THE BATTLE OF EGYPT.

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 252, 26 October 1942, Page 4

THE BATTLE OF EGYPT.

"Great days are at hand,". said Mr Churchill to the troops he visited recently in the desert lines. Evidently they have arrived with the full-scale offensive launched

by General Montgomery against the forces entrenched by General Rommel at E1 Alamein. Opened with a succession of artillery barrages, the effectiveness of which is in itself a striking proof of the great increase in the strength of the Eighth Army, the attack was successfully pressed to the extent of driving the enemy from some of his main positions and firmly consolidating the gains, This is not a minor assault, with but limited objectives in view. The Eighth Army had no need to improve its position along the line that it had been holding ; it had already secured a favourable footing locally. All the indications are that the action is in the nature of a major battle, the issue of which may bring a turning-point in the war. Significant of the Allied purposefulness are the words of General Montgomery's order to the troops — "Destroy Rommel and his army" — and the devastating raids made by the R.A.F. on Genoa and Milan. The Allied weight is being hurled against the Axis with a new momentum — on land, from the air and at sea. A valuable factor has beeri the considerable toll that British submarines have been taking of Axis shipping in the Mediterranean. The first round of the vital new battle in Egypt was won by General Montgomery at the beginning of September when Rommel's offensive was repulsed and his forces were pushed back, On that occasion the enemy was staggered by the weight of' British artillery fire. But perhaps the most decisive factor so far has been the incessant pounding from the air. So effective has been the Allied air offensive on the Axis supply routes that the enemy increasingly resorted to using Ju.52 transport planes to fly ammunition and supplies into the HemeimatRuweisat area, landing them, on improvised runways. Allied air superiority, insufficient in the previous campaign, but decisive perhaps in the present, is Rommel's chief handicap. So far neither Air Marshal Goering nor the Fuehrer himself has been able to provide Rommel with enough planes with which to counterhalance the growing air strength of the Allies. It is in the decline of the Luftwaffe especially that the first signs of German weakness may be observed. This deadly instrument of Nazi power has been employed in the drive to the Volga only at the sacrifice of strength on other fronts. The R.A.F. commands the air in the West and in Egypt, and American air squadrons are fast arriving in both theatres. North Afrjlca is fast bacoming an Anglo-American front, and Brazil's entry into the war has greatly facilitated the aerial supply route established by the United States across the South Atlantic to West Africa, and thence across Africa to the Sudan. If the situation in the Mediterranean can be remedied, or even partially remedied, the possibilities become immense, and Russia would assuredly share in the profit. With the North African coast cleared for the establishement of Allied naval and air bases there would be a spectacular change of control over the whole Mediterranean. Germany and Italy dread the possibility of a great offensive that will destroy Axis power in all North Africa and open the way for an attack on Southern Europe. That, indeed, has been Italy's fear since the war began. Germany is not sanguine that Italy would withstand a direct Allied assault. How near that conception is to achievement no one can yet say. But the strength, the determination and the initial success of the Eighth Army in its present challenge carry much promise.