I was made battlefield tour guide where my dad fought

A MAN went to Egypt to follow in his father’s footsteps at the Battle of El Alamein and ended up taking charge of a tour.

Richard Pinches, of Marlow Road, Henley, returned to where his father Peter “Ginger” Pinches was stationed with the 8th Army in 1942.

Mr Pinches senior was a lorry driver in the Royal Army Service Corps in North Africa during the Second World War, taking troops, food, fuel and ammunition to the front line.

By July 1942 the Allies had lost Tobruk and had been pushed into a defensive position near El Alamein, which was only 23 miles wide and bordered by the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the Qattara Depression, an impassable geographical feature, in the south.

The Battle of El Alamein started on October 23, 1942 and by November 5 Montgomery’s army had routed Rommel’s Afrika Korps for the first Allied victory in the war.

Mr Pinches had been on an official tour of the area in 2017 to mark the 75th anniversary of the battle and was looking forward to going again when he was called into action.

He said: “I got a phone call from the tour guide Steve Hamilton a week before departure saying he was in hospital after having a heart attack and would I mind taking the tour group.

“Since my father’s death I have become an 8th Army enthusiast and re-enactor, so I had enough knowledge to pull this off.

“I did a bit more detailed research for the group of 21 tour participants, many of whom had relations who fought in the battle and two had fathers die there.

“This battle was a turning point in the war for the Allies after they managed to push the Axis forces out of North Africa.

“Although Rommel was a superb general, Adolf Hitler had denied him the number of troops and armour needed and Montgomery was wise enough to wait until he had twice as many soldiers, tanks, planes and guns to defeat the very well respected Desert Fox.”

Mr Pinches, a professional photographer, was helped by an Egyptian tour company which knew the various locations to visit, while the country’s government supplied a police escort and armed guards for protection.

The tour started at the pyramids with camel rides and Mr Pinches stood in front of the Great Sphinx, just as his father had done 80 years before.

The visitors then moved to the Cecil Hotel in Alexandria, where Montgomery stayed, and had a cold beer. From there they visited El Alamein itself and saw the station that is now falling into disrepair.

Mr Pinches said: “It was so sad to see it in a much worse condition than on my last visit. Soon it will be gone altogether.

“The Egyptians don’t care about this part of history as I guess it doesn’t really include them but rubbish collects there. Even in the desert by the road you see plastic rubbish everywhere.”

The group attended a ceremony at the Allied cemetery where 7,200 soldiers are commemorated. They visited graves of relations of men known to them. Mr Pinches said: “One guest walked, accompanied, into the desert to a point called Barrel Hill, which is not a real hill but a raised feature. Here she stood where her father took a fatal wound to the head. Incredibly, she had previously come across a stretcher bearer who was with him when he died and was able to confirm he didn’t suffer.”

The group thanked him for “stepping up” to rescue the tour and liked it when he dressed up in period uniform for the anniversary of the eve of the battle.

The next day he was in Henley Market Place for the launch of the Poppy Appeal wearing his desert rat uniform and proudly showing the Alamein sand on his boots.

After the war, Mr Pinches snr went to work at his parents’ riding stables in Marlow where he was an instructor.

He bought a 50-acre farm in 1952 when the Fawley Court estate in Henley was sold in lots. This was to become Meadows Farm where Peter, his wife Helen and family moved in 1964 to look after his father’s beef herd.

Mr Pinches snr finally retired from farming at the age of 74 and died in 2015, aged 95.