1400 MILES IN 80 DAYS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 102, 25 January 1943, Page 5

1400 MILES IN 80 DAYS

Unparalleled Feat “OUR SHOW,” SAYS WAR MINISTER Fate Of Duce’s Hordes (British Official Wireless.) (Received January 24, 7 p.m.) RUGBY, January. 23. The Secretary of State for War. Sir James Grigg, broadcasting alter the fall of Tripoli was announced, said: “For months past we have been filled with admiration and gratitude for the tremendous exploits of the Red Army, today we have cause to extend to our own Army that admiration and gratitude. For the destruction of the Italian Empire in Africa is overwhelmingly our show —ours, India’s, Australia’s, New Zealand’s, South Africa’s and that of the inhabitants of British East and West Africa.' Ungrudging help had been given by the United States in supplies and air forces in the later stages, he said, but the troops of the British Commonwealth had cleared (he Italians out of an empire over 12 times the size of the British Isles. The final stage—since the Eighth Army attacked at El Alamein—had occupied just three months, and in that time the greater part of Field-Marshal Rommel’s armoured forces had been wiped out and five or six Italian divisions had been destroyed or captured. The Eighth Army had kept up (be pursuit, of the routed enemy from the edge of the Nile delta to Tripoli, advancing nearly 1400 miles in SO days.

Not Easy Going. It was not an unopposed advance, all the time there had been fighting and skirmishes between the armoured forces, which had whittled down the enemy and cleared the way for a speedier advance. ■ Twice Rommel had halted and put up resistance, but General Montgomery had used these pauses to bring up reinforcements and supplies, and then gave Rommel the extra kick which drove him on in his flight again. It was not easy going. There was no railway, and only a road which had been systematically sabotaged by the enemy so that our ears had to plough their way across (lie desert till the obstacles were cleared. In spite of all this, the average rale ot advance was 17J miles a day, or if the pauses were excluded, 30 miles a day.

The problem of supplying the army during the campaign, Sir James Grigg said, was well illustrated by the fact that during one week over 8,000,060 gallons of petrol and 8000 tons of ammunition was delivered to the front. The Navy' brought stores by sea to one Libyan port after another as they were captured, and aircraft carried supplies to the front and evacuated the wounded. The Army, in return, seized and cleared advanced landing grounds, which enabled our fighter aircraft to keep in contact with the retreating enemy.

Jt. was an uiiparallcllcd feat of military organization tiial had (lung such a great force with such spc.'J so far across a hostile desert, ano much of the. credit must, go to the quartermaster-general's staff under General Lindsell.

Sir James also stressed the fact that the advance hud been impossible without the full co-ordination between the. ground and air forces. Complete mastery in the air had enabled our most advanced forces to Ire serviced by lorries, often, without hindrance from the enemy, while at the same time the enemy’s communications had been constantly harassed from the air. , , At the same time, m the narrow waters of the Sicilian Strait and along the Tunisian coast, the Navy took heavy toll of the ships which were attempting to carry supplies and reinforcements to Rommel's hard-pressed forces. In 1040 the Italian African empire had been held by more than .1.000,000 Italian troops, and since then another eight divisions had been sent into Libya. Of these hordes it was safe to say that within a few hours not one would be left with arms on wlial was once Italian soil.