TANK BATTLES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 140, 10 March 1941, Page 7

TANK BATTLES

Thrilling Story Of The Libyan Campaign NOVEL WARFARE Outstanding Success Of British Army (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 7. Tank corps officers who were actually engaged in the thick of the Libyan operations which culminated 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 the first largescale application of entirely novel methods of warfare.

The work of the light tank units was 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 recoiiniassance, to go on. in front of our forces and isolate a place to prevent the defenders getting away and also reinforcements getting to them. Then, while the infantry, bigger tanks, and other arms got the better of the place, we went on to the next objective and got that isolated. “So it was at Bardia and Tobruk. After the fall of Tobruk, when the .Australians went on along the coast road to Derna, we went inland, moving westward across the desert to Mekili and were there until it had been captured. Race Against Time. "Then we had word that the Italians along the coast were beginning to stream away westward 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 and over rough stuff. Thirty miles of it was the worst tank country I have ever seen—rock-outcrop and boulders. 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 go to the coast 150 miles across country in 30 hours. “We arrived in the nick of time. Coming headlong down the road was a column of Italian lorries and 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, the vehicles being abandoned, crippled, or surrendered. We took 1000 in half an hour.” “At dawn,” continued the officer, “a 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. This was a day of decisive battle. The Italians fought fiercely to break through the rectagular pen we had got them in. We sent back word that the enemy were coming and went off ahead and into action. “The battle went on from dawn till dusk. We held them all day—just about 4-30 p.m. they looked as though they might manage to break through. In the nick of time reinforcements of cruiser tanks arrived after a forced march across country from the northeast. “Absolute Smash-up." “The Italians had about 20 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 mechanized) got at them just before dark. It was an absolute smash-up. Night, came and stopped further fighting. “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. Before long the battery commander was shooting the gun himself. By that time they had knocked out about 18 of the remaining enemy tanks. The other eight surrendered, and 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.” “We had got Benghazi and cleared Cyrenaica."

ITALIAN COMMUNIQUE

LONDON, March 7.

An Italian communique states: “Our troops repelled an enemy attack on Kurmuk. German planes attacked marching columns In North Africa and destroyed 20 motorized vehicles. German planes also bombed camps and hutments in the neighbourhood of Derna, where fires were started. Other German bombers raided Malta.”