The World at War s01e08 Episode Script

This land was made for the war.
As the glass it resists the heat, also this hard and calcined land it resists the corrosive impact of the battles.
This is not a land feminine núbia and, nor it has prados green and virginais war to violate it.
This land is hard and inviolable.
The World in War The Desert North of Africa 1940 - 1943 Benito Mussolini declares war to France and Great-Britain.
Combatants of the land and the sea e of air! Italian people, to the weapons! They show to the world your will.
your courage.
your value! As one old Roman consul, Mussolini yearned for for an African empire.
Already it had massacreed the abissínios and overwhelmd the Lybians.
Now it wanted more.
In 1940 we were not prepared to enter in war.
It was a movement politics on the part of Mussolini that it found that Hitler was earning very fast excessively e that, if it did not take any type of initiative, it could not sit down to the table of the negotiations.
Mussolini turned over for Egypt, Egypt of Nile e of the Suez Canal.
In the Fall of 1940, it sent 250 a thousand soldiers for the Lybian neighbor e more 300 a thousand for the Etiópia.
In Egypt, they only faced the 30 a thousand British soldiers of the Force of the Desert Occidental person.
when the Battle of England it was hot, the men of Mussolini had left for the conquest of Egypt.
In numerical inferiority, the British troops had withdrawn.
After 4, the troops of Mussolini had 4 days arrived the Sidi Barrani, They would go to stop there, the 500 km of distance of the Cairo.
Withdrawing in the time, he is extraordinary as we enter in Egypt.
They were gigantic columns, not very well proteges, because we did not have tanks.
E each one of them was fixed in a species of fortified field.
This helped, obviously, general O'Connor.
General O'Connor, the British commander, it uses this place stops to plan a counterattack.
The Italians had several fortified fields e, as they were moved away ones of the others, we find that they would not obtain to defend itself.
Then, our troops they had attacked them for the rear, for where the provisionses arrived.
The operation of O'Connor it had to last four days, because it was the limit of the tanks available, that they were in the last ones, E also for the logistic one, in terms of water, fuel and the ammunition.
They had used the factor surprise and they had attacked the Italians for Sidi Barrani e, of morning, the resistance Italian had disappeared.
The great fact of O'Connor it was to use captured vehicles e water and fuel also captured.
Thus it obtained to draw out this battle of four days, transforming it into an offensive one of some weeks.
It obtained to arrive until Bengasi e until El Agheila.
She had been captured an area of the size of France and Great-Britain.
For the British ones it was an incredible victory and chance, therefore in Great-Britain raides aerial they increased of ferocity.
For Mussolini, only six months after entering in the war, the defeat was one revés in its imperial pretensions.
Mussolini says: "I want a thousand died Italians stops to seat me to the table of the negotiations.
" E, is obvious, cost more than what this.
prisoners had been made.
They were annoying, were contented for if relieving.
We knew that we were in lesser number, e we saw when them to take thousand of war prisoners it was a joy.
We called "gentlemen to them".
"There the gentlemen go.
" Tripoli, the capital of the Lybian, it was to the reach of O'Connor.
But Churchill ordered the best ones forces of O'Connor to defend Greece of the nazista threat.
He was obvious that we did not obtain to defend together Greece and Tripoli.
We could have taken Tripoli e later we arrived at Greece.
We lose an enormous chance to finish the war in Africa.
It was a fatal error to order the troops for Greece.
If we had soon advanced, we could have banished them.
I take the blame myself for not having done.
It does not have any excuse.
Hitler comes in salvation of Mussolini.
A small mobile force part for Tripoli.
A force that soon would be known as "Afrika Korps".
The objective of the Afrika Korps it was to catch the biggest number possible of British troops e to cover the south flank of the Europe.
We never wanted to conquer Egypt or to cross the Suez Canal.
The man who Hitler chose to save Mussolini of the disaster it had made name in France in the previous year: Erwin Rommel.
In the port of Tripoli, in February or March of 1941, Rommel said my friend, Hunt lieutenant, that he was engineer: 'Hunt, pods to construct here The man was boquiaberto e Rommel continued: It does not have enough wood e screens of the candles to make 150 layers for Volkswagen? Then it can deliver to me These tanks they had deceived the British.
