Prof. Greg Jackson

The Second Battle of El Alamein is a resounding Allied victory.

Well, British victory, though their ranks include five Americans.

After British forces picked their way through Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's minefields with millions of landmines protecting the Axis defensive position, areas that become known as Gardens of the Devil, the Desert Fox orders a retreat westward to avoid the complete destruction of his panzer divisions.

Had the battle gone the Germans' way, it's possible that an Einsatzgruppen, that is, a mobile killing squad, might have been sent to attack the Jewish population in North Africa and the British mandate for Palestine.

We don't know to what extent Erwin Rommel would have been involved.

His loyalty to Germany is clear, while the depth of his adherence to Nazism is something historians will debate until the end of time.

But whatever the Desert Fox's views, his loss thankfully means that these extermination plans never have a chance to come to fruition.

The victory re-energizes the beleaguered British, not least because it was against such an intimidating foe.

But winning a war, as we know, is far easier said than done, especially since desert warfare presents serious challenges to supply lines.

Soldiers and tanks both need fuel, and the Sahara doesn't have much to offer an entire army, let alone two.

Soldiers learn to subsist almost entirely on canned foods.

Water and ammunition are both precious.

The only two plentiful things are, one, the flies, which one Scottish officer describes as, "...appalling.

One couldn't raise a piece of bread to mouth without it becoming covered in flies."

And two, the sand.

After all, it's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.

Sand gets in weapons, food, shoes, engines, you name it.

It's inescapable.

Meanwhile, troops are also worried about sunstroke and diseases like dysentery.

In short, it's no picnic out here.