Mein Vater (Royal Engineers) war vor 70 Jahren auch dabei: Veterans of the Battle of El Alamein marked its 70th anniversary today at a special service at Westminster Abbey. Some 40 British and Australian veterans, many of whom are in their 90s, were part of a 500-strong congregation honouring those who fought the battle which, as Churchill claimed at the time, marked “the end of the beginning” of the Second World War. More than 4,000 Allied servicemen died and almost 9,000 were wounded in the 14 days of desert combat between the Eighth Army under General Sir Bernard Montgomery and German general Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps.