19:25And we kept doing this.
19:28And we kept losing.
19:29Rommel's aim was to smash his way over the Alam Halfa ridge, to emerge behind the bulk of
19:36the British Army, and push on towards Cairo.
19:46The Germans advanced with tough-skinned vehicles as well.
19:49They had staff cars and people like that, reconnaissance, sometimes motorcycles as well, you see.
19:57And behind them, the body of tanks, which you can identify by the amount of dust they raise.
20:03Once he knew the direction they were taking, Montgomery gave the final orders for the tanks
20:12to plug the line.
20:24We were told to hold our fire till the last minute, virtually.
20:36Suddenly the guns opened up.
20:40And then flames, people bailing out, machine guns shooting down.
20:47General panic, a halt.
20:49People trying to get away.
20:50Tanks withdrawing.
20:51Obviously, I lost cause.
20:56It must have been, for them, quite horrific.
21:02But very pleasing from my point of view.
21:05It was the first time I'd been in a shooting gallery, shooting at the target, instead of
21:10being the target.
21:12Having halted Rommel's advance, Montgomery called in the power of his artillery and air force.
21:17They battered the German columns for days on end.
21:29Eventually, Rommel withdrew.
21:32Montgomery had his victory.
21:34And for the troops, the victory brought a new confidence in the future.
21:39Perhaps Rommel could be beaten, once and for all.
21:43The fact that that was successful had an enormous effect on us, because we felt, right, this is
21:51now working for us.
21:53Then there's no reason why we shouldn't do it anywhere else.
21:58The dominance of the Desert Air Force at Allemhalfer shocked the Germans.
22:05And it was a promise of things to come.
22:08Slowly, the British won command of the air.
22:11And the big change came when our Spitfires arrived.
22:17And the first thing we heard was, with our little radios, we were able to often pick
22:22up the German planes.
22:24And we heard a German voice saying, Achtung, Spitfire.
22:29And the Spitfires then arrived.
22:31The climate changed, as you can imagine.
22:34And we all cheered each time the Spitfires came over and did their stuff.
22:39And we were able to walk in the sunlight from then on.
22:43With Rommel's attack halted, the British began the build-up for the coming offensive.
23:00300 tanks and an extra 30,000 men arrived in Egypt.
23:13Just the sight of all the supplies and reinforcements was exhilarating for the old desert hands.
23:22At last, the things you'd asked for were being delivered.
23:27And then you saw German tanks with 75mm all round Traverse.
23:35This was another army.
23:37And the whole desert was covered with vehicles and guns and moving up.
23:43In two months, Montgomery was ready.
23:52He had 200,000 men and more than 1,000 tanks.
23:57Rommel had less than half that.
24:04Along the whole of the 35-mile front, for months,
24:08both sides had been laying anti-tank mines in front of their positions.
24:12In fields several miles deep.
24:19Today, it's still a lethal landscape.
24:21Hundreds of mines left over from the fighting litter the battlefield nearly 60 years on.
24:28These minefields were an overriding factor in Montgomery's calculations.
24:37They formed an invisible barrier which vehicles couldn't cross.
24:41But there was another way.
24:43If he couldn't send tanks, he could send men.
24:47Their weight wouldn't explode the mines.
24:51Appropriately enough, he called his plan Lightfoot.
24:56Montgomery's plan was a complex one, involving thousands of men.
25:05To ensure that everyone knew what part they would play in the coming battle,
25:08he began a programme of addressing the troops.
25:11Well, he arrived, and he was really quite a small chap, but asked for something he could stand on and talk to everybody.
25:24Now, my forecast of this battle is that there will be three definite stages.
25:31First, the break-ins.
25:33You knew he was in command, no doubt about it.
25:37And you didn't tend to drop your gaze if he was looking at you or look away somewhere else.
25:42You were held by him.
25:44Then, the dogfight?
25:46I believe that the dogfight battle will become a hard killing match, and will last for 10 or 12 days.
25:55He made people believe that, you know, this was going to be it, and everything would be planned to the last detail.
