Build a movie plot around this: What was Rommel total reserve strength? Two full panzer divisions.
Answer:
In September 1942, Rommel's Africa Korps is only 90 miles (144km) from the Suez Canal, but running dangerously low on fuel. The British approve a plan to destroy German fuel bunkers at Tobruk in an attempt to cripple Rommel's attack.The author of the plan, Canadian born Major Donald Craig (Rock Hudson) had been captured by Vichy French forces. As his expertise is considered essential to the success of the raid, Craig is rescued by Captain Kurt Bergman (George Peppard) of the Special Identification Group (SIG) and some of his men, German Jews serving with the British. They then join up with commandos of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Harker (Nigel Green), at Kufra in south-eastern Libya.Colonel Harker explains they have eight days to get to Tobruk and destroy the fuel depot and German field guns protecting the harbour, before a scheduled amphibious landing and a bombing raid on the city by the RAF. They are to drive there through enemy territory posing as POWs escorted by the SIG pretending to be guards. Once they reach Tobruk they would then link up with a full Naval and RAF assault on the city and their primary objective, Rommel's underground fuel bunkers. Craig is highly skeptical of the operation, claiming that "Staff has a genius for sitting on its brains and coming up with perfect hindsight", stating that when he originally submitted the plan they could have blown up the fuel bunkers with only a handful of men before questioning how they were supposed to get through well established German defences now. While warning Craig not to let personal differences of opinion interfere with the operation, Colonel Harker also reveals that he was the genius with perfect hindsight who convinced Staff to approve Craig's original plan which would now be "maximum effort, land, sea and air".On the way, they encounter a patrol of Italian tanks, which stops a short distance from where they are resting in a gully. Later that night, Sergeant Major Jack Tyne (Jack Watson)...