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Friendly Fire during the First Battle of El Alamein
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During the First Battle of El Alamein, Dan Pienaar, commander of the 1st South African Division, gives a British representative of the Air Force a piece of his mind after a friendly fire incident while fighting Erwin Rommel in the desert. Listen to The War Office Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or The War Office Podcast YouTube Channel. New episodes will be released every Tuesday morning. If you enjoy the episodes, please help us grow the podcast by subscribing, liking, sharing, commenting, and listening to future releases.
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Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
On the first two days of the Battle of
El Alamein,
the Desert Air Force will drop 180 tons
of bombs with little interference from
the Luftwaffe.
The Desert Air Force also mistakenly
drops bombs on Allied troops, including
the South Africans. The British
mistakenly bombed some of Pienaar's
troops in the Alamein box. Commander of
the First South African Division,
General Dan Pienaar, already had a
difficult relationship with British
command, and this friendly fire incident
made it worse.
At one point in the battle, he was
overheard yelling at a British Desert
Air Force representative on the phone.
"See here, my father fought the British
in the Transvaal, and all I want to know
is, what side I'm supposed to be on now?
Because if I'm on Rommel's, say so, and
I'll turn around and have him in
Alexandria within 12 hours.
Just work it out and let me know as soon
as you've decided." That's how irate he
was that his positions were bombed.