Supercharge at El Alamein

The Second Battle of El Alamein had opened on 23 October 1942 with a massive artillery barrage backed by air attacks. Its first phase, known as “Break-In,” sent the British XXX Corps against the northern sector while XIII Corps mounted a subsidiary attack in the south. By 2 November, the British were trying to turn that opening into a breach the Axis forces could not hold.

Operation Supercharge, the battle’s final phase, began before dawn. Allied troops attacked from a salient captured earlier in the fighting, aiming to break through the Axis lines. The assault fell around Tel el Aqqaqir. The task was blunt: get through the German defences and the minefields, then send the tanks beyond them. It was not a clean start. The infantry took most of their objectives, but at first light the 9th Armoured Brigade charged the Axis anti-tank gun line and lost most of its tanks. Later that morning the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions counter-attacked and were beaten back, losing about 100 tanks.

Erwin Rommel’s position had become increasingly narrow. That night, General Wilhelm von Thoma reported that the Afrika Korps would have at most 35 tanks fit to fight the next day, with fuel and ammunition short. Rommel signalled Adolf Hitler and began preparing a withdrawal to Fuka.

The fighting did not produce an immediate passage through. The British faced a costly two-day struggle against German defences and minefields before their tanks finally broke through. Rommel ordered a withdrawal, and his battered formations streamed west. The attack had not made the desert easier to cross; it had made remaining in place harder. Supercharge was the last phase of Montgomery’s battle at El Alamein, and its purpose was achieved by forcing a way through the position Rommel had been trying to hold.