Rommel not wise person nothing on the war in the desert, but he was courageous and bold.
Rommel was the ideal commander for this theater of war.
It was a vast area, but limited in number of soldiers, e it almost could apply naval tactics.
It had few cities e, therefore, we did not have difficulties with the Arabs.
They did not disturb in them.
In the night where the Afrika Korps it arrived, was sent onward.
Rommel believed in one it has attacked unexpected.
In the last day of March, still nor all the troops had fond, it faced the British in El Agheila e in only 12 days pushed them It was as if the animal papão it was after the esquina.
The Rommel only heard "comes there" or "the Rommel arrived, runs away".
It was the time of the British to be done prisoners.
Rommel said me to follow in front and we arrive the Derna, capturing for the way British soldiers e general, that they one by one went arriving.
Between them he was the celebrity General O'Connor.
We were the kilometers of our front.
We arrive at a part where the Germans had a group of recognition.
It was a shock, never I thought that it could happen me.
Perhaps very it was convinced.
It was as soon as the legend of Rommel it grew.
In middle of April, already it had pushed the British for the starting point.
But it remained an opposition.
Tobruk.
the Australian garrison resisted, denying the Rommel an important one supplying port.
Tobruk at the hands of the British it would be a threat to the routes of supplying of Rommel e hindered it to advance more for Egypt.
Without obtaining to take by assault Tobruk, Rommel surrounded the city.
The Luftwaffe also was convoked.
They had been carried through more than a thousand raides on Tobruk.
Underneath of the nose of Rommel, the British Navy it substituted the garrison of Tobruk for new troops, Poles, South Africans, Indians, British.
The rations were scarce in Tobruk, but we have that to be thankful the Navy, they had made an excellent work.
In 1941, the British Navy it dominated the Mediterranean, since that it defeats in Taranto the Italian fleet in the previous year.
The British could cross the Mediterranean without problem.
More important still, operating from Malta, the British Navy could attack the ships German that they passed of Italy for Tripoli.
The British abastecimentos they arrived, but of Rommel not.
Without the necessary fuel for panzers, Rommel could not advance more for Egypt in this Summer.
Worse E, no matter how much tried, it did not obtain to capture Tobruk.
The city continued being a stuck thorn, symbol of the persistence of the British, as the expression of bulldog of Churchill.
We were massacreed for the loudspeakers.
It called us prisoners volunteers of Tobruk.
The machine of propaganda of Rommel it cried out us that we gave up, but we did not give heard.
We said:"That if it injures.
" We knew that they did not obtain to enter.
It did not have light in the end of the tunnel since the withdrawal of Dunquerque.
For reasons politics and for moral of the people of this country, it was very important to show that we obtained to hold back the Germans.
The War of the Desert was, at the moment, paralyzed.
It was hour to review tactical e to evaluate the abastecimentos.
The tactics of Rommel were more efficient of what the British, mainly, in relation to the use of the tanks.
We had trained to go off in movement, to be a cavalry on lizards and to guide the troops thus.
The Germans had studied the problem more than what we between the two wars e, clearly, Rommel had the experience of the north of France, as well as many of garrisons of its tanks.
They knew that the best tactics of the tanks against the enemy it was to be hidden to the wait that the enemy appeared.
If they were apanhados in opened field, they would have to attract the enemy for its proper cannons antitank.
The main antitank weapon of Rommel mm.
was the 88 Krupp of It decimates the tanks Frenchmen in May of 1940 e now was making the same to the British tanks.
It was efficient the 900 meters or more.
They obtained to locate the tank e to destroy it easily.
They obtained to reach us before approaching in them.
We did not obtain to attack them with mortars.
Rommel did not have only advantage in tactics and equipment, it still enjoyed of the confidence of its head politician, Hitler.
Wavell, its direct adversary, he was continuously pressured for Churchill to arrive at the victory.
When it failed, was substituted for General Sir Claude Auchinleck.
The "Auk", in turn, it nominated its commander-of-field, Lieutenant-General Cunningham.
