page_title: 1st Devonshire Engineers
section_title: Advance to Tripoli
hierarchical_section_title: 1st Devonshire Engineers / World War II / Advance to Tripoli
caption_attribution_description: English: The British Army in North Africa 1943 25-pdr field guns and 'Quad' artillery tractors parade past Winston Churchill during his visit to Tripoli to thank the 8th Army for its success in the North African campaign, 4 February 1943.
context_page_description: The 1st Devonshire Engineer Volunteer Corps, later the Devonshire Fortress Royal Engineers, was a volunteer unit of Britain's Royal Engineers whose history dated back to 1862. The unit helped to defend the vital naval base of Plymouth, and supplied detachments for service in the field in both World Wars. During the North African campaign in World War II, the unit's sappers distinguished themselves in bridging the Nile and clearing minefields during and after El Alamein. Their successors served on the postwar Territorial Army until 1969.
context_section_description: X CTRE followed Eighth Army's six-month advance across North Africa, repairing roads behind the advancing troops. Between Bouerat and Misourata, the unit dealt with 68 separate demolitions and craters, one involving the construction of a bridge with five 30-foot (10 m) spans. So many casualties were suffered from S-mines hidden among the demolitions that bulldozers were frequently called in. Captain Desmond Fitzgerald, a Regular RE officer attached to the TA Devonians of 571st Fd Co for two months from 1 January, recalled that his duties mainly involved clearing mines and booby-traps from captured landing strips before they could be used by the Royal Air Force. The company was attached to 1st Armoured Division at this time.
  When the damaged port of Tripoli was captured in late January 1943, Montgomery said that his "main preoccupation was to get the harbour uncorked and ships inside, so as to get a good daily tonnage landed" and reduce reliance on the long coast road from Tobruk. 571st Army Fd Co was one of the units sent to clear debris and repair the approach roads to the quays, and then begin repairing the Spanish Mole. Despite winter storms, a shallow entrance into the harbour was ready for small craft to enter and unload by 30 January. The next task was to remove Fascist Party emblems and pictures of Benito Mussolini, and erect a special podium in the town square for a victory parade attended by Winston Churchill on 4 February. Fitzgerald recalls that the troops referred to this construction as the "oxometer" – a device for measuring bullshit.
caption: Churchill on the podium takes the salute at the Tripoli victory parade, 4 February 1943.
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