Moths commemorate El Alamein
A SMALL detachment of Moth members from Vryheid’s Freedom Shellhole paraded at the cenotaph at St Peter’s Anglican Church in High Street on Sunday afternoon. They were commemorating the Second Battle of El Alamein that took place 75 years ago in the western desert of Egypt, and is regarded as a turning point in World War II.
A SMALL detachment of Moth members from Vryheid’s Freedom Shellhole paraded at the cenotaph at St Peter’s Anglican Church in High Street on Sunday afternoon. They were commemorating the Second Battle of El Alamein that took place 75 years ago in the western desert of Egypt, and is regarded as a turning point in World War II.
Also read: Moths remember the Battle of Rorke’s Drift
The battle took place from October 23 to November 11, 1942, and is named for the insignificant Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein, near which it began. With the Allies victorious, it marked the watershed of the Western Desert Campaign. The First Battle of El Alamein had prevented Italian and German forces from advancing further into Egypt; this second battle ended the Axis threat to Egypt, the Suez Canal and the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields via North Africa.
British figures gave German casualties as 1,149 killed, 3,886 wounded and 8,050 men captured. Italian losses were 971 dead, 933 wounded and 15,552 men captured. By November 11, the number of Axis prisoners had risen to 30,000 men. On November 4, only 36 German tanks were left out of the 249 at the beginning of the battle. About half of the 278 Italian tanks had been lost and most of the remainder were knocked out on the next day by the 7th Armoured Division.
The British Eighth Army had 13,560 casualties, of whom 2,350 men had been killed, 8,950 wounded and 2,260 men were missing; 58 percent of the casualties were British, 22 percent Australian, 10 percent New Zealanders, six percent South African, one percent Indian and three percent were Allied forces. The Eighth Army lost from 332–500 tanks, although by the end of the battle, 300 had already been repaired.
The Moths will next commemorate Remembrance Day with the sale of poppies at Spar and Pick ‘n Pay supermarkets on Saturday, November 11. The Remembrance Day parade will be held on Sunday, November 12, at 11:00am at the cenotaph in the grounds of St Peter’s Anglican Church in High Street.
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