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In what date was Cairo blackout lifted in WW2? Was the date celebrated in the following years?
And, not less important: what notable events were in December 21st 1944?
A little background: Someone I got to know was born in Cairo on the 21st of December 1944. He said it was the night when lights were turned on.
Now that puzzles me: The battle of El-Alamein ended in Nov 1942. On 21.12.1942 Rommel was forced out of Libya, too. But it was 1942, not 1944! On Dec 1944 Hitler had just central Europe. It's hard to believe that Egypt was blacked out for 2 years and a half (probably since the fall of Tobruk).
On the other hand, it can be that the dates are wrong. But he remembers himself as a child in kindergarten back in 1949. It's hard to believe that a seven years old child thinks he's five.
What is the solution for this riddle? I don't know. So I suspect that the occasion of pushing Rommel's bombers off-range at 21.12.1942 was celebrated years later, including 21.12.1944.
We can indeed nail down a date for this:
CAIRO LIGHTS GO UP
FIRST CAPITAL TO END BLACK-OUT
By an order of the Military Governor, published last night, the black-out in Cairo ends to-day, and full lighting will be reintroduced…
The Times, 3 August 1944 (the story is dated 2 August 1944, so the effective date was presumably 2 August). It goes on to note that the Cairo blackout was by this stage not strongly enforced and was more of a "dim-out"; blackouts were still to be enforced along the coast and around the Canal.