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00:001942 the third year of world war two
00:07the nazis are rampaging through europe
00:12the british have suffered defeat after defeat
00:15they are desperate for a victory
00:17anywhere
00:19two of the most charismatic generals of all time
00:22german field marshal erwin rommel
00:25and britain's general bernard montgomery
00:27go head to head for a barren stretch of african desert
00:32they may be kilometers apart
00:34but in their minds the generals stand over the same table
00:38two modern generals experienced in desert warfare
00:42will get inside their heads
00:44to analyze rommel and montgomery's tactics
00:47while a team of military experts will compare their equipment
00:51and their firepower
00:54to reveal just how the battle of el alamein was won
01:07in february 1941 hitler sends general erwin rommel to north africa
01:12to lead the fight against the british
01:15the libyan desert is a relative backwater for the maverick general
01:19with a reputation for both brilliance and insubordination
01:24rommel is a rule breaker and a risk taker
01:28risks are there to be taken
01:31opportunities are there to be spotted
01:34if something's a threat it's also an opportunity
01:37lieftenant general sir john kisley is a top-ranking british general
01:41who has himself commanded tanks in desert warfare
01:44he is fascinated by rommel
01:47he is a very charismatic leader
01:50he leads from the front
01:52he will not obey orders
01:55if he doesn't agree with them
01:57although there are exceptions
01:59and sometimes rommel changes his plan very quickly
02:03rommel's job is to revitalize the italian army
02:06who have been fighting the british in egypt and libya
02:09the german allies have been all but annihilated
02:16hitler gives rommel a handful of men and tanks to defend the tatters of mussolini's army
02:22but the impulsive rommel ignores his orders and immediately goes on the attack
02:28within two days of arriving in north africa
02:34rommel has sent his force forward
02:37they are in contact with the enemy 280 miles to the east
02:41and rommel is there in a light aircraft flying above them
02:45rommel realizes that the most important thing in war
02:50is seizing and retaining the initiative
02:54rommel's style is a style of blitzkrieg
02:57it's a style of offence of surprise and always trying to seek manoeuvre
03:04to find the enemy's weaker spots before surrounding and killing him
03:11most successful generals have a degree of intuition and instinct
03:16rommel has it in spades
03:18rommel's lightning fast blitzkrieg catches the british off guard
03:24and his ragtag army kicks them out of libya
03:31rommel's talent for daring raids began in world war one
03:35e earning him an iron cross for bravery
03:39he went on to head hitler's personal bodyguard
03:42gaining the furor's trust
03:45apart from the military
03:48rommel's only love is his young son
03:51and his wife lucy
03:54he writes to her almost every day that he can
03:58and these letters show rommel as being above all
04:03somebody for whom his wife is the most important person in the world
04:06and he shares with his wife his most intimate observations
04:09of the battle and the campaign
04:12april the third 1941
04:16dearest lou
04:18we've been attacking since the 31st with dazzling success
04:23i took the risk against all orders and instructions because the opportunity seemed favourable
04:30the british are falling over each other to get away
04:35our casualties small booty can't yet be estimated
04:41you will understand that i can't sleep for happiness
04:48the booty for rommel lies in the east
04:50he wants to force his way through egypt
04:52cross the suez canal
04:54and grab control of the oil fields beyond
04:58in the air the british have the edge
05:00so rommel needs to beat them on the ground
05:03he finds inspiration in a gun designed to shoot down aircraft
05:07as former tank commander crispin swain reveals
05:14this is the eighty eight millimetre flat gun
05:16it's an anti-aircraft gun
05:18because of its high rate of fire and its high muzzle velocity
05:22rommel realized by lowering the trajectory on this gun
05:27he could take out targets on the ground
05:30with incredible accuracy at over two thousand metres
05:34so you could shoot not just aircraft but also tanks
05:38so now the germans had a tank killer that could fire faster
