Moths remember El Alamein

THE MOTHS of Freedom Shellhole remembered the Second Battle of El Alamain on Friday. At a short ceremony at the cenotaph in the grounds of St Peter’s Anglican Church in High Street, they stood at attention as the Last Post and Reveille were played.

To the day, Friday was the 73rd anniversary of the start of the battle. The Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 11 November 1942) took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein.

With the Allies victorious, it marked a major turning point in the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War.

It followed the First Battle of El Alamein, which had stalled the Axis advance into Egypt, after which, in August 1942, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery had taken command of the British Eighth Army from General Claude Auchinleck.

This victory turned the tide in the North African Campaign and ended the Axis threat to Egypt, the Suez Canal, and of gaining access to the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields via North Africa.

From a psychological perspective, Second El Alamein revived the morale of the Allies, being the first major offensive against the Axis since the start of the European war in 1939 in which the Western Allies had achieved a decisive victory.

The battle coincided with the Allied invasion of French North Africa in Operation Torch, which started 8 November.

-Information from Wikipedia.