Devil's gardens
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The Devil's gardens was the name given by Erwin Rommel, commander of the German Afrika Korps during World War II, to the defensive entanglements of land mines and barbed wire protecting his positions at El Alamein in late 1942.
During the 'break-in' phase of the battle, British commander Lt General Bernard Montgomery planned for engineer troops supporting infantry brigades of 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-vehicle mines. These did not work as well as had been hoped and manual methods of clearing had to be resorted to. This would have been more difficult, had the minefields not been sown with relatively few anti-personnel mines.[1]
An estimated 3 million mines were laid before the battle, most of which remain in position to this day, becoming more unstable as the years pass and injuring local people who use the area.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Schneck, William. Breaching the Devil's Garden: The 6th New Zealand Brigade in Operation Lightfoot. The Second Battle of El Alamein. 2005. US Army Communcations-Electronics Command
- ^ Sixty years on and the El Alamein armaments still maim. The Daily Telegraph, 19th October 2002. [1] accessed 16th April 2007
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