05:42more accurately and further than anything they'd had before
05:50now what did the british have to match it
05:59the puny two pound field gun
06:01sydney allford designs explosives for the military
06:07we asked him to compare the firepower of the german and british guns
06:11first up the british two pounder
06:14here's a plastic bag containing a hundred grams of gunpowder
06:19this represents the punch of a shell fired from the small british gun
06:23firing
06:28five four three two one
06:35not spectacular i would say
06:40it lifted it up
06:42but it didn't bother to leave the ground
06:44now for the eighty eight gun
06:46which fires a heavier shell at a far higher velocity
06:49what i have here is a plastic bag containing
06:53one point seven kilos of gunpowder
06:57with an igniter in it
06:59that is exactly seventeen times as much as the previous band
07:03this represents of course the larger german gun
07:15firing
07:17haha
07:19twenty feet
07:20i like that
07:21a hell of a lot more oomph in this one
07:24wherever the eighty eight appears
07:29it dominates the battlefield
07:31the undisputed queen of the desert
07:34using these powerful guns
07:37rommel improvises new tactics to fight the british
07:44he attacks them with his panzers
07:46then pretends to withdraw
07:47luring their tanks onto a screen of dug in eighty eights
07:51which destroy them
07:55rommel's creative tactics pay off
07:58the battle ebbs and flows for several months
08:01but in the end
08:02rommel snatches control of libya from the british
08:05a delighted hitler promotes rommel to the rank of field marshal
08:12even the enemy is impressed
08:16british prime minister winston churchill calls rommel
08:19a very daring and skillful opponent
08:22a great general
08:26impatient for victory rommel fights on
08:28pushing further east
08:33by june 1942 the british are forced back to the sleepy railway town of el alame
08:40where they dig in
08:48rommel believes at this stage that the british are facing complete defeat and panic
08:56typical rommel he races on to try and bounce the el alamein line that's to say break through it before either his enemy or indeed himself are fully ready and he will be able to reach caro within just a couple of days
09:11but the british managed to hold the line at el alamein there is a lull in the fighting
09:18stunned by the speed of rommel's advances
09:25stunned by the speed of rommel's advances
09:27winston churchill flies out to the desert himself
09:30he decides the british eighth army needs a new man in charge
09:33in eighteen months in africa
09:36rommel has got through three british commanders and raced twelve hundred kilometers across the desert
09:40now he is about to meet his match
09:47an opponent primed for a showdown
09:55in august 1942 british general bernard montgomery arrives in africa full of fighting spirit or what he calls binge
10:06he will need it his task to see off the wily field marshal erwin rommel nicknamed the desert fox
10:14montgomery physically was a little man
10:18he was a prickly man
10:20and i think you could almost say a slight misfit in some respects
10:25he was one of these people who infuriatingly probably always knew the answer
10:30and he was the sort of person if you got him into an argument he would be like a terrier
10:34he would go at it until he'd made his point and made certain he'd won his point
10:41major general patrick cordingly commanded british tanks in the first gulf war
10:45montgomery is one of his childhood heroes
10:49i can remember him coming to my school on prize giving day
10:54and at the end of his talk he said i'm now going to present a book to your library
10:59he said this is a good book i wrote it
11:02like rommel montgomery is a career soldier
11:07his forte is not feats of daring do but planning and training
11:12his one distraction from work is his wife
11:15he too is a devoted husband
11:18but she dies suddenly leaving him heartbroken
11:21as his memoirs recall
11:22i was utterly defeated
11:25my soul cried out in anguish
11:28i seem to be surrounded by utter darkness
11:31all the spirit was knocked out of me
11:34he's left with a son who
11:36he doesn't spend too much time on because he's so determined that his chosen career
11:41he's going to reach the top of it
11:43he's that sort of person
11:46montgomery is not well known when he's picked to lead the british at el alamein
