MARSHAL ROMMEL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24969, 16 July 1942, Page 5

MARSHAL ROMMEL

A MEETING IN THE DESERT HARSH WORDS TO TROOPS A New York Times correspondent. Mr Harold Denny, was captured in Libya and later released by the Italians. Following are extracts from an article in the Sydney Sun, in which Mr Denny tells of a meeting with Rommel. German soldiers crowded about us, staring as we sat dejectedly on the ground, many snapping photographs of us. In the midst of this a burly, unshaven German officer, wearing a -rumpled greatcoat’ drove up in a scout car. followed by a big staff car, fitted with cross-wise seats like a sightseeing bus. He looked us over with a self-satisfied air and began haranguing the German soldiers. It was Field-marshal Erwin Rommel, though we did not know it at the moment. “ Why are you wasting your time gaping at this little lot of English? ” he roared. “ These are only a sample of what we will get. Go on! Get about your business! Get all the Schweinhunden! Alles! Alles! ” Camera Enthusiast

Then Marshal Rommel, who Is a camex-a enthusiast, and takes photographic records of his battles, got out his own camera and photographed us. Then, leaning his elbow on the windshield, supporting his chin on his fist, and looking out over the desert, he struck an effective pose and let some German soldiers photograph him. In the battle, as in most if not all of his actions. Marshal Rommel was all over the field in person. For in this war the generals of armoured units of all nations do not die in bed, and, indeed, they are lucky when they see a bed. They go into action with their men, and are frequently in the van of attack in their own tanks. In this action, we learned from other prisoners afterward, Marshal Rommel delighted in visiting survivors of units he had crushed and in hectoring them on tactics. To a British tank brigadier, captured at about the same time as we were, Marshal Rommel said, as the brigadier himself told me; “ What difference does it make if you have two tanks to my one when you spread them out and let me smash them in detail? You presented me three brigades in succession.”

To the commander of an infantry brigade, taken a few days after our capture, be-remarked: “ Your tactics surprised me.” ' Soon after Marshal Rommel’s visit to us, trucks drove up, and we were herded into them. The German tanks were ready now for another battle, and their crews were climbing into them. Destroyed Aerodrome

As we started to move northward towards Tobruk the tanks moved off eastward towards where the New Zealanders must have been, in three long files with intervals and distances of about 30 yards. We counted 45 tanks in that detachment. Six other tanks rumbled along on our flanks to guard us. We passed the smashed-up German aerodrome at El Adem, its margin dotted .with destroyed German aircraft, and turned on to the by-pass that circles around the perimeter of Tobruk. Long-range British guns were shelling the road, but no shells hit our vehicles.