DESERT TRANSPORT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 249, 18 September 1940, Page 8

DESERT TRANSPORT.

ROAD ALONG THE COAST

RISK OF NAVAL SHELLING

Communications in Libya are well assured by motor roads. The coastal road stretching from the Tunisian frontier to the Egyptian frontier, a distance of 1140 milee, is one of Italy’s real achievements in the development of Libya. On the eastern side, where the frontiers are with Egypt and the Sudan, the position is different. With the exception of the coastal oases and the Kufra oases, almost the whole of this area is waterless desert, and fortifications are restricted mainly to the coastal areas, the principal fortifications being at Derna, Tobruk, and Capuzzo. In the desert area facing the Egyptian frontier there are fortifications at Giarabub, 200 miles south from the coast, and certain well-guard-ed Customs posts. First-class road communications are limited to the coastal area, where the main coastal road serves all the maritime bases from Benghazi to the Egyptian frontier near.Soilum, and has limited connections with the roads running farther inland via the slopes behind the coast. The area from which extensive attacks can be made on Egypt appears to be limited to the coastal area adjoining the Egyptian frontier, but any massing of troops on the coastal roads is vulnerable to naval action. The distance from Alexandria to the naval base at Tobruk is about 360 miles. The only alternative attack by the desert route from Giarabub in the •direction of Siwa presents considerable difficulty, and it seems unlikely that any attack here by mass military forces could be attempted.