11:50he is confident he's up to the job
11:52but churchill is less sure
11:56you suddenly get this extraordinary instant when he's picked out against churchill's wishes
12:01churchill didn't really think that he was the man
12:04picked out and put in command of the eighth army
12:06and he knew himself that he could do this
12:13the day after he arrives in the desert montgomery calls a meeting of his demoralized senior officers
12:19he tells them there are to be no more retreats
12:23we will stand and fight here
12:25if we can't stay here alive then let us stay here dead
12:29we're going to finish with this chap rommel once and for all
12:34there's going to be no discussion of my orders
12:37no whinging i think was the great term that he used
12:40we're going to do what i said and that's it
12:42you don't like it you can step down
12:44and morale as a result went up
12:46montgomery knows morale is crucial
12:49his men rate rommel above their own less dashing leaders
12:53the british squaddy respect the desert fox rommel in a way that they have never respected
13:01an enemies since perhaps napoleon
13:03and this is a very interesting psychological situation
13:07because there is to a certain extent the belief that they can't beat rommel
13:11and the feeling was very much that the desert fox was superhuman
13:15he would pull something out of the hat on every single occasion
13:18now montgomery needs to break the psychological hold the desert fox has on his men
13:25he's quite certain that he's got to show that he is a greater general than rommel
13:32he suddenly realizes that he can turn himself into a sort of public figure
13:39and he does it absolutely on purpose
13:43montgomery deliberately adopts an ordinary tankman's beret
13:50soldiers under him loved his beret with his general's badge alongside the royal tank regiment badge
13:59and everybody knew that this was montgomery
14:04he's creating a celebrity status and a myth if you like
14:09that was just inspired and of course the myth grows up
14:13here is the man here's the boss who's going to beat rommel
14:16the soldiers who fought for him were monte's men
14:22and the confidence grew within the eighth army
14:25montgomery studies his enemies tactics
14:30surprisingly he finds the impulsive rommel is becoming predictable
14:34rommel has a number of options facing him
14:43the first is to remain on the defensive until he can build up his supplies
14:48in order to attack the alamein position
14:51and the second is to have a crack and try and break through
14:57and typical rommel he chooses the latter
15:00and this is the battle of alam halfa
15:03montgomery anticipates that rommel will attack at a ridge of high ground
15:07at alam halfa near el alamein
15:10he moves his tanks onto the ridge and digs them in
15:14he knows rommel's favorite tactic is an outflanking maneuver
15:20hooking his troops round from the south
15:22and then attacking from behind
15:24so he also leaves an armored division here
15:29to harass rommel if he takes his usual route
15:35montgomery took a decision at alam halfa
15:37that he was going to actually fight a reasonably static battle
15:40this is something different from what had been going on before
15:43where the tanks have been allowed to sort of swan around
15:46and try and outflank rommel
15:48what montgomery was saying was i want my tanks to dig in
15:52and wait till the enemy attacks them
15:55and then if necessary or if we can we can maneuver afterwards
15:58but let's try and defeat them in static positions
16:01which was a change
16:03as montgomery predicts rommel decides on a flanking maneuver
16:09he is relying on a lightning fast strike to wrong foot his opponent
16:13romwells attack starts badly his pansers are hit from the air
16:23this panzers are hit from the air
16:26and by montgomery's tanks
16:29when a dust storm blows upslowing his progress
16:35rommel has lost both speed and surprise
16:38Rommel has lost both speed and surprise
16:46So he decides to abandon his long hook around the ridge
16:50and attack openly from the front
16:53Montgomery does not seize this chance to counter-attack
16:57He waits
17:01Rommel's tanks are dangerously exposed
17:04They struggle to climb the ridge under fire from the British
17:09Rommel is forced to retreat
17:11The swine isn't attacking, he complains
17:17Rommel starts to get to know the Montgomery style of command
