El Alamein

[Virgil61]

I finished watching an Italian movie called "El Alamein" filmed a couple of years ago. It tells the story of the battle from the point of view of a young Italian lieutenant who volunteered for combat and the infantry company he's assigned to with the Pavia Infantry division. The film is a bleak look at how the Italian troops were left to fend for themselves by their own commanders and with little resources at their disposal. The battle scenes are decent, not as good as they could be in the sense they probably didn't have the technical resources or budget an American film would've had, but good enough to give a sense of combat.

 

Things are pretty tough on the line, water is in short supply, soldiers have to loot the packs of dead Brits (technically I think Anzacs may have been opposite them) in order to get things like canned fruit, investigate the loss of communication with a Bersagliari scout position and the constant artillery barrages which decimates much of the company's fighting strength.

 

It comes to a head in a final series of defensive battles prior to which much of the more mobile German army retreats leaving the foot infantry like the Pavia and adjacent Folgore Airborne Division on their own. Outnumbered and out gunned the company commander finally tries to lead the remnants of his unit back to the Axis rear through the North African desert.

 

It has excellent cinematography that highlight the starkness of the desert, which is in Morocco and not Egypt where the battle occurred and it won the Italian version of the Academy Awards. I watched it in the original Italian, which wasn't terribly difficult 50% of the time--my Italian is only fair--but I got the gist of most of it. I'm not sure if there is an English sub-titled version out yet but there are Dutch and German ones available.

 

Good stuff if you're interested in El Alamein.

Edited May 6, 2006 by Virgil61

[Tobias]

My grandfather fought at El Alamein, as part of the 12th Lancers. He's had a stroke, so i can't exactly talk to him about the battles around that place these days, but that has served to pique my interest.

 

This movie sounds familiar; i may have seen it.

 

The ANZACs were at El Alamein, but they are more famous in North Africa for the Battles of Tobruk

[Virgil61]

My grandfather fought at El Alamein, as part of the 12th Lancers. He's had a stroke, so i can't exactly talk to him about the battles around that place these days, but that has served to pique my interest.

 

This movie sounds familiar; i may have seen it.

 

The ANZACs were at El Alamein, but they are more famous in North Africa for the Battles of Tobruk

 

It's a shame about his stroke, he's got a lot to be proud of though. My grandfatheron my Mom's side was in the Italian army and taken prisoner although I don't know the details. He spent most of his internment at a POW camp in Scotland and wasn't repatriated until 1947.

[Tobias]

Your grandfather too has a lot to be proud of. Scotland would have been an ok place to spend the war

 

If General Rommel had succeeded and taken El Alamein, eventually the Suez Canal, and hence the gates to the oilfields of the Middle East, the world may have a different face on it to today. El Alamein was a pivotal point in WWII, and it's a shame that it's not as well known.

[FLavius Valerius Constantinus]

I find it that WWII was sorta won on luck because there were so many pivotal

battles that could have changed the world. The Normandy Invasions, Stalingrad, the Russian oil fields, El Alamein, Battle of the Bulge, the battle at Midway, and etc...

 

Just my opinion

[Rameses the Great]

My grandfather fought at El Alamein, as part of the 12th Lancers. He's had a stroke, so i can't exactly talk to him about the battles around that place these days, but that has served to pique my interest.

 

This movie sounds familiar; i may have seen it.

 

The ANZACs were at El Alamein, but they are more famous in North Africa for the Battles of Tobruk

 

Tell your grandfather he is a brave man, he saved my motherland. Around the Suez Canal there were a lot of Jewish people living there, without the stopping in advance who knows he may have entered Jerusalem.

[Ursus]

While not depreciating the bravery of the Allied soldiers, I believe it was the British codebreakers who ultimately won North Africa from Rommel (although Montgomery seemed more than happy to take full credit).

[Tobias]

Yes, the people at Bletchly Park certainly deserve a lot of credit, and Montgomery did his fair share too. It certainly helps to know your enemy's battle strategy and his supply routes

[Pantagathus]

Around the Suez Canal there were a lot of Jewish people living there, without the stopping in advance who knows he may have entered Jerusalem.

 

While it's true that there were Jewish settlers (Zionists in the original sense of the word) in Palestine at the time, the State of Israel didn't exist yet Ramses...

[Kosmo]

At Alamein Rommel had no chance of wining. The numers were so great on the british said that it was a metter of time to crush the Afrika Corps. The war in the desert was fought amaizingly well by the outnumbered germans with little equipment. I think the best description comes from B.L. Hart.

A clear proof of what leadership means.

[Rameses the Great]

I saw the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. for school. I live in Pittsburgh. I'm pretty sure you have been there before too Virgil. I was shocked and heartbroken. I saw the story of how Rommel was reluctant to be amidst a sandstorm, preventing his tanks from beeing annihalated. I learned how the Russians stumbled upon the concentration camps, and no one believed them. I saw things so shocking I could not look at all. I've seen the story of a Jewish boy named Jim, who was slowly neglected by his peers and disowned by his country. I saw how they would do awful things, because of an imaginary 'perfect race.' Hitler should have realized that was his first mistake.

 

I learned many things, things that were awful. The most important thing I learned was

'NEVER AGAIN.'

[Tobias]

At my school here in Australia, we recently got a young new teacher, who came from England. She questioned us about ANZAC day here, and why we would want to continue to remember the wars Australia participated in. She commented that she had little use for days like ANZAC day and Remembrance Day. I must admit that i was rather surprised; i would have thought a British person would understand why these days exist.

These days exist so that we don't forget the horrors of war. I felt rather worried that if a new teacher should believe that such days and commemorations were unnecessary, then how many others believe the same thing? If the belief that we don't need to remember the atrocoties of the wars catches on, then Wars on a similar, or worse, scale will certainly occur again.

 

..anyway, that's just my two bob's worth for today ...

Edited May 16, 2006 by Tobias

[Kosmo]

The remebering of Holocaust it's too exceptional to have an effect. There were many similar things, but they are slowly forgotten.

[Virgil61]

At my school here in Australia, we recently got a young new teacher, who came from England. She questioned us about ANZAC day here, and why we would want to continue to remember the wars Australia participated in. She commented that she had little use for days like ANZAC day and Remembrance Day. I must admit that i was rather surprised; i would have thought a British person would understand why these days exist.

These days exist so that we don't forget the horrors of war. I felt rather worried that if a new teacher should believe that such days and commemorations were unnecessary, then how many others believe the same thing? If the belief that we don't need to remember the atrocoties of the wars catches on, then Wars on a similar, or worse, scale will certainly occur again.

 

..anyway, that's just my two bob's worth for today ...

 

Good lord what a nitwit. Anyone argue the point back?

 

On the other side of the coin here in the US it would have made Fox News as a lead story.

[longbow]

At my school here in Australia, we recently got a young new teacher, who came from England. She questioned us about ANZAC day here, and why we would want to continue to remember the wars Australia participated in. She commented that she had little use for days like ANZAC day and Remembrance Day. I must admit that i was rather surprised; i would have thought a British person would understand why these days exist.

 

Im surprised at her view too,Remembrance day is a pretty big deal in Britain still.Everyone wears poppy's leading up to the sunday(especially in schools) and the parade at the cenotaph where all the WW1 and WW2 veterans march past the royal family is televised on the BBC and ITV.It must just be her personnal opinion but i assure you its not the opinion of most of the British.