Battle of El Alamein - 1942 | Movietone Moment | 23 October 2020

On this day in 1942, Britain launched a major offensive in El Alamein, Egypt. Here is a British Movietone report about the Second Battle of El Alamein.
First pictures of the new advance in the Middle East. The Battle of El Alamein, under the leadership of General Montgomery, men from all parts of Britain and the Dominions fought their way forward. Rommel is now on the retreat in North Africa.
Shotlist:
Cut story - This commences with a few scenes of North Africa, a map of the Mediterranean, mix to Eisenhower pointing to map on the wall. Aerial shot of coast, fade to map of Egypt. Shot of battlefield, tanks filled with petrol and loaded with ammunition. Good shots of a barrage at night. CU breech of artillery gun. Hits registered on Mark IV tanks. Troops wait to go over the top, crawling along, running with fixed bayonets - explosions. Troops advancing through the dust. Bren gun fired. Explosions, troops shelter behind wrecked Mark IV tank. Aerial of advancing army. Mitchells and Baltimores in formation, bombs leave bomb bay - doors close. Ack-Ack passing out planes. MS Coningham and Montgomery outside the tent. Sherman and Grant tanks on the move and firing. Minefield being cleared. Hundreds of prisoners being brought in, Pan of the battle, tanks advancing. CU Sherman tanks advance, also of bombs leaving plane and bomb door closing.
Disclaimer: British Movietone is an historical collection. Any views and expressions within either the video or metadata of the collection are reproduced for historical accuracy and do not represent the opinions or editorial policies of the Associated Press.
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[@SB-fk2dz]

Thank you,much love

[@davidswain1240]

My Dad was in the RASC 7th which moved to the eight army. He was in the North African campaign. And I have his Star of Africa medal

[@martiniv8924]

Mine too 🙌🏻

[@tmdrm9817]

My grandad fought in this battle I think. Well he fought in north africa.

[@bernard48]

My Dad was there also, both great men!

[@user-cd1mx5dw9k]

My dad join there too

[@Paul-dz6fs]

The night I lost an Uncle who is in the Alamein Military Cemetary who was only there so he could save up to get married. She never married, staying true to my Uncle for the rest of her life 😢

[@v12ts.gaming]

This is somewhat recommened to me. Maybe it's because of one of COD Vanguard's Missions about Lucas Riggs' flashback...

[@garychristison5773]

Sometimes it's all about being in the right place at the right time. This battle coincided with the Brits cracking the German's enigma machine. Monty knew every Rommel move ahead of time. You can't announce that you cracked the code, you announce that Monty is a better general than Rommel.

[@thevillaaston7811]

Enigma was cracked before Alamein.

[@georgehunton4786]

Gary Christian : An American liason officer Col Fellows was given every detail of British plans and order of battle for the next day, which he duly signaled to Washington every night in great detail. Trouble was the Italians had stolen the American codes from the American Embassy in Rome and passed them to the Germans who were reading this code and passing the readings to Rommel throughout the desert war. This meant that Rommel knew each night what the British were going to do the next day. He called it his Good Source. This accounted for his early success. But eventually the Aussies captured Rommel's signal station which was deciphering the American code which put an end to his Good Source which meant he had no further success in the desert.

[@alastairbarkley6572]

Fellowes did immense harm with the anti-British vitriol he blathered to Washington in a crappy, insecure American cipher - all intercepted and decrypted by the Germans. When his treacherous incompetence was discovered, he fled N Africa and hid in the US. The British would have shot him as a spy if they'd got their hands on him.

[@CarlJohnson-wk3rv]

@@thevillaaston7811 the enigma was cracked before the war had even started

[@thevillaaston7811]

@@CarlJohnson-wk3rv The Poles, with the help of the French had got into Enigma, but there was still a huge task to get into German coded messages on a regular basis, particularly as the Germans refined the Enigma technology. Furrther, the British penetrated the much more complicated 'Geheime Schreiber' (Secret Writer) used for German High Command messages.

[@gwine9087]

I had the great honour of staying at a B&B run by an old "Desert Rat". As he said, "I was over there with Monty". A really great old fella.

[@thewoody1950]

I have a great uncle still there.🎺 Fought with the AIF 2/28 Bn Australian Infantry🇦🇺

[@rizkikurniawan3895]

I was played Call of Duty Vanguard and immediately searching this video 👀

[@v12ts.gaming]

Oddly enough it got recommended to me instead...

[@aritradas147]

Fight

[@timkimball793]

of course this clip has NOTHING to do with el alamein or actual combat, tho it does appear most of the clips were staged in north africa, probably egypt. a feel good piece for britain and the usa. NO COMBAT occured in the shooting of any clip, except the aerial bombing.

[@ospreybird]

:-)

[@Mr007reviews]

Dang I wish Britain was still a superpower

[@SMGJohn]

Maybe would have been if the Union leaders of the 20s and 30s wanted victory in the great strikes, the Communist party at the time had no plans whatsoever about decolonisation. Quite the opposite, they wanted the entire Empire to become one nation, one giant super power to challenge the hegemony of all Capitalist Empires.

[@estellemelodimitchell8259]

You ain’t wrong in that respect. It was a superpower.

[@sinogarcon]

The Empire was always going to be lost after going through two world wars. It was simply exhausted. And when Labour was elected in 1946, all was academic.

[@flosbuttocks4444]

My dad was in the British Army at the battle of El Alamein. As he told me: "After the war Britain was exhausted & broke, but AMERICA was thriving. Britain had sent all of its gold reserves to Canada, to pay the Americans for weapons. The war lifted America out of its Depression. They then realised that WAR was good for the economy." (And it isn't "Britain" anymore, it's now BRITAINISTAN.)

[@somebody1241]

@@flosbuttocks4444 We Turkey have lots of Gold in Britain for a long time