17:23He has a pretty low opinion of Montgomery
17:26Very cautious, he says of him
17:29And there are numerous opportunities during the Alam Halfa battle
17:32Where Rommel makes terrible mistakes
17:34And wonders whether Montgomery will spot these opportunities
17:39to make a counter-thrust
17:40And Montgomery never does
17:43Montgomery refuses to chase Rommel after Alam Halfa
17:47It is not part of his plan
17:53It was important to resist any temptation to rush into the attack
17:57My purpose was to restore the line
17:59And proceed methodically with my own preparations
18:02For the big offensive later on
18:04But Churchill wants Montgomery to hit back at once
18:10Churchill was under a lot of pressure at home
18:14Questions being asked about his leadership
18:16He wanted a victory in the western desert
18:18And was very keen that this attack around El Alamein
18:22Should go ahead as quickly as possible
18:23Now under that sort of political pressure
18:25It must have been very difficult not to give in
18:28But Montgomery was determined
18:30That the 8th army was not ready
18:32And he was not going to attack until it was ready
18:34He said we're not trained and ready to do this
18:36We're going to spend weeks training
18:38And when I think we're ready
18:40No other person is going to tell me
18:42Then we're going to attack
18:44Physical fitness and hardness of an army
18:46Is one of the biggest battle winning factors in war
18:50Montgomery introduces a rigorous training program for his men
18:57Fighting fit and fit to fight
19:03His men are getting fit to fight
19:05But Rommel's German and Italian forces are dropping like flies
19:09Dearest Lou
19:14I've now managed to get a bath and a change
19:17Having slept in my coat for most of the time for the last few weeks
19:21My commanding officers are ill
19:23All those who aren't dead or wounded
19:26I'll soon be the only one of the German officers
19:30Who's seen the whole thing through from start to finish
19:33Months of desert fighting are taking their toll
19:38Sick rates among Rommel's soldiers are almost triple those of Montgomery's men
19:45What gives the British this huge advantage?
19:49Military historian Andy Robertshaw believes it is down to a secret British weapon
19:59The British army had almost a fetish
20:02About ensuring that you followed very very careful rules of sanitation
20:06Very very importantly there are rules about going to the toilet
20:10Where you can do it
20:11How you can do it
20:12And how you clean up afterwards
20:14Ideally you dig this as deep as you can get it
20:19So you've got waste well down
20:21Because it's going to start filling up pretty quickly
20:23We now have one ready to use portable toilet
20:40Neatly done almost ready for use
20:42Tack that on the flies can't get in
20:45And when you want to use it you flap it back out of the way
20:48Rommel's soldiers the Africa Corps rely on speed and fast manoeuvre
20:54They have little time for the niceties of building latrines
20:57The Africa Corps would go off and indiscriminately poo in the desert
21:01And come back
21:02That brings flies
21:03They land on your food
21:05Very rapidly you've got dysentery
21:07And once that starts you don't need enemy action
21:10To put hundreds of men out of action
21:12Going to the toilet matters
21:15And it matters a lot to soldiers in a desert environment
21:23The filthy conditions undermine Rommel's army
21:26And even he is not immune
21:29His stomach and liver begin to plague him
21:32His doctors want him to take medical leave
21:36But he refuses
21:38First he wants to finish off Montgomery once and for all
21:43But even as Rommel ponders his next move
21:54Montgomery is limbering up to finally make an attack of his own
21:58After weeks of training his troops are at the peak of their fitness
22:04Then the final piece falls into place
22:07He takes delivery of a present from the Americans
22:11This is the Sherman tank
22:25Probably the most famous tank of World War II
22:28It's got three machine guns
22:30And its 75mm main gun is capable of both high explosive and armor piercing rounds
22:37Which means it can be used either in the artillery role
22:41The infantry support role
22:43Or as a tank killer in its own rifle
22:46It's extremely easy to drive
22:48And with a top speed of just under 40 k's an hour
22:52Monty finally had a tank
22:54With which he could take the war to the Germans
22:57Charge!
