Brilliant Operations

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 11

Brilliant Operations

CAUSES OF HISTORIC SUCCESS

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received February 15, 11.30 a.m.) &UG&Y, February 14,

Wbrd of the last phases of the campaign began to reach London on February 4, and by February 8 the British Imperial patrols had reached the frontier between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The war in Cyrenaica was over. This truly historic success is all the more significant when its causes are investigated. It was due to three factors—the absolute moral ascendancy of the British Imperial troops, the excellence and thoroughness of their training, and the standard and quality of their equipment.

From' the outset of the war against Italy, the armoured division seized the initiative and/ lost no opportunity of attacking and carrying the war into the enemy's country. As long ago as the early days of last summer British armoured units penetrated into thousands of square miles of hostile territory, surprising the enemy's outposts, interrupting his columns, harassing his communications, and generally making him feel insecure and hesitant in spite of his superiority of 10 to 1 in numbers and 20 or 30 to 1 in guns. • If British armoured units appeared, even in small numbers, to threaten the Italian line of retreat, their moral ascendancy became such thai the Italians' first impulse was to exaggerate the strength of the forces engaged and to fall back on the defensive instead of using tlieir superior forces to break through. This British moral ascendancy was the keynote of the subsequent operations. The value of the training may be gauged by the extent to which the British Imperial troops were ready to withstand fatigue and incredible hardships, and from the work of the longdistance patrols in wheeled vehicles. These have been under the command of a handful of Englishmen who made it their particular hobby to explore the Libyan desert. . CO-OPERATION WITH FREE FRENCH. These patrols, composed Of picked officers and men of the Royal Armoured Corps and the. New Zealand Forces, were augmented by teers from other British forces and by Rhodesians. Six weeks after the start of the war they began operations, shooting up convoys, destroying petrol dumps and stores, ana: generally making life a misery for isolated Italian desert garrisons. In concert with the Free French forces, our patrols operated in Fezzan, where Traghan was captured, also the airfield of Murzuk, about 450 miles south of Tripoli, and, the town destroyed. The air base at Kufra was also captured, thereby depriving the Italians of the use of this stepping-stone for aircraft between Libya and East Africa and removing the potential Italian threat to the Upper Nile. Special mention must be made of the magnificent performance of the transport drivers throughout the operations in Africa. In spite of sandstorms, bombing attacks, shortage of water, and great hardship, drivers from Home, the Dominions, India, and Cyprus never failed their comrades in the fighting line. Their deliveries have been punctual, and the maintenance of their vehicles exemplary. A great tribute is paid by the military to the mechanical excellence and equipment of the British armoured units, by which engineers and workers at Home have contributed directly to victory in the field. For nearly eight months all these vehicles have been continuously in use. Long-distance patrols have covered altogether-half a million miles without a single loss from mechanical breakdown, in spite of very rough going in uncharted regions over rocky outcrops and through seas of sand. The armoured forces, which had already stood the strain of continuous operations over long distances under the worst possible conditions, were perfectly able to make a magnificent final sprint which took the, enemy completely by surprise and showed that the veteran British products were far and away superior to the newlydelivered Italian tanks.

I'he conclusion of the Gyrenaican campaign enables a survey to be given of this achievement, which by general consent will go d6wn in history as one of the most brilliant military operations ever accomplished and as an outstanding example of the co-operation between land, sea, and air forces consisting of highly-trained men using magnificent equipment manufactured by equally highly-trained workmen.