Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

MINE CLEARANCE AT EL ALAMEIN , 1942

201

and the scarcity of supplies from the home country forced the engineer authorities in the Middle East to improvise. Various types of detectors were developed of greater or less efficiency, but, owing to shortage of suitable parts, they were produced in woefully small numbers. There is a record of the Chief Engineer (CE) of the 8th Army doling out a total of 13 to the whole Army in November 1941. 18 So, for some time to come, detection was chiefly carried out by the primitive methods of inspection of the surface, prodding with bayonets, or feeling with the fingers, and when discovered mines were lifted by hand. This lifting was always a dangerous and nerve-wracking job, but from an early stage it was made still more exacting because the enemy began to connect booby-traps to the mines, which exploded when the mine was moved. As noted above, anti-personnel mines were also laid in anti-tank fields to make clearance more difficult and dangerous. These booby-traps in their simplest form consisted of a second mine or charge laid beneath the first and connected to it by a pull detonating device. Later, standard attachments were connected to mines that had the same effect. The need for a more thorough knowledge of mine warfare, and of improved techniques and anti-mine equipment became obvious. To this end Brigadier Frederick Kisch, the Chief Engineer of the 8th Army was delegated by Montgomery to provide the required technical expertise in order to make practicable the latter’s battle plan which depended upon effective mine clearance. So how did the Eighth Army cope with this Problem? In the previous two years of war in the desert, lack of any formal method of laying and gapping minefields, had led to all Divisional Engineers being asked to perform the almost impossible task of creating adequate passages through their own and the enemies’ minefields. 19 Awareness of this led to Montgomery’s instruction to Kisch mentioned above. In consequence, the latter had the awesome responsibility of ensuring that his Sappers could provide the required gaps through the various enemy minefields to the west of Alamein and that they would be able to do it in one night. In order to ensure this he created a School of Mine Warfare. In early August 1942, Kisch held a conference of all Corps and Divisional Chief Engineers (CE) and Commanders Royal Engineers (CRE). The outcome was that they were tasked to: i) write reports on ‘best practice’ for minefield clearance. ii) train Sappers and then the men of other service arms to identify and lift mines. The methods used were not necessarily the same in each Corps, but what was similar was the formation of Minefield Task Forces in each formation. 20

18 Pakenham-Walsh, p. 369. 19 C.E. Lucas Phillips, Alamein (London: Heineman, 1962), p. 95. 20 J. Lucas, War in the Desert (New York: Beaufort Books, Inc., 1982), p. 113, hereafter cited as Lucas.