This week in the war, 4 August 1942, Churchill arrived in Cairo to visit the front. He found no fault with the troops or even much fault with the equipment. The problem, he concluded, was at the top. Churchill had lost confidence in General Claude Auchinleck, C-in-C Middle East.

Lieutenant-General William Gott—veteran of many desert campaigns and one-time commander of the Eighth Army’s famed 7th Armoured Division—was Churchill’s choice to command the Eighth Army.

On 7 August, the transport plane carrying the general from the front to Cairo was shot down by German Messerschmitts and all on board were killed. Churchill had to go with his second choice, namely the commander of the British South-Eastern Army back in England: Lieutenant-General Bernard Law Montgomery.

Monty would soon be facing Erwin Rommel, the Afrika Korps’ famous ‘Desert Fox.’

On 8 August, Churchill gave Montgomery a new immediate boss by appointing General Harold Alexander to replace Auchinleck as Commander-in-Chief Middle East.