This is a primary source article by a reporter who rode in the armored vehicles of the British Army during the Libyan campaign of 1942:
- from Amazon:
"It seemed incredible that in the melee either side could know whom or what they were firing at. The best I could do was identify the burning tanks: white smoke for the petrol-driven British - black smoke for the Diesel oil of the German tanks. There was plenty of both." "British bombing planes made a lightning assault on the Fascist base at Tobruk yesterday... Italy's high command admitted today that Bardia had fallen and was completely in British hands... Reports from Benghazi, capital of italian Libya, indicated that the British were intensifying their attacks against Giarabub in an effort to strengthen their exposed left flank against counterattacks.
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"Marshal Erwin Rommel's Axis forces in Egypt have been beaten back by British guns and planes. A Cairo communique said yesterday that the German armored divisions had retreated west of the British minefields to the starting line of his offensive which opened a week ago... Captured Axis prisoner disclosed how Rommel had touched off the offensive last Monday with a proclamation to his men that "we are off to Cairo.'" "Major General Lewis E. Brereton (1890 - 1967) is the new commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East." Australian general Leslie Morshead (1889 - 1959) gave Rommel and his Afrika Korps a tough time of it during the North Africa campaign (1940 - 1943). The Germans called him Ali Baba Morshead, and they knew what he was capable of. He kicked Rommel out of Tobruk and El Alamein and when his work was done in the Mediterranean, he was transferred to the Pacific Theater where he gave the Japanese no end of grief.
This article was penned by YANK correspondent Sergeant George "Slim" Aarons (1916 - 2006) concerning his travels throughout the Allied occupied portions of Tunisia in 1943. Aarons reported on the heavy presence of German military debris that could be found scattered throughout the deserts - evidence that spelled out the imminent eviction of the Germans from that continent:
"Some of these tanks lay in groups, showing how they had clustered together and fought it out to the bitter end. Other iron carcasses were alone in the desert, burned and twisted - relics of a hopeless, single-handed struggle against the Allied forces."
Click here to read about the retreat of the German 7th Army from Normandy.
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