Evening star., 1941-04-17
German Tank Crews
In Africa Finding
Desert Going Hard
Condition of Prisoners
Spurs Hope Nozi Drive
May Be Near End
BY ROBERT J. CASEY,

BY ROBERT j. CASEY,
Chicago Daily News Foreisn Correspondent.
CAIRO, April 17.-Ofncials here
have been greatly cheered in the last
few days by reports coming In from
the African front. 1t appears from
this vantage point that Germany's
mechanical troops are no longer
moving so rapidly in their desert
blitz and that the marrying British
patrols along the seacoast are caus-
ing their thirsty opponents no end
of annoyance.
If the eternal optimists of the
British Army needed any particular
heartening, they would have 1t in
the appearance, condition and mo-
rale of German prisoners who are
now dribbling back through the lines.
These fellows seem to demonstrate
that no matter how long you train q
superman to sit in a Turkish bath, so
that one day he will be able to drive
a hot tank for the glory of Hitler, in
the overheated desert, he will still
have a sort of effeminate tendency
to drink water.
Whether or not reports of the
mechanical acclimatization of Hit
ler's African expedition are true,
they have been widely circulated
hereabouts. So 1t comes as some
thing of shock to see how a des-
sicated superman looks after two
days in the artificial fever of q tank,
without a drink.
Hegira Near Finish.
If these shocked, exhausted Nazis
are any sample of the troops still
maneuvering through the roaring
dust out there, DR.. Fuehrer's grand
hegira is nearer its finish than any
one believed. They had not been
fed for days. They had drunk thick,
rusty water out of their radiators;
their motors had quit and the Brit
ish patrols had come along and
taken them without shot.
Its the dust" said one, who was
more or less echoed by all the rest,
land heat and dryness, but mostly
the dust-you can't see anything"
1t was probably dust rather than
heat that gave the precipitous Ger
mans their first setback around
Tobruk, IS miles west Of Egypt.
They had come on without pause,
over hundreds of hot miles. in an
exhibition of what they used to call
German relentlessness. In the
course of this drive they cut in be-
hind Ell Megheli and captured a
brace of unsuspecting officers. A
fine, encircling movement was well
on its way, with a thick sandstorm
to veil 1t.
British Officers Escape.
The British officers accepted the
situation with seeming resignation.
They started to unload their bag
gage from their captured truck, but
instead they unloaded their guards
and disappeared instantly into the
dust fog to the north. They got to
Tobruk we'll in advance of any other
communication and warned the gar
rison of the British retreat and the
German advance from the south.
Since then, according to all re-
ports, Tobruk has held out and the
garrison has hampered the enemy
advance by incessant raids on its
left flank, breaking up communica-
tions and lines of supply now in
creasingly needed by the advance
units In front of Salum, a few miles
inside the Egyptian border.
No one worries, hereabouts, about
the possibility of Tobruk being COM
pletely cut of by land. The defense
forces can easily get out by sea, If
they want to, but apparently they
don't want to.
Obviously, there is a big battle in
the dining. But at the moment
nobody is willing to guess when or
where.
For the fifth consecutive day the
elastic front line in Libya this
morning was still writhing around
Salum. Without being too optimis-
tic. 1t seemed reasonable to interpret
this as further confirmation of the
belief that the attackers are halting
for their second wind.
Fight Extends to Capuzzo.
There are reports of q sudden and
effectiye priticb fbr,,ef At ~. va.