22:58With the arrival of 300 new Shermans and reinforcements
23:06Montgomery now has 1,000 tanks to Rommel's 500
23:10And 200,000 men double Rommel's army
23:15But keeping a huge force fed and watered in a barren desert is a challenge
23:19Montgomery has the great advantage of fighting close to the port that supplies him
23:27Rommel's biggest difficulty is keeping his men equipped with food, fuel and ammunition
23:36The further he gets into Egypt
23:39The further he moves away from the Libyan ports he controls
23:43He is desperately overstretched
23:46And with British planes bombing his supply ships too
23:54Feeding his army is becoming a problem
24:01With the odds now against him, Rommel changes tack
24:05He abandons the blitzkrieg attacks he has perfected
24:10And digs in for defence
24:12He's going to wait for Montgomery to come to him
24:15Some people think that Rommel is just somebody who's good in a war of maneuver, a one trick pony
24:21But he proves in making his defensive position at El Alamein that he is a master of static warfare, defensive warfare as well
24:32Rommel's defences contain two formidable minefields 61 kilometers long and a kilometer apart
24:40He calls them the Devil's Gardens
24:43His soldiers lay more mines between the main minefields to create passageways
24:54Men and tanks which break through the first minefield will be channeled along these routes to the next minefield
25:00And waiting behind this, with their muzzles trained on the passageways, lie Rommel's tanks and 88mm guns
25:10Minefields, of course, in armored warfare are not meant as a complete barrier
25:17You know that your enemy will eventually penetrate the minefield
25:21But it'll do two things
25:23Firstly, it will cause your enemy to channel themselves through a gap
25:27And you can cover that gap with fire and kill the enemy who come through it
25:33And secondly, it'll cause delay
25:35And you can use that delay to your advantage by regrouping your forces to where the enemy appears to be penetrating
25:42So these are absolutely critical to Rommel's plan
25:50Kean to counter Rommel's move, Montgomery sets up a mine-clearing school to train his men to find and defuse the German mines
25:58Prodding for mines with bayonets under enemy gunfire is painfully slow
26:05And a sapper faces a hidden danger
26:09He may not weigh enough to trigger an anti-tank mine
26:14But he knows he isn't safe
26:16Because Rommel has booby-trapped his minefields with lethal anti-personnel mines
26:21What I have just done is bury a representation of what's called a bounding mine
26:33This is an anti-personnel mine
26:36And it is initiated by somebody, a soldier, stepping on it
26:41Here is one that I haven't buried
26:43And you can see it consists of two containers
26:45A small charge of gunpowder has exploded
26:48Within a short time of anyone treading on this and compressing it
26:52This mine, this is the bit that does the damage
26:56Is blown up to about waist high
27:00This contains high explosive
27:02And typically one centimeter steel balls
27:06These kill the soldier
27:08And they will kill soldiers up to about 50 meters radius
27:13And then make your ice water further out than that
27:17Sydney fixes his tin of ball bearings and gunpowder
27:20At the height a bounding mine would explode to test its effect
27:24Firing
27:26Four, three, two, one
27:30The force of the explosion sends the steel balls through our soldier
27:36And into the rock beyond
27:38Showing the spread of the killing zone
27:40Oh dear, an unkind shot
27:50There's a cluster of shots in the region of his pelvis
27:55One here on the inside of his leg
27:59It will be a horrific weapon
28:01But most weapons are horrific
28:05His minefields laid
28:07Rommel is ready for round two of his duel with Montgomery
28:11But now his decision to ignore his doctor's advice catches up with him
28:16Rommel by the stage is a very sick man
28:19He's suffering from low blood pressure
28:22And has fainting fits
28:24He's suffering from dysentery and stomach problems
28:28Some days he's completely confined to bed
28:32The war in the desert has worn him down physically and mentally
28:37And although he doesn't want to return to Germany
28:40His doctors force him to go back to have proper medical treatment in Germany
28:47While Rommel leaves the battlefield, Montgomery plots his next move
28:52He wants to deceive the Panzer Army Africa into thinking he will attack in the south
28:58While secretly assembling his main army to strike in the north
29:03But how do you hide a large army in a desert where you can see for miles
29:09Montgomery asks this man for help
29:13Maskalyn the Magnificent, master of make-believe, is a star stage magician in pre-war Britain