26:02The enemy will crack.
26:05Then will come the breakout.
26:07And that will lead to the end of Rommel in Africa.
26:11All in all, what Montgomery was proposing was essentially a First World War battle,
26:18like those fought on the Western Front, where he himself had learnt his trade.
26:24The infantry would advance into no man's land, while the artillery barrage kept the defenders' heads down.
26:32Unlike so many battles in the First World War, this one was carefully prepared and slickly coordinated.
26:40But when it began, everything would depend on the power of the British guns.
26:53Montgomery fixed the date for the 23rd of October.
26:57All day his soldiers lay concealed in the desert, waiting for night when the battle would start.
27:04Although he risked confusion in the dark, Montgomery hoped to catch his enemy by surprise.
27:11It was very dark then. It was just before the moon. You could see in the eastern skyline the oncoming moon beginning to light up a bit.
27:24But you knew, because you'd rehearsed it all, that everything was happening. You could hear the soft crunch of sand behind you as you knew which company that was and where they were going to their location.
27:37It was a thoughtful period. You knew that tonight was going to be the real stuff.
27:52I don't think anybody would have been human if they didn't go through a bit of panic.
28:07We had our thoughts about our families and our friends. And always a man will think, well, if it happens to me, well, it happens to me. But at least I hope that when it does, I won't be suffering. I'll have done my bit.
28:24It was such an enormous barrage. The whole of the eastern skyline behind us was a ripple of light from one end to the other end.
28:52Must be 650 guns they are firing.
28:57And then the next moment, you were hearing the whistling away overhead and then the crump away out in front of us on the German lines.
29:10It must have cured any constipation they had.
29:15It was the biggest British bombardment since the First World War.
29:22You didn't hear anything coming back from the enemy of that sort of volume. It was spasmodic firing. It was the firing of people who had been caught unawares.
29:35After 20 minutes of the barrage, the leading troops in this sector, Highlanders of 51st Division, began to advance slowly in extended line into the minefield.
29:49Their objective was the crest of that low ridge called Miterea on the horizon. Behind it were Axis tanks and guns. In front of it, the enemy infantry with rifles and machine guns, bayonets and grenades were dug in, in and behind the minefield.
30:10They walked towards the enemy at a steady march. Just behind the barrage, which moves slowly forward in front of them.
30:23Despite the moonlight, the dust and smoke obscured almost everything. To guide them, the artillery fired tracer shells to mark the route. And behind them, searchlights pierced the sky to create landmarks.
30:39And these two beams dropped down to be above our heads, and they crossed like that. To us, it was the cross of St. Andrews.
30:51The other noise that you'd all been listening for, the company pipers, they were there. And we knew that we were the Highland Division going into battle.
31:03When we finally reached the German lines and went looking for Germans, and the only ones we found had already got their hands stretched above their head and surrendered.
31:18From Montgomery's plan to succeed, it was vital that clear lanes were marked out through the minefields, not just for the tanks, but for transport vehicles, so that the infantry could bring up ammunition and supplies.
31:45We must have probably been about halfway across no man's land before the barrage started. And we was out there in no man's land and it felt very, very, very lonely.
31:59Each mine had to be identified, checked and lifted.
32:03The sand was quite easy to move away. You'd just use your hands. You'd just felt your way around it. You'd been trained out what these mines were like, what they felt like in the dark, even.
32:18If there was a German teller mine, the fuse is on the top and has a pin attached to it. You push the pin in, you unscrew the top off it. That mine was safe then.
32:34Yeah, it's a tense moment. But you know you've got to do it because the infantry people are relying on you to give a clear passage for the heavy equipment to come through.
32:48When the engineers had finished, the tanks moved forwards in the narrow lanes. The tanks would emerge from the minefields before dawn broke, to await the German counterattack. At least, that was the plan.
33:06We started through the minefields, got to the second minefield. The infantry had missed a lot of anti-tank guns. And we came under intense anti-tank fire.
33:24And we lost 31 tanks. And we got orders to cease action, discontinue, disengage, withdraw.
