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But the "rats of Tobruk," as the Australians called themselves, would hold out against Rommel for 242 days. Attack after attack failed to dislodge them. In the first week of December, just as the Pacific war began, an Allied thrust threatened to encircle Rommel's forces. To avoid falling into a trap, the Germans withdrew from Tobruk. In the last confusing battle over the fortress, 38,000 Axis soldiers were killed; the Allies lost 18,000.
The "Desert Fox," however, was far from finished. Orchestrating an intricate withdrawal, he then prepared for a counterattack. Hitler sent him an entire air corps, detached from the Russian front. The two divisions of the Afrika Korps were resupplied and refreshed, and in June 1942 Rommel captured Tobruk -- earning from the Fuhrer the rank of field marshal. Egypt, Suez and the oil of the Middle East now seemed within his grasp. Hitler, warned by more cautious advisers to be wary about proceeding toward Cairo, nonetheless ordered that operations "be continued until the British forces are completely annihilated . . . The goddess of fortune passes only once close to warriors in battle. Anyone who does not grasp her at that moment can very often never touch her again."
And so destiny brought Erwin Rommel face to face with the man who would prove to be his nemesis: Bernard Montgomery. By July 1942 the Germans had pushed the British out of Libya. All that stood between the Nazis and Alexandria was the strongpoint at the arid village of El Alamein, 70 miles to the west. A worried Churchill sent Montgomery, an eccentric, bullheaded disciplinarian, to head the Eighth Army. In spite of frantic pleas from London, Monty -- as the Ulsterman asked his soldiers to refer to him -- took his time, rebuilding troop morale and stocking up on ammunition. Churchill wanted him to counterattack by September 1942. Montgomery chose to wait until Oct. 23. By that time the Eighth Army outnumbered Axis forces 195,000 men to 104,000 and had more than 1,000 tanks to Rommel's 500.
In the meantime, Rommel's forces were being interdicted by the Royal Air Force -- and by Hitler, who had again begun to skim off reinforcements for the / Russian front. On the night of Oct. 23-24, under a full moon, the British opened fire on German positions with at least 900 artillery pieces, creating such powerful shock waves that some Axis soldiers were stunned to death. As fate would have it, Rommel was not on hand to rally his demoralized troops. A month earlier, he had gone home for treatment of a stomach disorder. Alarmed, Hitler ordered the still ailing Rommel back immediately. By Oct. 25, however, 90% of the Afrika Korps's tanks had been destroyed. Though commanded to fight to the death, Rommel ordered his army to retreat on Nov. 4.
"It may almost be said," wrote Churchill, "that before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein, we never had a defeat." The Germans in North Africa were in irreversible retreat. Four days after the end of the battle of El Alamein, American tanks and soldiers landed around the Moroccan port of Casablanca to join the British in mopping-up operations against the remaining Axis presence.