29:20When the war begins, he joins the Royal Engineers and sets up a group known as the Magic Gang
29:27Their job is to create illusions and confusions on a grand scale
29:32Maskalyn realized that he couldn't make anything in the desert just disappear
29:36But he could make it look like something else
29:38So his task was to make it look like the tank army in the north had vanished
29:43And this is how he did it
29:46First make a frame
29:48Cover it in Hessian and paint on windows and wheels
29:52It may not look that convincing close up
29:56But seen from a distance and through a heat haze
30:00Montgomery's tanks are now innocuous supply trucks
30:05His main army now disguised
30:07Montgomery leaves a few troops in the south to launch diversionary attacks on the Germans
30:12Then he rallies his troops
30:15We are ready now
30:17The battle which is about to begin will be one of the decisive battles of history
30:22It will be the turning point of the war
30:24The eyes of the whole world will be on us
30:27Watching anxiously which way the battle will swing
30:30We can give them their answer at once
30:34It will swing our way
30:38On October 23rd 1942
30:52Montgomery takes the German and Italian forces by surprise
30:56Launching a massive artillery bombardment
30:59The noise is so loud the ears of the gunners are said to have bled
31:05You get 1,200 British guns bombarding the Italian and the German positions
31:11At the same time we're told that Montgomery goes to bed
31:14And sleeps
31:15Or so he claims
31:17Now I can assure you that with a barrage of that intensity
31:21It is almost impossible to go to sleep
31:23But nevertheless that's the myth Montgomery puts out
31:26And it's studied isn't it
31:28Because what he is saying is
31:29I'm relaxed
31:30I'm ready
31:31I'm rested
31:32And I can take control of this battle
31:34Montgomery's plan is ambitious
31:37He wants to break through Rommel's minefields in a single night
31:41Mine clearing engineers will lead the way
31:44Creating two narrow paths
31:46Just seven meters wide
31:48For the tanks to follow
31:51It is called Operation Lightfoot
31:53Because the men will have to walk lightly
31:55Not to trigger Rommel's bounding mines
31:58Once they break through
32:00Montgomery's men will attack Rommel's infantry
32:03And provoke a showdown with the panzer division
32:06Montgomery was using tactics really from the first world war at this stage
32:12Huge artillery barrage
32:14And then some feints in the south
32:16To try and persuade Rommel that he might be breaking through in the south
32:19At the same time as the major push and breakthrough was going to take place towards the north
32:24And what he was hoping to do by causing Rommel confusion with the barrage and the feints
32:30It was to persuade Rommel to not reinforce any particular errors
32:34So he had the opportunity of breaking through in his chosen place in 24 hours
32:41Nearly 5,000 men of the highland battalions lead the infantry advance across the minefields
32:47Each company is played into battle by a piper
32:51Among them 19-year-old Duncan McIntyre
32:54The men have orders not to stop for the dead and wounded
32:59Duncan is among those to fall
33:03His body is later recovered with his fingers still on the chanter of his pipes
33:13The death toll is high
33:16The Germans and Italians return a hail of fire
33:19Then Montgomery's tanks get snarled in a huge traffic jam
33:24Trying to get through the narrow gaps the engineers have cleared
33:28Making them easy pickings for the 88 guns and aircraft fire
33:34Those tank crews in Montgomery's Shermans are particularly vulnerable
33:38The tanks have a fatal flaw
33:49They catch fire fast
33:51The Sherman tank is rather grimly called
33:54The Tommy Cooker by the Germans
33:56And also the Ronson even by the Allied crews
33:59Because it went up first time
34:01For a variety of reasons
34:03It was a petrol engine
34:04So there was a lot of fumes around
34:06There was a lot of ammunition on board
34:08Which was loosely stowed
34:10What we're going to try and demonstrate
34:12Is how quickly it'll take to get out of one of these tanks
34:16We've got a local rugby team in who's going to help us
34:19Hi guys
34:20Come on up
34:23Right, first in
34:25Is our co-driver
34:28Now if the crew was hit by a round
34:32They'd have to get out as quickly as possible
34:36That's our gunner's just gone in
34:39And now here's our tank commander
34:41There's five people in this tank
34:53Five seconds, the commander makes it out
34:55Eight seconds
34:59The loaders out
35:00And the gunner
35:05And here comes the co-driver
35:08So there's machine gun fire coming onto the tank all the time guys
35:14Twenty seconds
35:17And the driver's coming out now
