Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1943-02-05
With Montgomery,
On ROmmel's Heels
Ru CHESTER MORRISON
(WNY Feature-Through special arrange
ment with Golfers Weekly

Montgomery recent sklrmlshes
with Rommel's army west of Cairo.
Willkie, in terms that semed at
the time to be extravagant, an
nounced that the Axis armies in
North Africa had been thoroughly
beaten, that the threat to Egypt
had been removed for all time!
Mr.. Willkie called it a victory
comparable to Nelson's at Abukir
bay"
To the correspondents who had
covered the war in North Africa
since it's beginning, it was less like
a victory won than like battle
that had never been fought. They
were disappointed, and among the
people of Egypt there was only the
accustomed feeling of tenuous
momentary security.
Willkie, however, got his infor-
nation from a cocky little Irish
man, who had taken over the Brit
ish Eighth army two weeks before.
A month later-at the end of
October Montgomery swung
again, this time with power so tre-
mendous that the German and
Italian armies reeled and broke, re-
organized clumsily and fled in
what seemed like panic. They fled
= of Egypt into Cyrenaica, fled
strs through their own mine fields,
s8 westward on the one main
cbaway along the Mediterranean
cdast, fled along desert tracks hub
deep in sand.
And Montgomery stayed on their
heels. Montgomery, in his tent or
in his dugout, riding in his tank or
his jeep in the field, talking of "my
PLAN" with other generals putting
his plan into effect. Now, without
question, the enemy was beaten.
An Interview With Montgomery
interviewed him one day at his
headquarters in a cave. He was
wearing a gray home-knit sweater
with a silk scarf knotted about his
throat, khaki pants, unscuffed
brown calf desert boots and the
iaunty black beret of the tank
corps. The beret seemed somehow
too large for his small gray head.
There were no ribbons on his chest.
None of these articles of clothing
was strictly uniform, but uniform
regulations were seldom closely OBJ
served in the field.
Always cocky, he was cocker
than ever that morning. His small,
sharp blue eyes flicked over the
correspondents and his close
clipped gray mustache twitched.
Suddenly-such was the magnetism
of the little man himself-one no
ticed another figure standing be-
/ side and a little behind him. 1t was
Coningham-chief of the Raj in
the western desert-ordinarily a
commanding figure; tall, heavy
and solid, with hawk nose of the
kind which belongs to a man COM
manding the Raj in the field.
Coningham wore the proper uni
form with ribbons.
Complete, Absolute Victory"
at was a fine BATTLE" Mont
gomery began. Here was that past
tense again-the same way Willkie
had spoken two months earlier-as
though the battle was already
over. "It was a fine BATTLE" he
repeated, and now he no longer
could suppress the smile that had
been making his mustache twitch.
Complete, absolute victory" he
snapped. "Boches finished. Fin
ished! Completely smashed"
And it turned out that the enemy
was smashed. Not completely
smashed, not yet, but Montgomery
has the knack of reading the fu-
ture. Hes like the conductor of a
great orchestra" one of his most
respected minor subordinates told
me once. "He's always at least one
bar of the score ahead of the play
ers."
While Montgomery fought on the
ground, Coningham fought in the
air. The Raj and its adjunct, the
USAAF, fought by day and by
night, with fighters and bombers,
and they achieved a triumph such
as has never been achieved by any
>Allied air force in any other
kheater of war. 1t wiped out-in
Coningham's own words, it ami
hilated-the Luftwaffe on the
ground and in the air.
Banked today along the sides of
airfields which were German in
October are piles of junk-junked
German and Italian planes,
yfIed before they could leave
hound.
1ronwas simply done, a simple
thing to do, given the weapons
with which to do it. For the first |
time since the battle of North |
Africa began in 1910, Montgomery |
had them.