Battles of Annihilation

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXX, Issue 13668, 16 June 1942, Page 8

Battles of Annihilation

(By P.P.S.) In the battle in Libya a great number of .armoured vehicles has been massed by both the Al-lied and Axis forces in a strategic quadrangle between Tobruk and Bir Hakeim. This battle is different from all previous operations in Libya because different strategy is being tried by both adversaries. The Allies have built up in that quadrangle a series of defensive positions with strong garrisons and surrounded them by minefields. The geographical centre of these defences seems to be Knightsbridge and unless Rommel succeeds in enveloping the Allied strongholds he is compelled to ram his way through. The military correspondent of the Daily Express summed up the situation by saying that this is a battle an annihilation. The army which comes out of it with the greatest number of heavy tanks will be the victor. A great deal depended upon the ability of our forces to defend Bir Hakeim which was guarding our southern flank. It seemed that, at this hot season, Rommel does not want to run the rick of making a mighty sweep through the southern desert toward Sidi Omar and Solium. This sweep would have to be backed by an enormous number of supply vehicles protected by fleets of fighters. So far there are no indications that Rommel has at his disposal such concentrated supplies while, according to Allied reports, our quantities of vehicles and supplies can at least equal those which Rommel could accumulate by land routes through Tunis and by ships and air from Italy and France. Although it is too soon to jubilate at this reported equality of chances we can at least derive from it a great deal of satisfaction that in spite of grave shipping losses the Allies were able to transport to the Middle East quantities of war materials which can equal anything Rommel is capable of accumulating* via his infinitely shorter and more numerous routes. It is no secret to reveal that, numerically, the Allied armies in the Middle East are much stronger than the Axis one in Africa. But our superiority in number of soldiers is not a true measure of strength. It is the equipment, the number of planes and tanks, the quantities of ammunition and the reserves to replenish all of these after battles, whether the latter result in successes or reverses. Should the present battle in Libya result in our victory, or at least in stalling Rommel's offensive, or even in Rommel's rout, we must not forget the great wastage of materials which, must be replaced. In this sense the battle in Libya is intimately connected with the Russian battlefields and with the Third Front maintained by General Mihailovich's Jugoslav guerilla army. So long as Mihailovich is able to engage a large number of Italian, German, Bulgarian and Hungarian divisions, in interfering with communications and in keeping the Balkans in a state of perpetual revolt, the Axis cannot afford to concentrate larger quantities of either combatants or war material in Africa. Mihailovich is annihilating Axis resources, thus giving time to Britain and America to replenish ours in the Middle East. Similarly, and on an infinitely larger scale, the Russians are annihilating the Axis armed forces and war materials by tactics which the Russian command calls precisely "annihilating." The same most emphatically applies to the Pacific. Every Japanese warship or plane destroyed gives a day or two to American war efforts.