35:20It's the last one of the crew of five
35:22That came to 38 seconds
35:29Okay
35:30Now if the tank was brewing up like that
35:33You've probably got 15 seconds to get out
35:36That means you and you wouldn't have made it out
35:39That's the kind of grim reality that these guys would have faced day after day
35:43With his tank stuck in Rommel's minefields
35:50Montgomery has a crisis on his hands
35:53He is woken after the first night of battle
35:56To discover that not a single tank has broken through
35:59His plan is starting to go horribly wrong
36:02He wakes up to be told we're stuck
36:05To be honest I think he must have expected it a bit
36:08But it also must have been disappointing thinking
36:10Hmm, where do we go from here
36:13While Montgomery assesses the scale of the disaster
36:16There is chaos in the German camp
36:18Rommel's replacement general Stummer
36:21Dies of a heart attack during the artillery barrage
36:24Hitler cancels Rommel's sick leave
36:27And orders him back to the desert
36:29Rommel returns
36:32And he sends out a signal down to the lowest levels of his army
36:39I am back signed Rommel
36:42And this of course has an electrifying effect on morale
36:46Throughout Panzergruppe Africa
36:49After a second night of trying to break through
36:52Montgomery's plan is a shambles
36:55His tanks are still stuck
36:57And the Desert Fox is back
36:59Things are looking up for the Germans
37:04But on the other side of the table
37:06Montgomery's battle plan is in tatters
37:09With events out of his control
37:11He is forced to improvise
37:13But he is not deterred
37:16He wants to grind Rommel down
37:18In a battle of attrition
37:20He has more men and tanks to throw at it
37:23And he has another advantage
37:25In a drawn out dog fight
37:30Half of those who die on the battlefield bleed to death
37:33Speedy treatment is vital
37:35As surgeon professor Harold Ellis explains
37:38This contains five litres of fluid
37:43The blood volume of a healthy young soldier
37:47If he is wounded he can lose half a litre
37:52Without really noticing it
37:55By the time two litres come out
37:59We are now starting to get into the really serious danger zone
38:02Unless something is done quickly
38:04He is going to bleed to death
38:06Most battlefield casualties die within 30 minutes
38:10But the German blood transfusion system is slow and cumbersome
38:15The operator would put a needle into the donor's vein
38:21Connect this via a syringe into a needle into the recipient's vein
38:27And then the operator would suck blood out of the donor
38:32Turn the tap round
38:33Squeeze it into the recipient
38:35Turn the tap round
38:36Very time consuming
38:38And of course it required donors
38:40Pulling chaps out of the line
38:42Instead of shooting the British
38:44The British have a different approach
38:47They don't need live donors
38:49Because they drive bottles of blood up to the front line
38:53You could put the needle into the recipient
38:57Hold up the bottle or hang it onto a tree or whatever
39:01And let the blood run through
39:03See in fact you could have a row of patients
39:05Twenty, thirty people
39:07All with their drips running
39:08With perhaps one or two men
39:10Looking after them
39:12It saved a fast number of lives
39:15With medical backup and numbers on his side
39:20Montgomery is confident he can wear down the enemy
39:24But his tanks are still stuck in Rommel's minefields
39:28So he pulls them out
39:37And launches a new attack on Rommel
39:39Near the coast with his Australian troops
39:41And an armoured division
39:43This is a crisis situation for Rommel
39:49Because supplies are now down to only three days
39:54Particularly of fuel
39:56Now Rommel has a dilemma
39:58Most of his tanks are in the south
40:01If he moves them up north to the coast
40:04They won't have enough petrol to go back
40:06If Montgomery launches another attack inland
40:10His instinct tells him the main point of the attack is in the north
40:17And he orders his reserve to move north
40:23Undoubtedly this is a brave decision
40:29Montgomery's Australian troops fight like dogs near the coast
40:33Under repeated attack from Rommel's men
40:37Among them is Private Percival Gratwick
40:40A gold prospector from Western Australia
40:44When his platoon commander, lieutenant and sergeant are killed
40:48He takes charge
40:51He storms an enemy strongpoint by hurling in two grenades
40:55Then climbs into the wreckage to kill the survivors
40:59He dies trying to charge a second outpost single-handed
41:04He is awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross
41:11It's precisely this kind of raw courage
41:22That Montgomery hopes will win the battle of El Alamein
41:25But will the desert fox bite back?
