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The Day Rommel Was Stopped - The Battle of Ruweisat Ridge, 2 July 1942 (Paperback)
Loot Price: R440
Discovery Miles 4 400
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The Day Rommel Was Stopped - The Battle of Ruweisat Ridge, 2 July 1942 (Paperback)
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Loot Price R440
Discovery Miles 4 400
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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George VI's biographer, Sir John Wheeler Bennett wrote "The actual
turning of the tide in the 2nd World War may be accurately
determined as the first week of July 1942." This book argues that
it is possible to be even more exact: the tide turned at about
21.00 hrs on 2 July 1942, when Rommel's tanks withdrew for the
first time since the fall of Tobruk on 20 June, or arguably since
14 January 1942 at El Agheila. At dusk on Wednesday 1 July 1942,
Rommel broke through the centre of the British defences at Alamein.
His tanks had overwhelmed the gallant defence of the 18th Indian
Infantry Brigade in the Deir el Shein at the foot of the Ruweisat
Ridge. At that moment, and for the next twelve hours, there was no
further organised defence between the spearhead of the Afrika Korps
and Alexandria. Throughout the next day, only a handful of men and
guns stood between Rommel and his prize. In Cairo, black clouds of
smoke from burning files showed that many people believed Rommel
would not stop short of the Suez Canal, his stated objective. But,
on Friday 3 July at 22.56 hrs, only 48 hours later, Rommel called
off his attack and ordered his troops to dig in where they stood.
The Delta was saved. Just a few weeks earlier, the 18th Indian
Infantry Brigade, which took the brunt of the initial attack on 1
July, and the guns of the small column known as Robcol that stopped
Rommel on 2 and 3 of July, had been in northern Iraq. General
Auchinleck's desperate measure, pulling them 1,500 miles from Iraq
into the Western desert, just succeeded but it greatly increased
the price of failure. If Robcol had failed, it is doubtful that
Rommel would have stopped at the canal; it does not require much
imagination to see his forces threatening to link up with
Barbarossa in the Ukraine. This vivid account of the battle of
Ruweisat Ridge, the beginning of the battle of Alamein, was written
by an officer who was part of Robcol on the fateful day.
General
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