Cunningham defeats the Italians in Eastern Africa e recolocara Hailé Selassié in the throne of the Abissínia.
But he was a man of the infantry e not wise person nothing on tanks.
The tank was the key of the success in the desert, but the British tanks they very left to desire.
They were very weak the mechanical level.
They lacked parts, others they did not function well.
On the contrary of the Germans, the British had few transports of tanks.
They had to cover long distances and to fight on the same lizards.
Each lizard is on to the following one for a mobile bolt, parts, e in the desert, many times, it had arenaceous land and only it lasts.
The water was a lubricant.
The tanks are adjusted more the muddy lands.
For Churchill, the War of the Desert has much paralyzed time.
It needed a victory, over all after the humilhantes defeats in Greece and Crete.
As soon as Cunningham and Auchinleck they had been nominated, they had started immediately to be pressured to attack.
The British had more weapons, but the tactical one was equal.
Rommel could try to repeat the words of Wellington: 'They had arrived in the same way we hinder them in the same way to e.
' In only five days, Cunningham lost 300 tanks, two terços of its force, many had the mechanical problems.
The lizards stopped.
In action we could not make nothing, except abandoning the tank.
E later was impossible to recoup it.
At that time, in the desert, not we had ways to fix them.
We always abandoned the battlefield e seemed that the Germans they continued there.
Until we could have been successful in this day, but the Germans denied them always the battlefield.
The equipment of them was equal, but of them he was well-taken care of.
They made all the efforts to recoup the tanks of them badly the night fell.
With astuteness, Rommel convinced Cunningham that loses the battle.
But Auchinleck was determined to keep the position.
It moved away Cunningham, that wanted if to remove, and nominated Ritchie.
It gained the appositive one to be and to fight.
When the defeat seemed inevitable for the British, the balance of the battle hung dramatical for its side when panzers of Rommel they had been without fuel.
Tobruk was relieved, Rommel was obliged to withdraw E in the day of Christmas of 1941, Bengasi it moved of hands for the third time.
The forces of the Commonwealth tried to cut to the access of the Germans Africa when they had been obliged if to remove, of this time for the Extreme East, therefore the entrance of Japan in the war it threatened the British bases of the Birmânia and Malaysia.
We lose a chance to gain something that it was real and important in the theater of war of the Average East, to go to conquer something that it was sufficient improbable doubtful and in the Extreme East.
In few weeks, Rommel counterattacked.
Against the weakened ones British troops, it recaptured Bengasi e Tobruk threatened again.
But it was barred in Gazala.
Of new if it installed the impasse.
The peculiar conditions of the desert had created an only camaraderie.
For many, the War of the Desert it was a private war, the last one to hold back any cavalheirismo pretensions.
As soon as we stopped it had a rest.
We prepared the land e we went to play soccer.
The desportivismo it was of both the sides.
The soccer games were not interrupted for the artillery.
The diet was composed for cookies and canneded meat.
We ate canneded meat fries, cozida, with cookies for dog.
Therefore.
the cookies for cachorros.
Nor they ate them to the dogs, they opposed.
With the problem of the food e of drinking waters, the dysentery was a constant danger.
The Germans had invented a canteen, that the envious British, after seeing its destroyed innumerable times in the ground hard, they had copied and they baptized of "Jerry can".
We had right to a cup per day it stops washing in them, to make the beard and everything.
Many times, we joined the water in a helmet e each one made the beard thus.
Above all, it was always very, much heat.
The heat was as much that could, literally, to fry eggs in mudguards.
It was as much heat that until if it heard the egg frying.
The flies were perhaps worse plague of the desert.
They were not only one annoyance, but carrying of illnesses.
For the flies it was indifferent the side that affected, clearly.
It had hours where it had competitions to kill flies.
The flies were infectadas e we killed when them we were with one I smell in the hands that it provoked nauseas.
We receive orders from the QG not to kill the flies.
We had that it leaves them in peace.
A fly must put, per year, one nine egg million.
It also had the 0ccasional ones scorpions and vipers.
E when the wind blew, the sand e the dust entered everywhere.
