Through the Wars
Taken from Derry Journal Friday 9th May 2003

Some 40,000 fighting men perished in the dust of the North African desert from 1942 to 1943. A pendulous duel between two of the most revered generals of World War II would unfold. General Montgomery and General Erwin Rommel indulged in a battle of wits - the powers behind them the even more commanding figures of Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler. In the end Montgomery was victorious, but with much greater resources and manpower.

Under Montgomery was one of the scores of Derry men who joined the Army for a decent wage in the hard times of the 40s. Hugh McDonnell would be unlucky, but miraculously escape with his life. One day in November, 1942, he lay under the bodies of comrades, his body lacerated by shrapnel. He was discovered by medics and during his recovery wrote touching letters to his new bride Nell who waited patiently at home. In a peculiar irony, Nell died in 1976 on the same day as Fieldmarshall General Bernard Montgomery, the man who commanded her husband.

Hugh McDonnell at El Alamein

Hugh 'Moon' McDonnell lay in the desert, his life slowly ebbing away underneath bodies and surrounded by hundreds more. He may have thought of the lines he lovingly sent home to new bride Nell and son Hugo.

Both his lungs had been punctured by searing shards of metal. Another piece of metal ripped through the flesh of one of his legs and gorged a hole through his bone. His eardrums were perforated by the shockwave of the shell. His blood mingled with that of others oozing into the sand. The same German shell had left the dusty plain around him a site of carnage. It was the battle of El Alamein. The year was 1942. One year earlier, Hugh (Harvey Street) had married Nell (Quarry Street). The picture here is of their wedding day. Ironically Nell would die on the same day in 1976 as the man who commanded her husband at El Alamein - General Bernard Montgomery.

In a lull in the battle, medics and troops ventured to the forward positions to clear the bodies. Miraculously, Hugh McDonnell was found barely alive in a desert of death. It was all a long way from his days in Brewsters Bakery. El Alamein was a turning point of the North African campaign. The small town just 70 miles from the strategic Egyptian Port of Alexandria, became the focus of savage fighting between the German Afrika Corps, led by German military icon, Erwin Rommel and Fieldmarshall Bernard Montgomery, heading the 8th Army - quickly dubbed the 'Desert Rats'. How Hugh McDonnell came to be lying dying in the desert amid the slaughter of El Alamein is a story like so many other men from areas of Derry wracked by poverty.

He would spend the remainder of his life straining against the effects of his injuries. That personal battle ended at the age of 46 in 1956. Hugh received correspondence from brother Bill in 1940: "Come to Worthing, they're digging holes and trenches for the war and the money's great". The allure of a steady wage took Hugh to England. But as he was working illegally he was conscripted into the Royal Sussex Regiment. His fifth battalion was raised and sent to fight in North Africa in one of the most famous military duels of World War II.

Rommel's exploit in the desert would earn him the nickname 'The Desert Fox'. But he was not a man without great pressure on him. With his supply lines getting narrower by the day, even a general of his acumen. Could not tip the balance against a force that hugely outnumbered his. "Don't for one second relax your determination to follow up, whatever the odds; don't be like the British who had a chance of getting to Tripoli and didn't take it" - Hitler said to Rommel. The North African campaign fought in tandem with the general conflagration across Europe saw 400,000 casualties from the point of Allied amphibious landings during Operation Torch in 1942 until the surrender of Rommel's Afrika Corps in 1943.

It was the Allied success in the Mediterranean that enabled them to land an enormous amphibious force in the Torch landings and equip the Eighth Army to defeat the Afrika Corps at El Alamein in September 1942. At 9.40pm on October 23rd 1942, the battle for El Alamein began with a ferocious 8th Army artillery barrage. It was Montgomery's first offensive battle of the desert war and it would be set-piece, relying heavily on deception. Elite Panzers were distracted while infantry, including Hugh McDonnell moved forward to "crumble" German positions. Though successful Montgomery's battle plan was costly in lives. The commander later described it as the "most determined and savage fighting of the campaign".

Some 13,500 allied troops were killed, wounded or were registered missing. Rommel was urged by Hitler to stand and fight, but eventually on the night of 8th November, he withdrew with Hitler's permission, the Afrika Corp's fighting capability severely degraded and forced to go on the run across the desert. "Before Alamein we never had a victory after Alamein we never had a defeat," declared Winston Churchill.

Hugh McDonnell was plucked from his hell in the desert by the Red cross. He was treated at a field hospital in Egypt before returning home. But the man, nicknamed 'Moon' because of his jovial and jokey nature would never be the same again. Daughter Nell said: "I always found that strange. She never received a penny from the Army after my father died - they said that he hadn't died in action but of lung cancer. But it has since been proved that asbestos was contained in the shells". Hugh's injuries left him in terrible health after the war. He was continually taken to Musgrave Park Hospital for treatment to his wounds. "I remember that my father would always bring us presents when he returned from Musgrave. He would always bring us something, He was a very caring man who never lifted a hand in anger." One incident proved this. Son Hugo "played up" one evening Nell said: "My mother asked my father to take the belt to him, but dad went into Hugo and said to him 'You squeal while I hit the bed'.

Nell can't contemplate what her father went through in the desert: "I often thought about that. It must have been a terribly traumatic experience, but maybe he was in so much pain he didn't think too much about what was around him at the time."

Hugh McDonnell, deeply in love with his new wife who bore him son Hugo as he lay battling for life in the North African desert would write romantic letters. "LYTTDF and the camels come home in skis". Love you till the desert freezes and the camels come home in skies". Hugh McDonnell married his wife Nell in perfect health while on a short term of leave. They would spend 16 years together, with Hugh's quality of life severely impaired. According to daughter Nell, one doctor's grim assessment was that he would have been better dying on the battlefield.

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