ROMMEL’S AMBUSH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1943, Page 4

ROMMEL’S AMBUSH

SUCCESSFUL ONCE IN LIBYA. BUT COUNTERED AND DEFEATED IN TRIPOLITANIA. Writing from North Africa to the “Christian Science Monitor” in January last, Mr. Edmund Stevens said that Rommel tried to halt the sensational advance of the Eighth Army into Tripolitania with the same type of antitank ambush as brought disaster to General Ritchie's forces 'at Ain el Gazala. The British, however, had profited by past mistakes and the German attempt failed. “Marshal Rommeks trick which worked so well at Ain el Gazala and which he tried again in Tripolitania,” Mr. Stevens continued, “was to send out a few tanks which deliberately engaged superior concentrations of British armour and then withdrew, leading the pursuing British vehicles into point blank- range of the German .88 millimeter anti-tank guns. “In Tripolitania, however, the British tanks did not pursue the fleeing Germans into the trap. Instead, they withdrew to a safe distance while 25pounders were brought up and a path blasted through the ambush with concentrated fire.

“The retreating Afrika Korps offered little serious opposition to the British advance after this favourite German trick failed.”