The dust obstructed everything, the carburetors were obstructed, the clocks stopped.
We suffered intestinais problems, a species of serious diarreia, because of the sand.
When we went of the tents until a latrine, we had that to go, literally, with a compassing.
It had cases of soldiers that they did not return because they were forgotten the compassing.
During sand storms the battle stopped.
It was good at the beginning.
But after three days of storm we wanted was to fight.
Ritchie planned an offensive one in the end of May with the new tanks Grant, come of America, but Rommel, as always, it arrived first.
Ritchie had learned little with the last errors.
As the Italians, it plans some fortified fields e placed mines in great amount.
But as O'Connor it makes with the Italians, Rommel was limited to encircle it the open flank.
We were to the south, in front of Bir Hakeim, e during the morning we saw to appear dust where they were the Germans.
They came of where it was It was as a fox in the hen house.
All for the side ran all.
The tanks of Ritchie they had proved to be a disillusion.
One more time, the tank British had been loosers, Rommel was successful Battle of Gazala.
Rommel was in the hand the prize that not yet had obtained, the prize that Churchill, for a side, had denied.
Tobruk.
The blockhouses of Tobruk they had been neglected.
Already they were not so formidable as in the previous year.
The trasnmissão of radio of Berlin it announced the surrender of Tobruk.
For Churchill it was a moment especially sad.
For Rommel it was height of its career e the grateful Führer promoted it the Marshal-of-Field.
The British withdrew in Egypt, more than what before.
It had never seen that chaos.
The victory seemed impossible.
It had never seen the road so pressed together of vehicles.
The units left hasty, nobody wise person what she transferred herself.
Happily, the Air Force was stronger of what of the enemy, contrary case we would have been decimated.
It had that to hide the desperation, in a way typically British, with unfastening.
Rommel was waited in the Cairo in this night, e our Ambassador, Lord Killearn, gave one supper for 80 people in the Club Mohammed Ali.
e said in them:'When it to arrive it will know where finding in them.
' Passing Mersa Matruh, Maaten Bagush, Fuka and Daba, the British had been withdrawing, until in 30 of June of 1942, they had arrived at a station only the 100 km of Alexandria.
El Alamein.
It was not by chance that Auchinleck chose El Alamein for the battle decisive in Egyptian territory.
This piece of desert was different of that one where the war is stopped.
As always, the sea was to the north, but here, only the 60 km for the interior, it had another sea.
The moving sand sea e salty quagmires.
impenetrable for the tanks.
the Depression of Qattarra.
So far, the fluid strategy of war in the desert it is always initiated in an opened flank, but, in El Alamein, Rommel it would have to think about different tactics.
Auchinleck was prepared for last battle in Egypt, therefore, after the fall of Tobruk, moves away Ritchie e takes the command of 8º Army.
But Churchill also already he planeava to move away it.
Rommel did not wait for the decision of Churchill.
It launched the depleted troops in plus a desperate effort to conquer Egypt.
In July, the battle more decisive of the War of the Desert Auchinleck hindered its objective.
It was an important battle very e was known that we could have lost the base in the Average East.
Churchill dislocated itself in August to verify the moral of the troops.
The fall of annoyed it to Tobruk, but he was comovido with reception of 8º Army.
Already it had determined to nominate Alexander for the place of Auchinleck.
The commander of 8º Army he would have to be Montgomery, although Montgomery never had state in the desert during the war.
When Montgomery arrived, we were a little apreensivos, because we had never seen somebody as it.
The first-minister he seemed something dislocated.
It dressed clothes elegant, he was smoking a cigar, but it had monogram "WC" in pantufas.
It paved shoes that if they used in house, with the "W" in a shoe.
e the "C" in the other shoe.
E made us an encouraging speech.
For Rommel, the laws of the war in the desert they started to function against it.
The more it advanced, more if it extended the supplying line.
We had taken a decision reckless, as Cesar, when we enter in Egypt.
The eyes of Hitler were fixtures in the Russian front, the decisive front, e our paper it was not very excellent.
It would be satisfied if he did not have problems.
