Literary Evening with Captain Christopher Dorman-O’Gowan
The First Battle of El Alamein (July 1942) | Reality vs Myth
Tuesday 24th May at 18.30 | £10.00 per person*
On the 25th June 1942 General Sir Claude Auchinleck, C-in-C Middle East, took over direct command of the 8th Army from Lt-General Neil Ritchie after its defeat at Gazala and the fall of Tobruk. He took with him Major-General Eric Dorman-Smith MC then Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Middle East.
In taking over direct command Auchinleck decided to withdraw the remains of the 8th Army back to Alamein determined to fight there a fluid mobile battle. There were to be no ‘boxes’ or fixed locations and the area between El Alamein and the Qattara Depression was to be the battlefield.
Between 1st and 27th July 1942 Auchinleck’s direct command of the 8th Army succeeded in stymying Field Marshal Rommel’s attempts to by-pass the Alamein location and laid the foundation for the subsequent success in the battles of the 8th Army and, also, the abandonment by the Axis powers of the invasion of Malta.
Born and brought up in Ireland, Captain Dorman-O’Gowan was commissioned into the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in February 1969 and, subsequently, saw service in the Far East, Cyprus, BAOR, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. On leaving the army he qualified in law and was called to the English Bar in 1979 and to the Irish Bar in 1983. He has practised from Chambers in Newcastle upon Tyne until 2016 and also in Ireland.
Members are invited to join Captain Dorman-O’Gowan as he shares his knowledge on The First Battle of Alamein. As the son of Major-General Eric Dorman O’Gowan MC. (formerly Dorman-Smith), he brings a refreshing perspective to the study of this almost forgotten battle with new papers, not in the public domain, which cast an interesting light on the problems of command that faced both General Auchinleck and his father in the dark days of June and July 1942.
*The ticket includes a glass of wine per person on arrival