M4 Sherman and Operation Bertram

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Difference between M4 Sherman and Operation Bertram

M4 Sherman vs. Operation Bertram

The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. Operation Bertram was a Second World War deception operation practised by the Allied forces in Egypt led by Bernard Montgomery, in the months before the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942. Bertram was devised by Dudley Clarke to deceive Erwin Rommel about the timing and location of the Allied attack. The operation consisted of physical deceptions using dummies and camouflage, designed and made by the British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate led by Geoffrey Barkas. These were accompanied by electromagnetic deceptions codenamed Operation Canwell, using false radio traffic. All of these were planned to make the Axis believe that the attack would take place to the south, far from the coast road and railway, about two days later than the real attack. Bertram consisted of the creation of the appearance of army units where none existed and in concealing armour, artillery and matériel. Dummy tanks and guns were made mainly of local materials including calico and palm-frond hurdles. Real tanks were disguised as trucks, using light "Sunshield" canopies. Field guns and their limbers were also disguised as trucks, their real wheels visible, under a simple box-shaped "Cannibal" canopy to give the shape of a truck. Petrol cans were stacked along the sides of existing revetted trenches, hidden in the shadows. Food was stacked in piles of boxes and draped with camouflage nets to resemble trucks. Trucks were parked openly in the tank assembly area for some weeks. Real tanks were similarly parked openly, far behind the front. Two nights before the attack, the tanks replaced the trucks, being covered with "Sunshields" before dawn. The tanks were replaced that same night with dummies in their original positions, so the armour remained seemingly two or more days' journey behind the front line. To reinforce the impression that the attack was not ready, a dummy water pipeline was constructed, at an apparent rate of per day. Some days' worth remained to be built at the time of the attack; dummy tanks, guns and supplies were constructed to the south. After the battle, the captured German panzerarmee general Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma told Montgomery that he had believed the Allies had at least one more armoured division than they did and that the attack would be in the south. Rommel's stand-in, general Georg Stumme, thought the attack would not begin for several weeks. Bertram had succeeded; when announcing the victory at El Alamein in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill praised the camouflage operation.

Eighth Army (United Kingdom)

The Eighth Army was a field army formation of the British Army during the Second World War, fighting in the North African and Italian campaigns.

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M3 Lee

The M3 Lee, officially Medium Tank, M3, was an American medium tank used during World War II.

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Second Battle of El Alamein

The Second Battle of El Alamein (23 October – 11 November 1942) was a battle of the Second World War that took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. With the Allies victorious, it was the watershed of the Western Desert Campaign. The First Battle of El Alamein had prevented the Axis from advancing further into Egypt. In August 1942, Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery took command of the Eighth Army following the sacking of General Claude Auchinleck and the death of his replacement Lieutenant-General William Gott in an air crash. The Allied victory turned the tide in the North African Campaign and ended the Axis threat to Egypt, the Suez Canal and the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields via North Africa. The Second Battle of El Alamein revived the morale of the Allies, being the first big success against the Axis since Operation Crusader in late 1941. The battle coincided with the Allied invasion of French North Africa in Operation Torch, which started on 8 November, the Battle of Stalingrad and the Guadalcanal Campaign.

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World War II

World War II (often abbreviated to WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although conflicts reflecting the ideological clash between what would become the Allied and Axis blocs began earlier.

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