At El-Alamein with the 24th MEU:
It's Not All Business!

LT Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, MSC, USNR, Mid-East FAO

In an effort to bring professional military education to the Marines of BLT 3/6, the Air Combat Element and the Force Service Support Group, CWO2 Rick Lyons, USMC, the disbursing officer and I traveled 40 miles northwest of the exercise area in Egypt to El-Alamein. We successfully arranged for 100 marines to visit the El-Alamein War Memorial and Museum at the conclusion of joint exercises with Arab, Italian, French and British Forces in October 1997. Being half-Egyptian myself and fluent in Arabic I not only haggled for discounted tickets and a bus, but acted as the translator for Major Hassan, an Egyptian Army Tank officer and museum director. The tour was a welcome break for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) (SOC) and offered a unique opportunity to visit a battle site in which the legendary Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps faced General Bernard Montgomery's British Eight Army.

The tour began with the Allied Forces Hall, which a lighted map of the battle outlined the tactics and strategy of both Rommel and Montgomery. While translating for Major Hassan the marines would learn how El-Alamein was not only the first battle won by allied forces but also the first battle in which both mechanized infantry and air forces were effectively combined by British forces. Nazi battle standards of the Afrika Korps, maps and notes captured from Axis forces graced the allied hall.

From there the marines filed into the Italian Hall where period uniforms, equipment and weapons were displayed along with decorations, medals and battle flags. Among the items found beneath the sands of El-Alamien was a ford jeep intact with its munitions, according to Major Hassan the jeep was cleaned of decades of sand and debris, gas was then placed in the jeep and it ran perfectly. The Egyptian curator also explained that period mines, munitions and other items are found by local Bedouins, during a Bright Star exercise, a British soldier brought home a live World War II grenade that tragically exploded while the soldier handled the ordnance at home maiming him.

Next, the Egyptian hall contained a description of the role Egyptian forces played in providing logistical support to British forces, processing POWs and providing vital intelligence on enemy movements. In the center of the hall, is a life-size figure of Corporal Hassan (No relation to the museum director) a Sudanese soldier of the Egyptian border guards serving along the Libyan border that shot down a German fighter plane and took the pilot hostage. The director explained it was a one in a million shot that brought down the Messerschmidt and it was the talk of Cairo at the time. Photos of Egyptian officers receiving the Legion of Merit from General Eisenhower show the little discussed role African and Egyptian forces played in the Second World War.

From there the British hall where uniforms and weapons of the British Eighth Army were on display, it included Arab headdress that matched the khaki desert uniform. Also on display were rations, and common survival items the British soldier carried with him.

Finally, the last hall in the tour took Marines to the German hall where among the displays of uniforms and helmets was Field Marshal Rommel's two-seater motor bike, goggles, cap and scarf which was donated by his son Manfred Rommel during the re-dedication of the Museum in 1989. The Desert Fox would reconnoiter battle sites driven on the motorbike and plan engagements with allied forces in the desert. Upon his defeat in 1942, the Afrika Korps led allied forces on a chase to Tunisia. Upon surrounding the elite German unit it was found that the majority of their Panzers had been destroyed and they had been using captured allied tanks and vehicles and scrounging for petrol in an effort to keep what remained of axis territory in Africa.

Accompanied by Colonel Richard Natonski, USMC (MEU Commander) we entered the underground command bunker where General Montgomery spent several months planning and counter-attacking German and Italian forces. The museum is built around the bunker which house model figures of generals, the wounded and other scenes recreating life under the sands of the Egyptian desert. Major Hassan thanked us for out visit and the MEU commander presented him with 24th MEU coin. The Marines roamed the outer gardens of the museum which had on display at least three dozen tanks, vehicles and anti-aircraft guns found in the desert. Marines couldn't resist the gift shop haggling for perfumes, papyrus and other items for friends and relatives.

All in all, it was an enjoyable PME and having visited Egypt many times, this was my first time in the Western Desert, which exposed me to a part of the country I had not seen. It was great to translate all the pertinent questions marines asked and the fascination and interest they had in a vital chapter of the Second World War. These opportunities could only be possible as a United States Navy Medical Service Corps Officer and a FAO.

Among the marines and sailors that accompanied me, LT Gerardo Cruz, MSC, USN would earn his Surface Warfare Medical Department pin and would go on to make us proud in Central America as part of humanitarian efforts in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. Colonel Richard Natonski, our MEU Commander would pick up the star of Brigadier General this year. The MEU Sergeant Major along with a few of my friends of the 24th MEU(SOC) are currently aboard the USS Nassau Amphibious Ready Group currently deployed in the Adriatic Sea and should be relieved by the USS Kearsarge soon. My thoughts are with them.

LT Aboul-Enein served as linguist/Mid-East advisor to COL Richard Natonski, USMC during Exercise Bright Star 97 and as an Arabic linguist to the Commandant of the Marine Corps during his Bright Star visit to Egypt. Currently Plans, Ops, and Medical Intell officer at Naval Hospital Great Lakes, he is author of The Monarch and His Army: An Examination of Power Relations in Saudi Arabia which appeared in the August 1997 edition of the Marine Corps Gazette and is the newest columnist on Mid-East affairs for the FAO Association Journal.

1999, Foreign Area Officer Association
Springfield, Virginia
Maintained by LTC Steve Gotowicki.
http://www.faoa.org