But it could not guarantee that the abastecimentos would go to arrive to the ports of the north of Africa.
But one in each four of ships of supplying of Rommel it passed the enemy lines.
Its solution, later, it was to destroy Malta.
The Luftwaffe de Göering believed that it could verwhelm the island.
Stukas, Heinkels, Junkers, Dorniers, Messerchmitts, every day, to the hundreds, they swept the island.
Malta became the place more bombed of the planet.
Malta resisted.
Moreover, the Air Force British could operate now from the bases to the long one of the Nile, only the 160 km of the front.
In the desert, the battle is characterized for the opposition of the tanks, in great amounts, of the artillery, of the air support.
The air support, for example, it was not important in Russia, because there the troops had the protection of the land.
In Africa, the superiority in air she was decisive.
Montgomery withheld the superiority in air.
Without fuel, the troops of Rommel had to pass for the enemy, e km was the 2300 of its base in Tripoli, while Montgomery was the 100 km of its base, in Alexandria.
In the distance of the ports of Bengasi, Tripoli, e perhaps Tobruk, one became too much great.
During gone and the comings in the desert, we made Rommel to withdraw.
We accused it to spill oil in the wells, we achavamos this bad one.
E when we returned, it blamed in them of the same.
It seems that the water after all he was thus same, because the oil in the subsoil if it infiltrated until the wells.
In September, the moral of the Afrika Korps suffered when Rommel was sick.
Hitler commanded that it returned.
But its men had been left in the desert, per as the year.
When we are in the desert, in sentimo as if it was the Moon.
We and the universe are alone.
The men of the Afrika Korps, so far from house, did not think about leaving.
It remained only the certainty to them of that, more early or later, the British went to attack.
The soldiers had house homesicknesses and, with certainty, they preferred to come back.
It must not have by chance been that the Campaign of the Desert world-wide War produced the song most memorable of 2ª.
Lili Marlene was a little of our country.
Lili Marlene became equally popular between the British.
We were always in contact with our country.
We heard the notice, and of the opposition also, clearly.
We testify the beginning of the music of Lili Marlene.
For the British the comfort of its country it was close, in the Cairo.
The city was full of bars, bazaars and other distractions.
They were with the money.
It would say that 75% of the men, if they obtained to find another woman, was with it.
He was strange to think about the Europe, in war and desperation e the Cairo seemed radiating.
We went supper with friends, we took bath hot e we drank whiskey.
In the monday, we came back onward.
Montgomery faced as bigger objective to raise the moral of the troops.
She was the first commander to be known British.
The press, mainly the photographers, kept at a distance for Wavell e Auchinleck, was received well.
As soon as it was possible, initiated a patrol for 8º Army e congregated the people to speak with them.
It used the press, the radio, e artifices, as the hats.
They wanted something with which the people if identified.
Something more than what the rigid uniform.
She was notable.
In few days, the atmosphere had moved total.
It had a reliable sensation.
It guaranteed us that the times difficult they had finished e that was determined to be successful.
It said us:'Now, the only order he is that all are where they are, that they fight where they are e that dies where they is.
' Montgomery equipped its troops with the weapons most recent.
Constantly pressured for Churchill to initiate the offensive one, Monty, as would be known, it did not go to leave itself to hurry.
It was determined, as it said, that all were in form for the imminent battle.
As the first hours would go to be dominated by the mines, more than half million, placed for the Germans, the offensive one had the code name "Foot-Light Operation", a joke of bad taste.
In El Alamein, they had conceived an electronic detector of mines, but many arrived with defect e the localization of the mines had that to be made manually.
The men stuck the soil with bayonets and took off the mines with the hand.
The mined fields of the Germans they arrived to extend itself for 8 km.
For it takes them of assault, Montgomery congregates 250 a thousand soldiers.
British, Australians, New$zealanders, Indians, South Africans, Greeks, Poles, free Czechs and Frenchmen.
The double of the men of Rommel.
Nothing it would be left to perhaps.
Well we were trained.
We were sufficiently confident.
Each soldier wise person accurately what to make.
Our favor was everything.
We did not have fear.
