Devil's gardens
The Devil's gardens was the name given by Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall)
During the 'break-in' phase of the British attack, the commander of the Eighth Army, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, planned for engineers supporting the infantry brigades of the 2nd New Zealand Division to clear lanes through the minefields, along which attacking formations would pass into the Axis positions. Engineers using hand tools were supplemented by Scorpion tanks equipped with rotating flails to explode anti-tank mines. The Scorpions did not work well and manual clearing had to be employed, which would have been more difficult, had the minefields been sown with more anti-personnel mines.[3]
An estimated 3 million mines were laid before the battle, most of which remain and are becoming more unstable and dangerous.[1][4]
References
- ^ a b "Sixty years on and the El Alamein armaments still maim". The Daily Telegraph. 19 October 2002. Archived from the original on 31 July 2010. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
- ^ خارج القاهرة: ربع مليون فدان آلغام بمطروح Archived 2016-03-30 at the Wayback Machine - ONTV - 13 Jan 2012 (in Arabic)
- ^ Schneck, William. Breaching the Devil's Garden: The 6th New Zealand Brigade in Operation Lightfoot. The Second Battle of El Alamein. 2005. US Army Communications-Electronics Command
- ^ "Lethal landmine legacy from battle of El Alamein". BBC News. 20 March 2010.