Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

MINE CLEARANCE AT EL ALAMEIN , 1942

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keen to hold onto their significant gains and wanted to avoid the reversals and ‘toing and froing’ that had typified the battles in North African of 1940-42. They had therefore established a formidable defensive position hoping that the 8th Army would attack it unsuccessfully and effectively destroy itself so that it would be unable to resist the subsequent advance of the Axis forces into Egypt. Much of this confidence was based on the series of failures by the 8th Army during the summer months and into September ending with the dismal failure to capture the Munassib Depression on the 29th of that month. At about that time there was the change in the defensive posture of the Panzerarmee, such that their forward outposts were thinned out but also extended in depth up to 1,000 yards and generally located in front of ‘Mine Boxes’, thus forming something of a checkerboard, where each ‘box’ could be supported by that on its flanks. Behind this line of outposts there was an unoccupied area varying from one to two kilometres in front of their main defence. The various sectors covered a frontage of about 1,500 yards each and were up to five kilometres in depth . 12 The German Engineers had recently gained experience in the advance across North Africa in just how difficult it was to breach minefields when under fire. It was this knowledge that prompted the Panzerarmee’s Chief Engineer, Colonel Hecker to instruct his German and Italian engineers to incorporate 14,509 anti- personnel mines (AP) randomly scattered in amongst some 249,849 anti-tank mines (AT) and a further 181,000 captured British mines, a total of 445,258 mines in his lines of defence. Unless fitted with a special device to withstand the weight of a man, any of these mines could be set off by a man standing on them. No other Army had used so many mines in its defence up to that period of the campaign, and the aim was simply to ensure that the 8th Army’s projected advance would be mired down in the minefield so that it could be counter- attacked. Rommel’s confidence in his ‘Devil’s Garden’, was such that he believed that any such counter-attack would destroy the 8th Army thereby allowing the Axis forces to ride on into Alexandria. 13 Mine Warfare The technical development of material, both of mines and the means to detect and remove them are only referred to in this paper in as much as they concern operations in the desert. The experience and techniques of mine warfare would become one of the major aspects of the desert war and it became one of the most important aspects of all Sapper work in the forthcoming battle. Before 1939, the development of armoured fighting vehicles had brought a growing realisation that some form of explosive barrier – the anti-tank mine - 12 Australian War Museum, Panzerarmee – to Lower Formations, dated 20th September 1942, taken from translation of a PA War diary – AWM54-492/4.77. Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate AMSRD-CER-NV-TR-220A , Breaching the “Devil’s Garden”, Operation Lightfoot, The Second Battle of El Alamein, 23 October 1942 (Fort Belvoir, VA, 2006), Appendices E2, E3 and F4 to 11. 13 Barr, p. 270.