His certainties, however, soon start to crumble when he is confronted with the grim reality of the life in the trenches during the desert war. Lieutenant Fiore (Emilio Solfrizzi), the platoon commander, is unimpressed by Serra's enthusiasm, and shows little faith in the prospect of a rapid victory; as soon as Serra reaches his squad, the corporal who has accompanied him is killed by an artillery shell, and all is left of him is an ear. Serra befriends some members of his platoon, Private Spagna (Luciano Scarpa), Corporal De Vita (Thomas Trabacchi), mortar-man Tarozzi (Piero Maggiò) and especially Sergeant Rizzo (Pierfrancesco Favino), his squad commander, a Venetian veteran who has been in Africa for two years; they tell him that each soldier has three "miracles" to spend, before dying. Serra's first "miracle" has been escaping unharmed the shelling that killed the corporal, while they have long spent their "miracles". The time at the front line passes among many hardships: the heat is unbearable, dysentery is rampant, the food is scarce, the little water available tastes like fuel oil; British artillery shells the Italian positions by day, only giving some rest at night, and vipers and scorpions add to the danger represented by the enemy.
One day, a British sniper, lying in ambush behind the wreck of a vehicle, shoots two soldiers, and when two stretcher-bearers try to rescue them, they are shot as well, before Tarozzi kills the sniper with his mortar. On the following night, a British vehicle blows up a mine in the no man's land, and Serra, Rizzo, De Vita and Spagna loot the corpses to retrieve some food. Serra steps on a mine, but it turns out to be an anti-tank mine, calibrated for a much higher weight; his second "miracle".
Two trucks, having lost their way, reach the platoon; Lt. Fiore inspects them and finds out that their cargo consists of boxes of shoe polish and Mussolini's horse, in preparation for "the parade in Alexandria". Fiore angrily tells the driver that, if they want to conquer Alexandria, they need to send them weapons, water, ammunition, food, medicines and fresh troops; Tarozzi suggests to kill and eat the horse and Fiore agrees, but nobody feels like killing it, so they let the trucks go with the horse.
Serra, Rizzo, Spagna and De Vita are sent to pick up a truckload of water, 60km behind their lines. The truck driver ironically remarks that they should be given grappa instead, joking that this is what led to the Italian victory on the Piave river during World War I. On the way back to the frontline, Serra and the others take a detour, and they reach the coast, where they take a bath in the sea and then rest on the beach, before being discovered by sentries who tell them that they have run through a minefield.
During the following night, while they are on watch, Rizzo tells Serra about how he was captured after the fall of Bengasi, but evaded captivity and hid for three months in a brothel of Bengasi, before rejoining his company when the city was retaken by Axis forces. He states that being a prisoner is a no-life and shameful for a soldier, and, as he had said previously, that he will not surrender again.
Serra discovers a camel near the trenches; he kills it and the carcass is slaughtered and cooked, allowing the soldiers to eat fresh meat for the first time in months, but when Lt. Fiore is informed, he calls for an Engineer unit: the animal has been sent by the British to clear a path through the Italian minefields, as is confirmed by the engineers. The engineers inform Fiore and his men that, according to information from the command, the Allied offensive is about to start; they have been finding de-mined areas all along the front.
Serra and Sgt. Rizzo are sent on a mission to the Qattara Depression, with orders to discover why a Bersaglierioutpost has ceased all communications; they find that the squad manning the outpost has been entirely killed. They bury the bodies and they return to their lines. A British artillery bombardment kills or wounds over twenty members of the platoon; De Vita survives unscathed a shell that lands near him, but afterwards he starts behaving strangely, slowly losing his mind.
When the battle begins, Lt. Fiore's platoon is ordered to take position along the defense line, at "Quota 105" (as a reinforcement to the Ruspoli Group of the 185th Airborne Division Folgore), placing themselves in holes dug in the ground, with mortars and machine guns. During the following night, their positions are subjected to heavy artillery shelling, and then assaulted by Allied tanks and infantry. The Italians respond with mortars, rifles and machine guns, and both sides suffer heavy casualties; Tarozzi is wounded in an eye, and De Vita, who occupies the same hole as Serra, snaps and climbs out of the hole, starting to walk apathetically; despite Serra's calls for him to come back, he keeps walking until he disappears amid clouds of sand.
