NORTH AFRICA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 283, 24 November 1944, Page 17

NORTH AFRICA

RETURN TO THE ATTACK: The New Zealand Division in Action in Libya. Published by the Army Board, Wellington. THE ARMY AT WAR: Tunisia. Prepared for the War Oftice by the Ministry ot Information. HE first of these publications is the fourth number in the series of illustrated surveys of the campaigns of the Second N.Z.E.F. The return was to Cyrenaica; and the savage fighting round Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk is vividly (and no doubt accurately) described. But it is not an easy story to follow. The fighting did not go according to plan-our own or the enemy’s. The offensive which began on the frontier on November 18 carried the Division into Tobruk on November 27, but Rommel raided its lines of communication, overran a Brigade headquasters, cut the Tobruk corridor which it was the Division’s task to keep open, captured Sidi Rezegh,

and compelled the Division to seek safety by disengaging to the south. It looked like defeats; but. since desert campaigns are necessarily fluid, and it is sometimes more profitable to destroy enemy forces than to carry or hold enemy positions, the situation was better in fact than it appeared on the map. It would be wrong to say that this is not a tempting book to look at. The cover is not attractive, back or front, and the frontispiece portrait of General Auchinleck has been spoiled by an attempt to add colour. But there are good maps and diagrams inside, and the text is profusely illustrated with well chosen and well placed,:if not always well reproduced, photographs, Tunisia is a foolscap publication of 60 pages lit up with magnificent illustrations. The letterpress would have been more interesting if there had been a question occasionally or a note of criticism, but it is a laudation and not a history. It is after all true, as the Ministry of Information points out, that "the military historian has seldom been in a position to record a victory so complete and brilliant." Yet, to begin with, everything was against the Allies — distance, bases, communications, air support. At least a third of their troops lacked battle experience. And yet, after ~ the early struggles for position and to build up supplies, the campaign raced ahead to its spectacular triumph. This is the story -with 12 maps and sees 100 frontrank photographs. |