EL ALAMAIN, 1976

By Charles Krause

It isn't really a town. Two paths cross the Western Desert in Egypt, the Coast Highway, a two lane blacktop not far from the shore, and the railway, usually a mile or two further inland. El Alamain is just a train station, with only a 4 unit motel by the road, and a few houses scattered nearby. At least that is all I found in the winter of 1976 when I was part of a team to study and document structures in the Western Desert. Based in Alexandria, I passed thru El Alamain twice a day for more than a month.

The Coast Road at El Alamain is a memorial to the War. The British have a large cemetery and memorial here as do the other Allies, even down to a small Greek memorial in the form of a temple. The German and Italian memorials and cemeteries are further west along the road, on their side of the lines. The minefield is still there also. There are posted warnings, and one day while I was there an oil service truck on a back
dirt road cut a corner too sharp and blew the back end of his trailer off from a mine. Otherwise there was very little in Egypt to remind of the war. I knew there had been an airfield at Fuka, but other than a level spot south of the highway that might have been it, there was no indication.

Past the Allied cemeteries is a road guard station. A permit was required to pass beyond certain points on the highway. My permit was good to Mersa Matruh. Just past the station on the north side of the highway was a new, and fairly large museum with artifacts and dioramas from the war, although one section was devoted to the more recent Israeli wars, including part of a Huey Helicopter. The south side, partly under a corrugated roof shelter was what I called the Alamain Junkyard. At first I was dismayed to see all of these vehicle in such
poor shape, but after wandering thru several times I realized each piece had been dragged off the desert in the condition it had been destroyed, and was a wonderful study opportunity.

The 1/4" steel plate on the rear of the Halftrack shattered like glass when hit. When a shell glances off the thick front armor of the Grant, it scoops out a deep gouge like it was modeling clay. When a vehicle brews up it also burns most of the paint off the exterior. Where the paint is gone the steel has rusted to a deep, dark brown, but the sharp edges are mostly polished steel. I believe this could be from sand abrasion.

The Western Desert is not sand dunes. It is more like the Arizona desert, with rocks and occasional rock outcroppings, scattered small shrubs, occasional clumps of grass, but no cactus. There are no mountains, just low rolling hills off in the distance. The soil is limestone based, and I saw where the fine dust would be abrasive to mechanical parts. The color is a light cream, not the more orange of our Sonoran desert.

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