CAUGHT NAPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1941, Page 4

CAUGHT NAPPING

SIR A. WAVELL’S FRANK ADMISSIONS THE ENEMY OFFENSIVE IN CYRENAICA. WAS NOT EXPECTED SO SOON. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) NEW DELHI, November 10. Because practically all the trained and equipped troops in the Middle East were ordered to Greece when Germany attacked , that country Britain was compelled to garrison her conquests in Cyrenaiea with partly-trained and partly-equipped soldiers. This revelation was made by General Sir Archibald Wavell, former Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, and now Commander-in-Chief in India, speaking in reply to the welcome extended to him when he took his seat in the Council of State. General Wavell admitted, that he made a miscalculation here. “I did not expect the enemy counter-attack before the end of April at the earliest,” he said, “by which time I hoped to have back in North Africa at least part of the seasoned Indian division from Italian East Africa, and to have completed the equipment of the troops remaining in Cyrenaiea and consisting of a British armoured brigade, an Australian division, and an Indian motor division. All these were short of equipment, transport and training. Unfortunately the enemy attacked at least a month before I expected it to be possible.”

General Wavell said that he and his commanders believed that a minimum of two divisions and considerable artillery would be needed for the Eritrean campaign, which even then would be long and costly, but in four months, the Fourth and Fifth Indian Divisions, with under the ordinary amount of artillery, completed the conquest of Eritrea and the northern half of Abyssinia. It was a very remarkable achievement.