The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-05-19

tnlS more acutely than ten. ErWln stranded just inside Egypt in Octobe
 Rommen called upon to recoup Mussolini's Libyan debacle, had done that and more. Now he threatened to snap the British Mediterranean lifeline beyond re- pair. Once astride the Suez, he would be in position to pry open the Near East and the Middle East, perhaps even to break through to the Indian Ocean and join the le- gions of Japan.
 But Hitler did not choose to play out what appeared to be winning hand. Rommel waited for supplies in vain. British Gen. Sir Archibald Wavell saw his chance. In Nov. IS, five British spearheads sprang across the border in the greatest Allied drive of the war up to that time hailed by Churchill as the first undertaken with men and machines to match the enemy.
 Supply Lines Falter
 Rommel had no choice but to retreat. His main problem soon be- came to avert full-fledged rout. For the British pressed their sec ond Libyan offensive with impress sive speed. Tobruks gallant garri- son was relieved early in December and by Christmas the flying Impe- rial columns were past the caravan terminals of DernaS and Benghasi, hundreds of miles beyond.
 The goal was complete con- quest of Axis-held North Africa But once again Wavell found him. self thwarted by that besetting nemesis of every desert advance faltering supply. Conversely, Rom mels resistance stiffened as his supply lines shortened
 The British reached Fl Agheila, 400 miles west of the Egyptian border, on Jan. 2. They got no far ther. Rommel had entrenched him. self in the desert hills and salt bogs just west of the port Repaired and replenished, his big guns and tanks slapped back fiercely at his pursuers, who were forced to en- camp on flat. exposed plain. After week, the British were weakened further by troop trans fers to Singapore.
 ROmmel Counterattacks
 Another week passed and then Rommel launched savage counter attack under cover of a stinging sandstorm. The attack was suc- cessful. The pattern of the previ- ous months was repeated in re- verse. In two days the British were swept back 80 miles to Agedaba. Benghazi fell once more, and for its capture Rommel received the rank of field marshal By Feb. 20, the British were back in the vicin- ity of Tobruk
 There they regrouped, held des- perately and forced a stalemate on line running from Tobruk 40 miles south to the desert cross roads of Bir Hacheim. The lull lasted three months. The two ar mics rested, fidgeted and waited for endorsements under a desert sun that withered men and made metal too hot to touch.
 On May 26, Rommel opened his final desert campaign. He ordered his tanks forward. For two weeks, the struggle swirled back and forth below Tobruk. Then, on June l3, British Gen. Neil M. Ritchie sent his tanks into a Nazi trap and lost 230 of them. Stripped of their armor, the British lost Tobruk and 25,000 men stationed there. The squat Nazi tanks roared on east ward over the coastal plain.
 Nazis Reach Matruh
 Bardia. on the Egyptian border, fell after a week, and then Sidi Barrani, 100 miles inside. By June 29, the Nazi tide had reached Matruh, the largest town west of Alexandria, and Rommel was nearer the green valley of the Nile and the brown ditch of the Suez than ever before England and the Empire, Churchill told Commons, were in mortal peril.
 At a sun-baked collection of huts named Fl Alamein - a name now fixed in history with Waterloo and Gettysburg-the British final ly called halt. Grimly they threw up a defensive line running inland 35 miles to vast alkali bed called the Qautara depression. Rommel flung his panzers furiously against the makeshift defense, and for several critical days the decision hung in the balance. But although the line bent perilously, it failed to crack. For third time the pay-off victory had eluded the Axis grasp. And now Rommels Afrika Korps was out of tanks, ammunition and water - everything desert army needs. It dug in to await supplies and endorsements.
 This time, it got them, but the British got more. They also got new leaders: the spirited and of fensive-minded Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery and the master stratsgist Sir Harold R. L. G. Alex ander.
 Under these talented soldiers, a new British army took shane that.