NOVEL METHODS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 125, 8 March 1941, Page 5

NOVEL METHODS

WARFARE IN THE DESERT. PART PLAYED BY THE TANKS. OFFICER’S VIVID DESCRIPTION (United Press Association —Copy light > (Rec. 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 7. Tank Corps officers who were actually engaged in the thick of the Libyan operations culminating in the capture of Benghazi have given first-hand accounts of the campaign, which underline the outstanding success achieved by the British army in this first large-scale application or entirely novel methods of warfare. The work of the light tank units is described by an officer who took part in the offensive from the capture of Sidi Barrani to the cutting off of Benghazi from the south. “Our job,” he said, “was to carry out reconnaisance and go in front of our forces and to isolate a place, preventing the defenders from getting away, and also to stop reinforcements geting to them. Then, while tho infantry ,with Digger tanks and other arms, got the better of tho place, we went on to tho next objective and got that isolated. So it was at Bardin and Tobruk. “After the fall of Tobruk, when the Australians went on along the coast road to Dernn, wc went inland and westward across "the desert to Mekili, and were there until it had been captured. Tlion wo had word that the Italians along the coast were beginning to stream away westwards at a tremendous, pace. Orders came to go straight across the desert to the coast road south of Benghazi and cut off the enemy’s retreat. « “The going was very difficult, over rough stuff. For 30 miles it was the worst tank country I have ever seen--rock-outcrop and boulders. And wo Wore 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. We arrived in the nick of time. “Coming down the road headlong was a column, of Italian lorries —the start of tli© stream oiit of Benghazi—all coming anyhow. It was half an hour from nightfall. Wc attacked at once and by'the time it was dark they were finished, and the vehicles abandoned, crippled or surrendered. We took 1000 in half an hour.” A decisive Battle. “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 Italians. There were 70 medium tanks. We attacked in our cruiser tanks. This was a day of decisive battle. The Italians fought fiercely to break through the rectangular pen we had got them in. We sent hack word that the enemy was coming and went off ahead and into action. The battle went om from dawn till dusk. We held them all dayjust about 4.30 they looked as though they might manage to bfi’eak through. “In the nick of time reinforcements 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 progress a. prodigious amount of enemy transport kept pounding down the road. It collected in a great mass and became jammed. A battery of the Royal Horse Artillery (now mechanised) got at them just before dark. <t was an absolute smash up. Night came and further fighting across the road to the south. The only effective defence we had at that point against the medium tanks was a. battery of anti-tank guns and they suffered heavy casualties. Before long the 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 for clearing the battlefield.”

Extraordinarily Trying Conditions. “We had taken. Benghazi and cleared Cyronaica,” the officer added. 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 the Italian prisoners. There was evident had feeling, he said, between the Blackshirts and the regulars. 'Politics, in fact, wore spoiling the Italian army. A senior officer told him that politics had dictated strategy, and it was Mussolini who had ordered the advance into Egypt, which was militarily unsound, as the army was not equipped. A heavy tank officer in, turn described the work of his units fighting from Sicli Barrani to Tobruk. “Sidi Batrani was defended by four forts, each about two miles in circumference, and a fortified ditch, a well, wire, machineguns and anti-tank guns. We had to lake all four in one day. Our first wave crashed through the fortifications and when wc followed wo saw tanks burning and heaps of dead were round the guns. A truck was on fire and the mules running , about and prisoners straggling back.”The second, third and fourth forts were captured under the same thrilling battle conditions. After Sidi Barrani, came the assault on -Bardin, where th|C chief feature was the masterly co-operation between the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and finally the reduction of Tobruk. It is the War Office’s intention, in view of the keen public Interest and appreciation, to arrange further talks in London from time to time by officers who have been actually engaged in operations: in the various theatres of war.