Evening star., 1942-07-20
Desert Ordeal

fighting each other in the desert
approach to inhabited Egypt is prob
ably not more than one-tenth OF
those locked in battle along the Don,
the stakes involved in the Egyptian
struggle vastly outweigh the size of
the human units involved. Only 70
miles behind the British headquar-
ters at Ell Alamein, the squalid little
village on the coastal railway, is
Alexandria. port metropolis and
main naval base for Britain's fleet in
the Eastern Mediterranean. Beyond
lies the incredibly rich valley of the
Nile. And back of that, again is the
Suez Canal, with Palestine, Syria and
oil-rich Iraq in the remoter back
ground. Those are the stakes for
which men are fighting and dying in
the barren vestibule to Egypt.
How well both sides know it is
shown by the terrific struggle which
goes on relentlesSly, day and night,
The battle-ground is as restricted as
the numbers of combatants are linn
tied 1t consists of a funnel shaped
corridor about 40 miles wide, the
battle front reaching from the sea-
coast to the impossible salt sink of
the Qattara Depression. The ter
rain is mostly hard-surfaced desert,
building up from the coast in a series
of rocky ridges which run at right
angles to the battle front. Those
dominating ridges are the objectives
for the possession of which the fight
ing is most intense. In reality three
main actions are simultaneously in
progress. The first of these, near the
coast, concerns itself with an emf
nence called Tel ell Elsa or Hill of
Jesus. There, veteran Australians,
rushed up from Syria are slugging
away at picked German infantry of
Rommels Afrika Korps with tommy
guns, hand grenades and bayonetted
rifles in what is chiefly a man-to-
man melee.
Some IS miles to the southwark
mechanized warfare is in full swing
tremendous battle Of tanks, clank-
ing and roaring along the limestone
escarpment of Ell Ruweisat. At the
southernmoSt end of the front,
second infantry engagement is going
on, where South Africans hammer
at Italians guarding Rommels ex-
treme right flank, intrenched on the
jagged cliffs which overlook the
shimmering, heat blasted salt pans
of Qattara, Egypt's Death Valley.
Perhaps never have soldiers under
gone more prolongedly gruelling
ordeal. Each day. the blasting heat
of the desert rises to something like
130 degrees Fahrenheit in a non
existent shade" After sundown,
this heat gives place to rapid chill.
But night brings no pause in the
battle. When the fighting started a
fortnight ago, there was a desert
moon bright enough to read print.
Now, the nights are moonless; but,
like a summer baseball game in
America, the grounds" are lighted
by an Internal combination of flares,
rockets, tracer bullets and exploding
shells.
This truceleSs combat is taking it's
toll. Dispatches sent from the
British battle front tell of wounded
Tommies and German prisoners fall
ing into deathlike stupor of utter
exhaustion while waiting their turn
at f1rst-aid stations, despite the pain
of undressed wounds. Those men
are, for the most part, desert-tough-
ened veterans, Injured to the in
credibly hard conditions which con-
front them. Yet even their iron re-
sistance has it's limits. At the pres
ent merciless pace, the tax on human
endurance must presently prove too
great, and one side or the other
will eventually crack under the
strain. Which side will crack is, for
the moment, anybody's guess. 1t
may be that seemingly minor cpl
sode or factor will tip the wavering
scales for decision on which such
far-reaching consequences depend