Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

MINE CLEARANCE AT EL ALAMEIN , 1942

195

terrain) between the Mediterranean Sea and the Qattara Depression. The principal of these boxes was about El Alamein itself and was designed originally for occupation by a Division. The other two, near Deir el Qattara and Gebel Khirag respectively, were each to be garrisoned by a Brigade Group. The intention was that each locality be provided with concrete pillboxes, which were already largely completed, anti-tank guns, automatic weapons, observation positions (OP), as well as earthwork fire trenches, the whole being surrounded by barbed-wire obstacles. Parts of the El Alamein ‘Box’ were further protected by excavated and concrete anti-tank obstacles, and obstacles for the same purpose were provided for the two smaller localities by cutting vertical escarpments into the sides of the hills on which they were situatedwith mechanical plant. 5 In the fighting in June and July, some of the forward defences, including those near Deir el Qattara and Jebel Khirag, were overrun by the enemy who had breached the southern minefields; with only the most northerly box around El Alamein remaining within the control of the 8th Army. Most serious of all was the fact that Allies’ line no longer extended right up to the Depression but was taken back to a point near a conspicuous peak – Qaret el Himeimat, leaving a gap of good-going, but overlooked from Himeimat itself and the higher ground of the Taqa plateau, and along the northern edge of the Depression. Between the two flanks, the country over which the Allied defended line ran, was a bewildering mixture of ridges and depressions with many patches of soft sand providing some of the worst ‘going’ ever encountered in the desert. At the northern end, the seashore was edged with salt marshes inland from which, in a narrow strip less than two miles wide, the road and railway ran parallel to each other. Just south of the railway, the 8th Army had, because of operations in July, pushed its original line westward to include two small ridges known as Tell el Eisha and Tell el Makhkhad, thus forming a salient. At the southern end of the position, the northern slopes of the Ruweisat Ridge lie some twelve miles from El Alamein. This long and narrow ridge rises about 200 feet, and generally runs east and west, turning slightly northwards at its western extremity. In rear of this portion of the front, south-east of the Ruweisat Ridge, was a second and higher feature extending in a north-easterly direction, called the Alam el Halfa Ridge, commanding the country to the south, on which a strong position defended by wire and minefields had been laid out. The whole front of some fifty-five kilometres was covered by a huge triple minefield, which extended from the coast almost to the Taqa plateau just north of the Depression, in addition to the defensive minefields protecting the individual boxes. 6 In August, the northern area, down to and including the Ruweisat Ridge, was held by XXX Corps, whilst XIII Corps held the southern sector. The New Zealanders held the western face of the XXX Corps’s front with 44th Division on their left, the two

5 Ibid., p. 375. 6 Ibid., p. 377.