33:36It was an awful situation because a good anti-tank gunner will take the first tank out and the last one. And you can't get forward, you can't get back.
33:43You can only go into the minefield and risk being blown up. You'd probably lose a track.
33:49Once you lose your tracks, you're a sitting target anyway because you can't move at all. So you're just hoping it's not you that's going to be hit. It's a terrible feeling.
34:06As dawn broke on the morning after the attack, it was clear that the army had not, in fact, achieved its objectives. Montgomery's gamble had not paid off.
34:18But now he held his nerve. And it was one of those moments in military history when nerve really counted.
34:28He knew that his force was larger, better equipped and had more air support.
34:32He could afford a battle of attrition and Rommel couldn't. He took one of the toughest decisions that a general has to face.
34:42To accept the loss of men's lives in a tough slogging match to bring about victory.
34:48The battle would continue.
34:57After all, we'd managed to do it at Alenhalfa.
35:01So, of course we could do it here. It was only a matter of throwing more people in, I'm afraid.
35:07It worked in this way that wherever there was a weakness in the enemy defences, the troops would move forward.
35:21Sometimes 100 yards, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.
35:28But edging forward, you were crumbling at the defences.
35:32So all the time the pressure was on them.
35:34Rommel had been on sick leave.
35:39He returned to find his deputy dead, his army under continuous heavy bombardment with little air cover.
35:47As ever, he was short of fuel.
35:49At one point, his army had only three days' supply of petrol.
36:04At one point, Montgomery's dogfight went on.
36:05At one point, Montgomery's dogfight went on.
36:06Montgomery's dogfight went on.
36:07Montgomery's dogfight went on.
36:21Along the whole of the front, the fighting continued under the desert sun.
36:24Indians and Australians, British and South Africans picked away at the German and Italian positions.
36:33Taking prisoners here, gaining ground there.
36:36The dogfight led to one of the most heroic actions of the battle.
36:45On the night of the 27th of October, under the by now usual barrage, the men of the 2nd Rifle Brigade moved forward, bringing with them 19 anti-tank guns.
36:56They were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Vic Turner.
37:01His objective was a place called, for want of a better name, Snipe.
37:08This is it.
37:10Just a patch of churned up desert on the forward slope of a low ridge.
37:14They arrived after dark and began to reconnoitre the surrounding area.
37:26They had walked into a hornet's nest.
37:35Just north of us, about a thousand yards away, was a tank leaguer of over 30 German tanks.
37:42They made attack about 7 a.m.
38:00Six pounds were doing the work. Without them, I mean, we'd been annihilated.
38:04As the crews bowed out of their tanks, if they'd ever survived, and we'd be shooting them down like rabbits.
38:19They also had shelling during the day and night was out of this world.
38:23As the riflemen fought on, the shells hurtled down on their position.
38:30Several times that day, they were bombarded by their own side.
38:35We got the hell of a time from our own 105mm guns.
38:39And of all the unpleasant things in a very unpleasant day, I think that was the most unpleasant.
38:50The Germans attacked the British at Snipe all day in waves.
38:54Even penetrating behind the British lines.
38:56I looked at the rear, about 200 yards to my rear, there was a German Mark III.
39:05And I said to the lads, I said, God, there's a German tank there.
39:10For Christ, he's seen us now, you know, we've had it now.
39:13And the next thing I heard was this explosion.
39:15Then I smelt burning rubber and all I think.
39:21I looked back at this tank that had been knocked out.
39:29By the end of the day, Turner's 19 guns had destroyed perhaps 50 armoured vehicles.
39:36Turner himself received the Victoria Cross.
39:40And many of his men were also decorated.
39:43The real value of the Snipe fighting lay in its contribution to the wearing down of Rommel's armour.
39:52He had 77 serviceable tanks left.
39:56Montgomery had 900.
39:59It was time for the breakout.
40:05Again, the British guns roared out in the darkness.
40:09Again, the infantry set off across the desert.
40:13Spraying enemy positions with small arms fire.
40:16Lobbing grenades into their trenches.
40:19But this time, the going was easier.
