Time to go back to El Alamein were in the middle of 1942 there was great Axis pressure on the desert fighters. It was in June 1942 that Rommel was finally able to capture Tobruk with 35,000 prisoners of war.
At the end of June, the Australian 9th division was ordered back to Egypt, arriving in July. The following battles prevented Rommel from advancing further into Egypt also even though he gained ground this took him further away from his supply lines in Libya. The Allies bombing of the German supply ships caused him stress, he was worried about the lack of petrol. In October he was planning a 12-day battle but only had enough fuel for 11 days.
It was under a full moon on 23 October the Allies let lose a massive bombardment against Rommel’s lines, at 9pm fire from 900 medium and field guns lit up the night sky. The front extended about 60 kilometres running North to South.
There were three phases of the battle with the first two days being devoted to preparing the way for the Eighth Army to break through the enemy line. The next seven days and nights saw crumbling operations, with the final phase saw the Allies break through and Rommel retreating.
Although there was only around 14,000 Aussies involved out of the 220,000 strong Allies their contribution was considered a crucial one.
The main task of the Aussies was to form a strong flank in the northern sector they were required to draw Axis fire on the northern flank while other divisions broke through on the south. The fighting was fierce and at times hand to hand with many amazing, courageous acts as soldiers stormed the enemy post dying will doing so.
The 2/48th battalion received four posthumous Victoria Crosses during the war.
Rommel wrote that the British resisted desperately, with rivers of blood being poured over miserable stirps of land.
Another miserable but important strip of land was near the railway and was known as the “saucer”. This position was under attack for several days and was defended by the 2/24th & 2/28th and reinforced by a British tank regiment and a Rhodesian battery of anti-tank guns.
The climax of the battle of El Alamein came at the start of November with the start of operation Supercharge which succeeded in storming through enemy lines.
By the end of 1942 even though Aussie’s were still under fire the prospects were much improved compared with the start of the year. The Japanese had withdrawn from Papua and the Yanks were fighting back on Guadalcanal. Northern Australia was now a secure military base for the Aussies and the Yanks.
Winston Churchill said after the battle od El Alamein “his is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps the end of the beginning”.
Jo-AnneRamplings 
Dearest Jo-Anne,
What a fate: courageous acts as soldiers stormed the enemy post dying while doing so. One cannot even imagine what those men did for achieving in the end the peace after a gruesome WWII.
May they all have their heavenly award for giving their lives.
Hugs,
Mariette
I agree they were brave men and so many would have been traumatised from the war, my grandfather would spend a month once or twice a year at Concord Repatriation Hospital to treat his anxiety after the war.
Your Grandfather was a brave man also and he paid for that his entire life.
Even my Pieter who lived through the war as a teen, and had to evacuate with his Parents and two older brothers, it traumatized him. That came to the surface quite strong in the end of his life! People try to suppress such images and impressions but in the end, it gets only magnified! Some people had to endure a lot over the history of our world. Like for Pieter at age 16 coming home from evacuation to find the house destroyed and greenhouses shattered. For weeks they had to collect the glass off the land and start all over! Yes, at age 16 Pieter did help rebuild many greenhouses and was quite good at laying glass and caulking it in. Till he one time fell through the glass when walking on those metal rods, that caused slits in his sneakers. He landed between the Asparagus plumosis plants with the glass and concrete following him… Old fashioned greenhouses used to have concrete glass bars and one was rotten! He only had a few scratches so he was very lucky!
Memories of a person’s life. Pieter wrote a book in 2012 for his adopted daughter Liz. It had printed questions to fill in and tell about. Most of them didn’t make any sense as Pieter’s teen years were during WWII and that is not normal life!
Hugs,
Mariette
Dear Mariette
Growing up during a war makes one’s life complicated, stressful and far from normal.
At the end of pop’s life he kept thinking he was back in Papua and the Japs were all over the place trying to kill him it was distressing for mum to see him like he was