41:29Montgomery is confident that his plan is now back on track
41:36And that his battle of attrition is grinding Rommel down
41:41In this slogging match, all Rommel's skill in manoeuvre and outflanking count for nothing
41:50It's size that matters
41:54And Montgomery's army outnumbers Rommel's two to one
41:59Rommel is worried
42:03Dearest Lou, I haven't much hope left
42:10At night I lie with my eyes wide open
42:13Unable to sleep for the load that is on my shoulders
42:16In the day I'm dead tired
42:19What will happen if things go wrong here
42:23That is the thought that torments me day and night
42:26I can see no way out if that happens
42:29Rommel's decision to concentrate his forces in one place has left him vulnerable
42:37Rommel has had in a sense to put his eggs in one basket in the move to the north
42:43And although that was the correct thing to do
42:48He can't be strong everywhere
42:50After eight days of fighting, Rommel is on the ropes
42:54And Montgomery decides to go in for the kill
42:58While still pounding Rommel's troops on the coast
43:01He will hit him with another attack inland
43:04It will be, he says, a hard right followed by a knockout left
43:10Montgomery delivers the orders himself
43:15He later wrote
43:16This was the master plan
43:18And only the master could write it
43:20The plan works
43:25While Rommel is pinned down on the coast
43:28Montgomery's tanks finally break through a weak spot in his defences inland
43:33Rommel's position is parlous
43:36It must have been a high probability
43:39That the whole of Rommel's force would be completely destroyed
43:45And annihilated in situ
43:49Rommel asks Hitler for permission to withdraw
43:56An order comes personally from Hitler
43:59Which orders him to remain exactly where he is
44:02And give up not a meter of ground
44:05And up to this moment
44:06Rommel has believed in Hitler
44:09As something of a military genius
44:11When Rommel receives this order
44:14He goes berserk with his staff
44:17Ranting and raving about how
44:20The Führer's advisers must be mad
44:22The Führer must be mad
44:23This order is completely crazy
44:26Rommel fights on for one last day
44:33Then orders a retreat in defiance of Hitler
44:40The battle is over
44:42Rommel has just 12 tanks left out of 500
44:4530,000 of his soldiers
44:48A third of his army
44:49Are captured by Montgomery
44:51Rommel pulls what's left of his army
45:09Back to the border with Egypt and Libya
45:12There he learns that General Patton
45:14Has landed with allied troops
45:16In Morocco and Algeria
45:18He is trapped
45:19Montgomery has delivered the first resounding
45:23British victory of the war
45:25Egypt and the oil fields of the Middle East are safe
45:28British pride is restored
45:30A jubilant Churchill orders church bells
45:33To be rung throughout Britain
45:35For the first time since the war began
45:37Three years earlier
45:38Churchill of course was just over the moon
45:42About the whole business
45:44And the breaking out of celebrations in this country
45:48Let's ring the church bells
45:51It just was such a moment of exuberance
45:54If you like
45:55We can do this
45:56And Churchill had been saying all along
45:58We can beat the Bosch
45:59And now here we have
46:00And we're not going to stop now
46:03Until we've completely defeated him
46:04What a moment in history
46:09Montgomery was knighted after El Alamein
46:11He later became the deputy supreme commander
46:14Of NATO forces in Europe
46:16He lived to be 88
46:21Erwin Rommel escaped from the desert
46:26And continued to question Hitler's judgment
46:29After he was implicated in the plot to kill Hitler
46:34Rommel was offered the choice of suicide
46:36Or a show trial for treason
46:38Rommel killed himself with cyanide
46:41With cyanide
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