El Alemein

[Tony Smith]

Garry, the Australians didn't go to Italy with the 8th Army, the New Zealanders did. I'm surprised the Kiwis would trade away some of their sheep - what would they do for company?

Mark, good maps of Alamein and Amiens. The Amiens map shows the location (between the "S" of Somme river and the "3" of 3rd Corps) where Australian Machine Gunners shot down Baron Von Richtoven while he was being chased by Canadian Capt Roy Brown. Good shooting, guys!

I do realise that forum is mostly for discussion of the Canadian efforts in WW2, but some actions in WW1 do have a bearing on later events. For instance, apart from Morsehead and Freyberg who were more junior officers at Gallipoli, up in the hills was another, a newly commisioned British Subaltern William Slim. Just prior to the Amiens battle in 1918, the Australian General John Monash devised the plan for the attack on Hamel. This was considered the new standard in planning the co-ordination of arms, with aircraft and tanks being used in completely new roles like ammunition re-supply and casualty evacuation. After the sucess of this action, a series of conferences and lectures were held to disseminate this new doctrine for the upcoming Battle of Amiens and "Der Schwarze Tag". One of the conference attendees was a little known Brigadier B Montgomery, who used just those same tactics of co-operation, meticulous timing and non standard roles for his Alamein battles 28 years later.