Battle of El Agheila Battle of El Agheila The Battle of El Agheila was a brief engagement of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. It took place in December 1942 between Allied forces of the Eighth Army (General Bernard Montgomery) and the Axis forces of the German-Italian "Panzer" Army ("Generalfeldmarschall" Erwin Rommel), during the long Axis withdrawal from El Alamein to Tunis. It ended with the German-Italian "Panzer" Army resuming its retreat towards Tunisia, where the Tunisia Campaign had begun with Operation Torch On 4 November 1942, Rommel decided to end the Second Battle of El Alamein and withdraw west towards
Second Battle of El Alamein time being—be continued by armoured cars and artillery only because of the difficulty in supplying larger formations west of Bardia until the supply infrastructure could catch up. El Alamein was an Allied victory, although Rommel did not lose hope until the end of the Tunisia Campaign. Churchill said, The Allies frequently had numerical superiority in the Western Desert but never had it been so complete in quantity and quality. With the arrival of Sherman tanks, 6-pounder anti-tank guns and Spitfires in the Western Desert, the Allies gained a comprehensive superiority. Montgomery envisioned the battle as an attrition operation, similar to