Comments by "Ben Wilson" (@benwilson6145) on "The North African Campaign | Animated History" video.

  1. Both Indian Army, they learned tank warfare quickly as tanks were not a major part of the Indian Army
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  2. Armchair Historian, you maybe need to do some research rather that taking information off the Internet as being correct. The slow movement of the Eighth Army after El Alamein is a myth. The advance was not as fast as Monty wanted, as he was held up by his officers not obeying orders and stopping, these included Lumsden, Freyberg and Gatehouse. The most ironic part it was Gatehouse who was sacked by Montgomery after failure to follow orders and attack Rommel’s retreating troops that made the allegations that Montgomery was too cautious after El Alamein. While the truth is he disobeyed orders sitting on a hill at Mersa Matruh saying “ This is Custances battle and I’m not going to interfere”. Gatehouse’s tanks were held up by one anti tank gun and he had approx 40 tanks. Monty had advanced so far that his headquarters were ahead of his own Generals. Rommel described the Eighth Army advance as vulture like, in a letter to his wife. The 8th Army did 1,100 km in just 17 days from El Alamein to Benghazi November 4th to 20th 1942. If you can find any one to beat that let us know, maybe look at the advance rate of the 1st Army in North Africa. After El Alamein the Germans and Italians had lost about 30,000 captured, including nine German Generals, 10,000 killed and 15,000 wounded.
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  3. It wasn't the British Army that that sent the troops to Greece after Operation Compass, it was Churchill. Wavell wanted to drive the Italians out of North Africa, that would have been a smart move, no Africa Corp.
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  4. After Operations Compass O'Connor was promoted and sent to Alexandria HQ. He was replaced by General Neame who had two previous distinctions, Victoria Cross Holder and Olympic Gold Medal. It was after Neame's failure against Rommel that O'Connor was brought back as an advisor to Neame. They were both captured during the retreat. After escaping Italy POW he was given a post by Montgomery during the invasion of France. O'Connor was also a Military Medal holder from WW1.
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