By the time of the battles around El Alamein, July to August 1942, the best and newest Italian tanks, were woefully under gunned and under armoured compared to the new American made tanks that the British were getting. The Lee/Grant tanks first came into service in May 1942. By the time of the British Alamein offensive, those brand new 300 Sherman tanks that Marshall and Roosevelt had despatched to the Middle East by fast convoy, after the fall of Tobruk had been announced at the meeting that was underway in the White House between Churchill, Roosevelt, Alan Brooke and Marshall, had arrived and were at the front.

Were the Italian armoured divisions cowardly in the fight they showed in their last battles in Egypt in facing the British attack at El Alamein?

Tag words: El Alamein; Lee/Grant tanks; Sherman tanks; General Marshall; President Theodore Roosevelt; fall of Tobruk; General Alan Brooke; Winston Churchill; Italian Littorio Armoured Division; Semovente self-propelled gun; M14 tanks; Field Marshall Erwin Rommel; Adolf Hitler; Ariete Armoured Division; Deutsche Afrika Korp; Trieste Motorised Division; British 7th Armoured Division;