The British attack manages to breach the first line, but it is stopped by artillery and minefields, and then repelled ("maybe this was the third miracle", Serra later tells himself). On the following morning, Serra wanders around the battlefield, littered with corpses of Italian and British soldiers; he remembers that at school he was told that "lucky is he who dies a hero", but, whilst looking at the corpses scattered on the ground, he reflects "I have seen many of these heroes: they are neither lucky nor unlucky: they are just dead. They rot at the bottom of a pit, without a shred of poetry. Death is only beautiful in schoolbooks: in real life it is pitiful, horrendous, and it stinks". Serra finds Spagna, who has been mortally wounded in the stomach and is being carried away on a stretcher; he, Fiore and Rizzo try to comfort him by lying and saying that, now that he has been wounded, he will go home.
At first, the orders are to hold the line at all costs, "Win or die"; after a few days, however, Lt. Fiore's platoon is ordered to retreat to Qaret el Khadim, and starts a long march through the desert. During the march, a column of retreating German vehicles passes by without stopping; a German soldier warns the Italians that they "will die here". An overloaded Italian truck also passes by, again refusing to take anyone on board.
They encounter a general (Silvio Orlando), who is burying his orderly, killed by an air strike. The general refuses any help, and is left alone; later, at sunset, he finishes burying his orderly and then commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. The platoon reaches Qaret el Khadim, but only finds a field hospital; a medical officer (Giuseppe Cederna) informs them that the new orders are to retreat to Fuka and says that he will wait for the Allies to come, because they will have better means to care for the wounded. The platoon manages to board a truck, but while on the road they are attacked and strafed by a Supermarine Spitfire; they stop near a shelter, push aside the sentries trying to stop them, and take shelter inside, finding there a colonel (Roberto Citran) who says that their retreat is a "strategic disengaging manoeuvre" and that "reinforcements will come". When they leave the shelter after the raid has ended, they discover that their truck has been destroyed.
Lt. Fiore's platoon begin once more their march in the midst of the desert. A sudden cloudburst gives some relief to the dehydrated men. They encounter a bersagliere on a motorcycle, who tells them that the British forces have already occupied Fuka, and the order is now to retreat to Marsa Matruh – 100 more kilometres on foot through the desert. The platoon settles near an old cemetery for the night. During the following night, however, some Bren carriers find them, and capture all the survivors except for Fiore, Rizzo, and Serra, who have placed themselves farther away, and are not noticed.
In the morning, the three start up again their march, but Fiore is weakened by an untreated wound, and can barely walk. They reach some vehicles abandoned in the desert; a truck turns out to be unusable, but Serra manages to power up a motorcycle. Fiore is in too bad a shape to get on the motorcycle, so he tells Rizzo and Serra to leave him and save themselves. Rizzo, however, decides not to abandon Fiore; when Serra says that he won't go without them, Rizzo forces him to leave. Serra promises that he will find a vehicle and come back for them, then he departs. The film closes on Serra riding away on the motorcycle, while Rizzo waves him farewell and watches as he disappears in the distance.
In the film the Italian soldiers refer to the artillery shelling them as "English 88s". This has been seen as an error, as the famous WW2 88mm gun was the German anti-aircraft gun of that calibre.[4] However, the British 25-pounder field gun also fired shells of 88mm calibre, so the film is in fact correct.
The armoured vehicles used in the film are generally anachronistic, though most of them are both disguised to a degree and seen at night.[4] An exception is a US White M3 half-track pretending, as in many movies, to be a German half-track. The soft-skinned vehicles in the film are generally more accurate, and overall the period detail is very good.
The First Battle of El Alamein was a battle of the Western Desert campaign of the Second World War, fought in Egypt between Axis forces of the Panzer Army Africa—which included the Afrika Korps under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel—and Allied forces of the Eighth Army under General Claude Auchinleck.
The Second Battle of El Alamein was a battle of the Second World War that took place near the Egyptian railway halt of El Alamein. The First Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Alam el Halfa had prevented the Axis from advancing further into Egypt.
The Battle of Wireless Ridge was an engagement of the Falklands War which took place on the night from 13 to 14 June 1982, between British and Argentine forces during the advance towards the Argentine-occupied capital of the Falkland Islands, Port Stanley.
The Battle of Mount Tumbledown was an engagement during the Falklands War. The engagement was an attack by the British Army and the Royal Marines on the heights overlooking Stanley, the Falkland Islands capital. Mount Tumbledown, Mount William and Sapper Hill lie west of the capital. Due to their proximity to the capital, they were of strategic importance during the 1982 War. They were held by the Argentine 5th Naval Infantry Battalion, a reinforced, cold weather trained and equipped Marine battalion.
A Walk in the Sun is a 1945 American war film based on the novel by Harry Brown, who was a writer for Yank, the Army Weekly based in England. The book was serialized in Liberty Magazine in October 1944.
