TANKS IN DESERT

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21365, 8 March 1941, Page 9

TANKS IN DESERT

THRILLING EXPERIENCES ! I I 150 MILES IN 30 HOURS j ! GREAT ACHIEVEMENT (Ornclal Wireless) (Received March 8, 11.45 a.m.) RUGBY, March 7 Tank corps officers actually engaged in the thick of the Libyan operations, culminating in the cap- j i ture of Benghazi, have given first- j i hand accounts of the campaign, ■ ! which underline the outstanding sue- I cess achieved by the British Army. I 1 This was the first large-scale appli- j l cation of entirely novel methods of ! warfare. ■ The work of the light tank units ' ' are described by an officer who took I part in the offensive from the cap- j ture of Sidi Barrani to the cutting , off of Benghazi from the south. “The job,” he said, “was to carry j out a reconnaissance, go on in front of our forces, and isolate the place, j preventing the defenders from get- \ ting away and also reinforcements I from getting to them. Then, while the infantry, bigger tanks and other j ! arms got the better of the place, we i j went on to the next objective and I j got that isolated. “So it was at Bardia and Tobruk. I ; After the fall of Tobruk, when the I Australians went on along the coast ; road to Derna, we .went inland westi ward across the desert to Mekili, and I were there until it had been cap- ; tured. i "Then we had word that the ' Italians along the coast were begin- ; ning to stream away westward at a j tremendous pace. Orders came to j go straight across the desert to the coast road south of Benghazi and cut off the enemy’s retreat. The I going was very difficult over the rough stuff. For 30 miles it was the worst tank country I have ever seen —rock-outcrop and boulders. Racing the Clock “And we were racing the clock all the time. Italian planes had dropped showers of ‘thermos’ bombs on our line of advance, but that did not stop us. “We got to the coast 150 miles across country in 30 hours, and we arrived in the nick of time. “Coming down the road headlong was a column of Italian lorries and 1 guns—the start of the stream out of Benghazi—all coming anyhow. It was half an hour from nightfall. We attacked at once, and by the time it was dark they were finished, vehicles abandoned, crippled or surrendered. We took 1000 in half an hour. “At dawn the regiment went north to give warning of anything coming. Soon there approached a big enemy fighting column, with tanks and guns. It was the main body of the Italians. There were 70 medium tanks. We attacked in our cruiser tanks. Day of Decisive Battle “This was a day of decisive battle. The Italians fought fiercely to break through the rectangular pen we had got them in. We sent back word that the enemy was coming and went off ahead and into action. “Xhe battle went on from dawn till dusk. We held them all day. Just about 4.30 they looked as though they might manage to break through. In the nick of time re- | inforcements of cruiser tanks arrived after a forced march across country from the north-east. The Italians had about 26 of their 70 tanks still fighting. “All the time the battle was in prepress a prodigious amount of enemy transport kept pounding down the road. It collected in a great mass and jammed. A battery of the Royal Horse Artillery (now mechanised) got at them just before dark. It was an absolute smash-up. “Night came and further fighting, j Just as it was light Italian tanks ; came at the troops which we had across the road to the south. The only effective defence we had at that point against medium tanks was a battery of anti-tank guns and they suffered heavy casualties. Surrender of Italians “Before long a battery commander was shooting a gun himself. By that time they had knocked out about 18 of the remaining enemy tanks. The other eight surrendered. So did the thousands of Italian officers and men, including General Berganzoli. “An hour after dawn it was all over except clearing the battlefield.” Bad Feeling Amongst Italians “We had got Benghazi and cleared ' Cyrenaica.” After describing the extraordinarily trying conditions under which the campaign took place—heat, glare, dust and frequent mirage by day and icy cold by night—the officer summarised the impressions gained from the attitude of Italian prisoners. “There was evident bad feeling,” he said, “between the Blackshirts and the regulars. “Politics, in fact, were spoiling the Italian Army. A senior officer told me that politics had dictated the strategy and it was Mussolini who had ordered the advance into Egypt, which was ! militarily unsound, as the Army was not equipped with heavy tanks.” The officer in turn described the work of his units fighting from Sidi Barrani and Tooruk. “Sidi Barrani,” he said, “was defended by four forts, each about two miles in circumference and fortified with a ditch, a wall, wire, machine- i ' guns and anti-tank guns. We had j !to take all four in one day. Our j j first wave crashed through the for- j ! tiiications and when we followed we ; 1 saw tanks burning, heaps of dead , round the guns, trucks on fire, mules running about, ancl prisoners \ straggling back. j “The second, third and fourth forts ; were captured under the same j > thrilling battle conditions. ••Alter Sidi Barrani came the ; i assault on Bardia, where the chief . feature was the masterly co-operation j between the Army, the Navy and the j ! j Air Force, and finally the reduction | i ; of Tobruk.” I 1 , It is the War Office's intention, in i ! view of the keen public interest and J | appreciation, to arrange further talks ! j in London from time to time by • i officers who have been actually en- ; | gaged in the operations in various ifetffcaL'es of ua*.