Superior documentary series. The Seventh Armored Division of the British Army were known as the Desert Rats because they fought in the wasteland of North Africa. They adopted the desert rat or jerboa as their symbol and they wore desert rat shoulder patches during the Falklands War. The program shows us a modern soldier and the jerboa he's carrying around in his pocket. They're awfully cute, like rather large, tan mice.
The outbreak of World War Two found the British in possession of Egypt, a strategic colony because whoever controlled Egypt controlled the Suez Canal, which was the only short cut to the British empire in India and Asia.
Benito Mussolini, thinking perhaps of restoring the glory of the Roman Empire, attacked Egypt with 250,000 mean, against the British 30,000. Mussolini's troops were beaten back into their own colony of Libya. The 3,000 Brits captured 20,000 Italians, an entire Army. The Italians were joined finally by Rommel's Afrika Korps. The resultant battles swung back and forth across 1,000 miles of the North African desert for more than two years.
The British Eighth Army was now bolstered with additional troops from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, India, and France, and the nickname Desert Rats was given to the entire group.
"It was a pure soldier's war, fought on a vast desert landscape, with few civilians or other distractions to get in the way," Robert Powell's precise narration tells us. And it did have its moments. It's not in the program but one incident involved the Brits capturing a wealthy Italian officer from an aristocratic family. Mussolini offered to pay a ransom for his return, but when the officer heard the amount of the offer, he was offended because it was so small, and he angrily refused to be repatriated. At the same time, of course, it was no fun. Aside from the threat of death and injury there were furious sandstorms. Water was so scarce that men urinated into the water jackets of their guns, also not mentioned. There is a shot of German soldiers cheerfully frying eggs on the blistering hot armor of a tank. And there were aggressive flies everywhere.
Actually, it was mainly a soldier's war but not a pure one. Air power was important and the Allies won superiority. Further, the Italian naval code had been broken and transports from Italy to Tripoli, necessary to Rommel, were routinely sunk by air and submarine so that, in the end, Rommel simply ran out of goods and was reduced to draining fuel from some tanks in order to keep others running.
With North Africa finally in Allied hands, the 7th Armored Division went on to fight in Italy, France, and Germany. By the end of the war they were legendary. Richard Burton stars in a feature film with their name.
The outbreak of World War Two found the British in possession of Egypt, a strategic colony because whoever controlled Egypt controlled the Suez Canal, which was the only short cut to the British empire in India and Asia.
Benito Mussolini, thinking perhaps of restoring the glory of the Roman Empire, attacked Egypt with 250,000 mean, against the British 30,000. Mussolini's troops were beaten back into their own colony of Libya. The 3,000 Brits captured 20,000 Italians, an entire Army. The Italians were joined finally by Rommel's Afrika Korps. The resultant battles swung back and forth across 1,000 miles of the North African desert for more than two years.
The British Eighth Army was now bolstered with additional troops from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, India, and France, and the nickname Desert Rats was given to the entire group.
"It was a pure soldier's war, fought on a vast desert landscape, with few civilians or other distractions to get in the way," Robert Powell's precise narration tells us. And it did have its moments. It's not in the program but one incident involved the Brits capturing a wealthy Italian officer from an aristocratic family. Mussolini offered to pay a ransom for his return, but when the officer heard the amount of the offer, he was offended because it was so small, and he angrily refused to be repatriated. At the same time, of course, it was no fun. Aside from the threat of death and injury there were furious sandstorms. Water was so scarce that men urinated into the water jackets of their guns, also not mentioned. There is a shot of German soldiers cheerfully frying eggs on the blistering hot armor of a tank. And there were aggressive flies everywhere.
Actually, it was mainly a soldier's war but not a pure one. Air power was important and the Allies won superiority. Further, the Italian naval code had been broken and transports from Italy to Tripoli, necessary to Rommel, were routinely sunk by air and submarine so that, in the end, Rommel simply ran out of goods and was reduced to draining fuel from some tanks in order to keep others running.
With North Africa finally in Allied hands, the 7th Armored Division went on to fight in Italy, France, and Germany. By the end of the war they were legendary. Richard Burton stars in a feature film with their name.
