page_title: Western Desert campaign
section_title: Battle of Alam el Halfa
hierarchical_section_title: Western Desert campaign / 1942 / Battle of Alam el Halfa
caption_attribution_description: A knocked out German Panzer III in the Western Desert.
context_page_description: The Western Desert campaign, took place in the deserts of Egypt and Libya and was the main theatre in the North African campaign of the Second World War. Military operations began in June 1940 with the Italian declaration of war and the Italian invasion of Egypt from Libya in September. Operation Compass, a British five-day raid in December 1940, led to the destruction of the Italian 10th Army. Benito Mussolini sought help from Adolf Hitler, who sent a small German force to Tripoli under Directive 22. The Afrika Korps was formally under Italian command as Italy was the main Axis power in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
  In the spring of 1941, Rommel led Operation Sonnenblume which pushed the Allies back to Egypt except for the Siege of Tobruk at the port. At the end of 1941 the Axis forces were defeated in Operation Crusader and retired again to El Agheila. In early 1942 Axis forces drove the Allies back again, then captured Tobruk after the Battle of Gazala but failed to destroy their opponents.
context_section_description: Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery took command of the Eighth Army in mid-August. Rommel tried to destroy the British and reach Cairo before Allied reinforcements, due in September, made an Axis victory in Africa impossible. Panzerarmee Afrika was in a poor state and  the physique of many of the Germans had declined due to the climate and battle exhaustion; 19,000 German troops had been in Africa since March 1941. Reinforcements had brought the four German divisions up to 90,000 men (17,000 men below establishment) and 12,600 vehicles, of which only 34,000 men were fighting troops. The Panzerarmee had accumulated about 200 German tanks and 243 Italian tanks against 700 British tanks.
  In the Battle of Alam el Halfa/Unternehmen Brandung (30 August – 5 September), the Axis sought to envelop the Eighth Army by a march around its southern flank. The British were forewarned by Ultra (decoded German radio messages) and left only patrols in the south. The bulk of the British tanks and guns were concentrated at Alam el Halfa Ridge, which blocked the Axis advance 20 mi (32 km) behind the front. The tanks stayed on the ridge and fought a static defensive engagement, rather than a battle of manoeuvre. Allied aircraft bombed and strafed the Axis troops continuously from 30 August to 4 September, which destroyed few tanks but pinned down and denied fast manoeuvre and concentration to the Panzerarmee. Axis attacks on the ridge failed, supplies ran short and Rommel ordered a withdrawal on 2 September. Late on 3 September, a New Zealand and a British brigade counter-attacked to cut off the Axis retreat but Operation Beresford was a costly failure and by 5 September the Axis retreat was complete. The Eighth Army lost 1,750 men and 68 tanks; the Axis lost 2,900 men, 49 tanks, 36 aircraft, 60 guns and 400 lorries.
caption: Knocked out Panzer III near El Alamein, 1942
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