The Battle of Ia Drang was the first major battle between the United States Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), as part of the Pleiku Campaign conducted early in the Vietnam War, at the eastern foot of the Chu Pong Massif in the central highlands of Vietnam, in 1965. It is notable for being the first large scale helicopter air assault and also the first use of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers in a tactical support role. Ia Drang set the blueprint for the Vietnam War with the Americans relying on air mobility, artillery fire and close air support, while the PAVN neutralized that firepower by quickly engaging American forces at very close range.
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.
The Defence of Outpost Snipe in Egypt, took place in the Second Battle of El Alamein, part of the Western Desert campaign during the Second World War. On the night of 26/27 October 1942, the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, with thirteen 6-pounder anti-tank guns and the 239th Battery, 76th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, with six more 6-pounders, was ordered to occupy a desert feature known as Snipe, a small depression in the landscape 1.5 mi (2.4 km) south-west of Kidney Ridge that was suitable for an outpost. Once consolidated, it could be used as a jumping-off point for an advance by the 24th Armoured Brigade.
The Trench is a 1999 war film written and directed by William Boyd and starring Paul Nicholls and Daniel Craig. It depicts the experiences of a group of young British soldiers in the 48 hours leading up to the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
The Auto-Saharan Companies were Italian military units specialised in long range patrols of the Sahara Desert. The units operated from the late 1930s to the Italian surrender in 1943.
The Capture of Kufra was part of the Allied Western Desert Campaign during the Second World War. Kufra is a group of oases in the Kufra District of south-eastern Cyrenaica in the Libyan Desert. In 1940, it was part of the colony of Italian Libya Libia Italiana, which was part of Africa Settentrionale Italiana (ASI), which had been established in 1934.
The Battle of Bardia was fought between 3 and 5 January 1941, as part of Operation Compass, the first British military operation of the Western Desert campaign of the Second World War. It was the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation took part, the first to be commanded by an Australian general and the first to be planned by an Australian staff. The 6th Australian Division assaulted the strongly held Italian fortress of Bardia, Libya, assisted by air support and naval gunfire and under the cover of an artillery barrage. The 16th Australian Infantry Brigade attacked at dawn from the west, where the defences were known to be weak. Sappers blew gaps in the barbed wire with Bangalore torpedoes and filled in and broke down the sides of the anti-tank ditch with picks and shovels. This allowed the infantry and 23 Matilda II tanks of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment to enter the fortress and capture all their objectives, along with 8,000 prisoners.
The Battle of Lanzerath Ridge was fought on December 16, 1944, the first day of the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, near the village of Lanzerath, Belgium, along the key route for the German advance on the northern shoulder of the operation. The American force consisted of two squads totalling 18 men belonging to a reconnaissance platoon and four forward artillery observers, against a German battalion of about 500 paratroopers. During a day-long confrontation, the American defenders inflicted dozens of casualties on the Germans and delayed by almost 20 hours the advance of the entire 1st SS Panzer Division, the spearhead of the German 6th Panzer Army.
Castle Keep is a 1969 American war comedy-drama film combining surrealism with tragic realism. It was directed by Sydney Pollack, and starred Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Bruce Dern and Peter Falk. The film appeared in the summer of 1969, a few months before the premiere of Pollack's smash hit They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Tel Faher is a former Syrian outpost in the Golan Heights that has been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967.
Screaming Eagles is a 1956 black-and-white World War II film directed by Charles F. Haas, released by Allied Artists, and starring Tom Tryon, Jan Merlin and, in her film debut, French Miss Universe 1954 runner-up Jacqueline Beer.
Paolo Briguglia is an Italian film, stage and television actor.
The siege of Giarabub in Libya, was an engagement between Commonwealth and Italian forces, during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. In the aftermath of Operazione E, the invasion of Egypt by the Italian 10th Army (9–16 September 1940), Operation Compass (9–16 December) by the Western Desert Force (WDF), the Battle of Sidi Barrani and the pursuit of the 10th Army into Cyrenaica (16 December 1940 – 9 February 1941) the fortified Italian position at the Al Jaghbub Oasis was besieged by parts of the 6th Australian Division.
The 24th Auckland Battalion was an infantry battalion of the New Zealand Army during the Second World War. The 24th Battalion was formed on 1 February 1940 and embarked for Egypt on 28 October 1940. It was part of the 6th Infantry Brigade, part of the 2nd New Zealand Division. The battalion fought in Greece, North Africa and Italy. After the conclusion of hostilities, the battalion was disbanded in December 1945.
The Action at Bir el Gubi took place on 19 November 1941 near Biʾr al-Ġubbiyy, Libya. It was one of the opening engagements of Operation Crusader in North Africa and resulted in a success for the Italian armoured forces.
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