NOVEMBER OFFENSIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 July 1942, Page 4

NOVEMBER OFFENSIVE

DEFENDED BY CHURCHILL FORTY THOUSAND PRISONERS TAKEN. AND FORTIFIED POSITIONS CAPTURED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.28 a.m.) RUGBY, July 2. Replying in his speech in the House of Commons, to critics of the November campaign in Libya, Mr Churchill said this offensive was not a failure, Our armies took 40,000 prisoners, drove the enemy back 400 miles and took the great fortified positions on which the enemy had rested so long. They drove him to the very edge of Cyrenaica and only when his tanks had been reduced to between 70 and 80 was it that, by a brilliant tactical resurgence, General Rommel set in motion a series of events that led to the retirement of our forces to a point only 150 miles further west than the point whence the offensive started. Ten thousand Germans were taken prisoner in that fight, which he was not prepared to regard otherwise than as a highly profitable transaction. Now Rommel had advanced nearly 400 miles through the desert and was approaching the fertile Nile Delta. The full effects of these events in Turkey, Spain, France and French North Africa could not yet be measured. “On the night before Tobruk fell,” said Mr Churchill, “we received a telegram from General Auchinleck stating that he had allotted what he believed to be an adequate garrison to Tobruk, with the defences in good order and ninety days’ supplies. It was hoped that we could hold the very strong frontier positions, which had been built up by the Germans and improved by ourselves, from Solium and Halfaya Pass through Capuzzo. It might well be that we were relatively no better off in the middle of May that in March or April. However, the armies in the Desert in the middle of May were about 100,000 on each side. We had 100,000 and the enemy 90,000, including over 50,000 Germans. We had a superiority in numbers of tanks of perhaps seven to five. We had a superiority in artillery of nearly eight to five, including in our artillery several regiments with the latest form of gun a howitzer which throws a 55 pound projectile to a distance of 20,000 yards. There were other artillery weapons, of which it is impossible to speak, which were also available. It is therefore untrue that we had to face the enemy’s 50-pounder gun with the 25-pounder, but the 25-pounder is one of the finest guns in Europe and is a perfectly new weapon. It is true that the enemy, by a tactical use of the 88 millimetre anti-aircraft gun, converted it to a different purpose and that his anti-tank weapon had a decided advantage, but this became apparent only as the battle proceeded. Our Army enjoyed throughout the battle and enjoys today, superiority in the air. Dive-bombers played a prominent part at Bir Hacheim and Tobruk, but it is not 'true that they should be regarded as a decisive or massive factor in this battle. Lastly, we had better and shorter lines of communications. We were therefore entitled to feel confidence in the result of the offensive undertaken by us. This would have been undertaken in the early days of June if the enemy had not struck first. When his preparations for an offensive became plainly visible, it was decided, I think rightly, to await his attack in our fortified positions and then to deliver a counterstroke in the greatest possible strength.” Mr Churchill gave further figures of the reinforcement of the Middle East. In the past two years, he said, from Britain, Empire and Allied countries, and, to a lesser extent from the United States, there had been sent to the Middle East over 950,000 men, 4,500 tanks and six thousand aircraft. Extreme exertions had been made by the Government -to strengthen and maintain the Middle East armies. “As far as the central direction of the war is concerned,” the Prime Minister observed, “I can say with some confidence that we have not failed in the exertions made or in trfe energy we have shown.”