An old one is dictated, but we thought that the evil alone served for the others.
of night, 1100 tanks and a thousand weapons they had been placed in position.
I was with my battalion placing mines ahead of our proper positions.
E the Battle of El Alamein it started, e we saw the horizon all blowing up.
Many judge that El Alamein it was a great barrage of artillery with everybody to the wait behind, e that all had waited that it stopped to start to fight, but it was not nothing of this.
It was a bloody battle.
We were onward of the artillery barrage.
We are to few steps of the artillery that fell to our front.
Of morning, we are disillusioned, not to say worse, because the tanks they must have in the exceeded one e nor had fond.
Nobody had fond.
When the combat engineers had taken off the mines and we open a way, the Germans had perceived the reason e had bombed this opening.
It always had that uncertainty if the soil went to blow up or not, but we forget in them this when a mortar falls to our side e a machine gun goes off.
Shouts, moaned hear.
It was a consuming battle.
This battle was stopped, e acertadamente, in a way that continued the offensive one until destroying the resistance of the enemy, e this delay some time.
The infantry fulfills the objective to destroy the cannons antitank, e, with the withdrawal of mines of the fields, then, the tank can advance e to explore the situation.
But, until this happens, without success it does not have tanks.
Montgomery lost 200 tanks in the two first days, as much how many the ones that the Germans they had initially.
Rommel, in return Africa although it was not recouped, it counterattacked on account, furious of panzers not to have advanced when the British had been prisoners in the fields of mines.
It was too much late.
Rommel suffered irreparable losses.
The decreases had been raised of both the sides.
They had held the position.
It was really stubbornness.
When we finish, we discover the number of decreases.
Tentavamos to convince us of that it did not go in to happen them nothing e, suddenly, we discover that nor always we disembarass in them.
It was a slaughter game, as Monty it foresees, a slaughter game, horrible and bloody.
A battle of 1ª War stopped with weapons of 2ª War.
The consuming battle it ran in favor of Montgomery.
The moment arrives to order the tank to advance.
recent and better of America, they had been launched against Germans and Italians.
E Rommel had less than 100.
The combat was again intense.
Rommel started to yield.
The battle was hot during two days.
It was the greater of the battles with tanks of the War of the Desert.
The Rommel remained only 35 to it against the 600 of Montgomery.
When it thought to withdraw to keep a front 100 km behind, Hitler commanded to it that it kept the position.
A horrible way to die it is to be imprisoned inside of a tank when this starts to catch fire.
We never forget the horror of the shouts of the men trying to leave.
The tank British they had passed.
E in the afternoon of 4 of November, in 12ª day of battle, Rommel beat in withdrawal.
Thousand of Italians they had been left stops backwards.
The Germans had taken account of all the air transportation.
A general of Rommel, von Thoma, also was captured.
Alexander informed Churchill stops to order to touch the bells of the victory, what Winston made.
It was the first time that they touched in England since Dunquerque.
In day 6 of November, an intense rain fell that it delayed persecutors e pursued.
The commanders of Montgomery they wanted to apanhar Rommel before it obtained to reorganize itself.
Monty did not go to risk itself to be captured.
Montgomery had conscience of that already we had advanced retreating e two times, e was determined in not having to withdraw one third time.
The Air Force made it difficult the withdrawal of Rommel.
It did not have for where to run away.
It only could run for the desert.
It is in that the war in the desert if it differentiates.
We only had that moving in them to be displayed.
After de Mersa Matruh, Sidi Barrani, through Halfaya Pass, Rommel was pushed stops backwards obliged e to fight every day.
In day 13 of November, it stops great joy of Churchill, Tobruk was reconquered.
One week later, Bengasi moved of hands for the fifth and last time.
In middle of January of 1943, Tripoli was reconquered.
The prize that escapes of Rommel two years before.
Finally, the British they had something to festejar.
For Churchill, it was the victory why in such a way it yearns for, before America to dominate the war.
They had modified the course of the war of form notable.
I must say that its fame, the fame of the army of the desert, if it spread for the world.
This is not the end, not even it is the beginning of the end.
Perhaps either, yes, the end of the principle.