Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 99/397

MINE CLEARANCE AT EL ALAMEIN , 1942

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the problem at all, was in itself a major achievement.

Mine gap clearance In the combat zone of the battlefield, the priority was to breach the enemy minefield quickly in order to create a safe path for troops, armour and ‘soft skin’ vehicles. Speed was vital, both for tactical reasons and because units attempting to breach minefields would probably be under enemy fire. Both anti-tank [AT] and anti-personnel [AP] mines had to be removed in the lanes through which troops or vehicles were intended to advance. Sappers could not be expected to carry out the tasks of creating gaps in minefields as well as fighting off enemy interference. It was therefore essential that all such Sapper groups be protected by an infantry screen backed up by armour – creating a small mobile bridgehead behind which Sappers could carry out the task of ‘breaching’. The risk to Sappers was far greater because they were called upon to perform clearance against almost impossible schedules and in all-weather conditions. Invariably what this meant, was that the infantry, following a lead Sapper, had the frightening experience, in the full knowledge of the consequences of carelessness, of crossing at night a totally unfamiliar strip of desert known to be liberally strewn with mines. The disadvantages for Sappers was that they were dealing with mines that did not respond predictably to clearance, that had ‘migrated’ or been ‘booby-trapped’ and that may have degraded because of both time and corrosion thereby becoming extra-sensitive. Furthermore, it had to be accepted that mine clearance would be imperfect and that Command had to expect and accept casualties from undiscovered mines. The real problem was not the gapping of the Allied minefield; it was the unknown ground beyond – the strip of no-man’s-land and then the deep ‘mine marshes’ of the Axis defence belts of Teller and or Shu mines, booby-trapped with thermite and aerial bombs. To illustrate something of the courage and morale fortitude that was required of young men in the face of the enemy, the following are extracts from a narrative by Corporal Harris RE: I don’t know how well the earlier battles had been organised, but the minefield gapping for Alamein was first class. One of the most nerve-racking things in mine clearing was finding out where the front edge of the field was located. It was really a hit or miss affair, and to add confusion Jerry often mixed in the normal anti-tank (AT) Teller mine with anti-personnel (AP) S mines. For Alamein, we had a couple of the new Polish type detectors, which we had seen at the Eighth Army Mine Training School. But the use of the Polish detector produced a new problem; one of morale, where the operator was required to stand erect to sweep the arc on his front. It required more than the usual courage to be upright among the shot and shell that was flying across the battlefield, all the while listening in the headphones for the change in the whining signal that would indicate a possible buried mine.