40:22After a while, the Germans started retreating.
40:26Because what you've got to understand is that those Germans had been under terrific bombardment.
40:32And their nerves must have been in a terrible state.
40:34I mean, the bombardment that was laid down to support us was tremendous.
40:39We couldn't do nothing wrong.
40:41Not with that sort of support.
40:42And we carried on for four miles, right until we got to our objective.
40:49The ten-day dogfight had paid off.
40:51Now it was time for the armoured assault that Montgomery's army had worked so hard for.
41:07We got through the minefields and broke into the open ground.
41:14And then, from my point of view, it was purely a question of going forward and attacking.
41:19This was going to be tank warfare, as we'd done before.
41:27And we had a lot better tanks.
41:30We had the Aces, for once.
41:31The battle raged then. It was just a personal thing then.
41:45You lost sight of what was happening.
41:48It was just you fighting whatever was there.
41:56The Axis troops began to pull back.
41:58Despite a message from Hitler saying that there would be no retreat.
42:06Rommel's forces were decimated.
42:15I was still a bit sceptical because I'd fought Rommel for a long time.
42:22And there were times before when we thought we'd defeated him.
42:25But when I saw the devastation and the knocked-out tanks...
42:32...and some of the most modern, supercharged Mark IVs with a 75mm gun on...
42:39...destroyed...
42:41...and the anti-tank guns...
42:44...and the dead and the prisoners, columns of prisoners...
42:47...I thought, no, I can't see that he's going to recover.
42:57This was what everyone had been waiting for.
42:58Montgomery moved his army forward across the desert...
43:02...as fast as was safe...
43:05...in pursuit of his fleeing enemies.
43:08The pursuit took the army back along the Mediterranean coast...
43:12...over all the battlefields of the past two years...
43:15...and on towards the capital of Italian Africa, Tripoli.
43:18As they pushed on, they had some dramatic news.
43:23At the other end of the Mediterranean, a huge British and American fleet...
43:28...had appeared off the coast of the French colonies of Morocco and Algeria.
43:32They were to land another army in Rommel's rear.
43:37There was now no hope for the Africa Corps.
43:45And so, three months to the day after the Battle of Alamein began...
43:51...British and Commonwealth forces entered Tripoli.
43:54They had achieved the aim they had set themselves so long ago.
43:59The success brought a new spirit to the Eighth Army.
44:16There had been a tremendous build-up of pride in the army.
44:20The Eighth Army title became to be known as something that you wanted to be in.
44:25It had risen from almost obscurity into this new-born army.
44:32So it meant a lot to people.
44:35So it meant a lot to people.
44:36So it meant a lot to people.
45:05Today, the desert is almost as empty as it was before the fighting.
45:17The train still chugs up the railway line twice a day.
45:21There's more irrigation and a few more people.
45:27But it's very hard to imagine that nearly 60 years ago...
45:33...there were hundreds of thousands of men and machines...
45:37...packed into this little corner of the desert on that October night.
45:41Nevertheless, here they were. Sweating in the heat and cursing the flies.
45:51Despite grievous losses, the brave but baffled men of Eighth Army...
45:56...had won a famous triumph.
45:57This great citizen army of brickies and barristers, teachers and taxi drivers...
46:06...had come of age.
46:08As Churchill put it,
46:10Before Alamein, there were almost no victories.
46:14After it, there were no defeats.
46:17Small wonder that bells pealed out across Britain at the news.
46:30Elation.
46:32Somehow the signals had got on to the London radio end.
46:37And we heard this amazing sound...
46:42...coming all that distance from London into the desert.
46:45Of the men who made up John McGregor's Battalion of the Black Watch...
46:56...almost one-third became casualties at Alamein.
47:06You all know that if you're a soldier, your life's on the line.
47:11But when you take stock...
47:16...it was a heavy toll for one unit.
47:19It became a very personal thing.
47:22And our bringing down to earth of elation.
47:27Elation at a cost.
47:29Elation at a cost.
47:30Elation at a cost.
47:34Elation in New York
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