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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1942-07-16, Page 6rr+.GE, SX THE >SWQRTH NEWS THURSPAY, JULY 16, 1942 Tobruk'and After: Rommel's Problems By Brigadier General H, 'S, Sewell; 1MTovemeut in the Libyan campaign has been too quick and changes in the sitaation have been too frequent to permit elaborate continent in an article which has to be prepared a week before publication. The news of the fall of Tobruk, received June 14, and rightly termed by military commentators In London "an intone testable disaster," marks a definite phase in the batle which has been raging in Libya for the last four weeks, The Axis attack opened on May 26 and the objective, which was the capture of Tobruk and the British defenses west of Bardia, was finally gained on June 21. In the original at- tack the defense system held even though the German panzer divisions had moved round the desert flank and were battling with British mechaniz- ed formations behind the denfse zone. For two weeks it appeared to be in doubt whether the British or the German tanks would last longer, It was the tactical employment of German anti-tank guns which event- aally whittled down the British mech- anized strength, The German 88 mm. gun is an ad- mirable weapon, highly mobile either In a tank or on a carrier moving under its own power. In both range and rate of ere it excels the British 25 -pounder, But in spite of this sup- eriority the issue of the recent battle was 113 doubt for fourteen days of bitter fighting, and it was only by throwing in all his reserves that Rommel was finally able to break up the British defensive position and move on Tobruk. Nazi Supply Line to Tobruk The expenditure of laboriously ac- cumulated supplies must have been great, for it may be assumed that Rommel expected to succeed in his first bold plan of encirclement on May 26 and has had to expend much more than he bargained for to obtain the success which he has now achieved. It would be unwise, how- ever, to count on the supply factor to delay further advances, for it may now be possible for Rommel to bring supplies to Tobruk by sea under cover of shore -based aircraft. The attack on Egypt came quickly as expected for it was boviously to Rommel's advantage to exploit his success even at the risk of run- ning short of supplies. In this con- nection, the recent broadcast from Berlin that "the approach of the Af- rican summer will make further Syria. It is probable that butler Ilas considered that Turkey can be so impressed by Axis successes in North Afriea and in the Crimea that she will be forced intothe n belief that resistance to the passage of, a Ger- man army through Turkish territory to Syria, or. of an Italiaan, fleet through the Dardanelles to the Biaek Sea, would, be hopeless. Axis air strength has been built up in Bulgaria, Greece and Crete as web as in Italy, Sicily and North Africa, and it is a serious ehallenge to the British Navy in the eastern Mediter- ranean. Fleet .losses' have been sev- ere, and the ability of servioe vessels to operate is being more and more curtailed as Axis land forces press towards Alexandria, and Axis air strength is massed around the north and south shores of this sea. Egypt,. Palestine, Syria and Cyprus are the last strongholds of the. United Na- tions in the eastern Mediterranean, and the denfse of these will depend largely on air power. This duty is al- ready being shared by bombrs of the U, S. Army Air Corps, and it is hoped that the R. A. F. fighter strength has already been built up to a 'fleet ade- quate in strength for the vital task which may soon confront' the Allies in this area. 'Tis Nae Sae Bad as Folk Make Out been on shipboard yet he theuglrt that naval wars of the future would. be fought not on the surface of the sea but above it, That was in 1915, 1 did not -like Yamamoto. He was too sour. Ile acted like a bumptious bumpkin. His native village, Nagaoka, was shut off even from Tokyo by high Mountains. For a few months during the summer the trails were open over the ranges. But early in the, autumn, snow fell and Nagaoka was out off from the rest of the worlduntil the following summer. We think of Japan as a land of perpetual spring and cherry bloss- oms, But northwest of the mountain backbone of Japan the winters are bitter and long. In few spots on the surface of the globe are the snows so deep. For five months of every year the people of Isoroku's villas e lived under snow so deep that it cov- ered the houses, roof and all, leaving only a white blanket where a village had been. Underneath this mass of snow the hibernating villagers cut tunnels from their houses to ; the shops and schools and shrines, and life went on in the sunless depths, No communication came from . the outside. There was no newspaper, no radio, no courier. Such portions of the earth's surface as Europe and the Americas might as well have been non-existent. No Shangri-La could have been more Isolated, It was hardly the birthplace one's imagina- tion would choose for a future would be conqueror of Asia with ambitions to bring the whole world under the sway of Nippon. It embittered Yamamoto. Father- less and motherless, he was adopted into the Yamamoto family. His home does not seem to have ben particu- larly happy, and the close confine- ment during much of the year did not make it any better. When he es - caned over the mountains at the age of seventeen his pent-up ambition consumed everything it encountered. At the Yetajima Naval Academy me made a brilliant record. But he continuallychafed to range farther afield. At twenty his desire was grat- ified. He took his place as an ensign on Admiral Togo's flagship, the Mi- kasa. In the Near and Middle East there is a weekly news and picture paper published by the British for the Forces, including representation of virtually all the United Nations, op- erating in that sand -swept area. A few days ago in this paper—Parade-- Richard aper—Parade—Richard Capell, correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, published a tribute to the men of the desert armies, on the eve of liis departure for another front: All wars are detestable, but in diff- erent ways. Now and again, when home mails have been delayed, when the water ration seems unduly low and beer only a haunting memory, men are apt to sum up the shortcom- ings of North Africa in language of a bluntness you can imagine; and I have then taken it on myself, recall- ing Ypres and the Somme in the old days, to suggest that after all sand is preferable to mud and aerial strafing less of an affliction, as a rule, than the never-ending downpour of shells in the 1914 war. Yet I ask myself whether of any army in the world so much of one quality has been required as of you in the Desert Army: I mean long - enduring fortitude. There are units 'which have now had nearly two years of this lifeless large-scale military action next to land, where even one year counts as impossible" should be discounted, for a big slice from a man's youth. it is a common Nazi propaganda ruse There is that machine gun batta- to have the necessary excuse ready lion of the Northumberland Fusiliers in the event operations do not grog-• which in sixteen months never so ress as planned. \ ; much as caught a glimpse of a wo- The Axis offensive in the eastern man's skirt. The Germans and Ital- ians opposite go home on leave, ped. The first move was to have been tivhile for you there is at best only made against Tobruk last November-' unsatisfactory, unhomely Cairo. Auchinleck's attack on Rommel fore- i Second only to its valor in battle, stalled this and, though the Axis and as indispensable, is the dogged army made a good recovery, its pro- patience of the Desert Army; and gram has been delayed six months. 1 along with memories of the heroic During those six months much has sight of tanks ploughing their way been clone to strengthen the Afrika into battle and of fighting Hurri- Korps and to insure its line of com- canes tearing across the sky, I shall munieation with Italy. always call to mind a certain Scotch - In December a Luftwaffe fleet was speaking Northumbrian belonging to established in South Italy and Sicily an anti-tank gun detachment who, and, ever since, the island of Malta, from a trench in a particularly God the great danger to the Axis supply forsaken landscape, said to be, while line, has been relentlessly attacked' the wind stung our faces with gritty from the air. Malta has held out, but dust: its power to interfere with Axis ship -1 "'Tis nae sae bad as folk make ping has been greatly reduced, and a out" steady flow of reinforcements and For that spirit I return thanks. That supplies has been reaching the Ger-f spirit ensures the survival of our man -Italian army in Africa. country and aur race. Tripoli is within 300 miles of Ital- ian ports and Bengazi not very much, further, and the ships which ferry i across are able to make the passage under cover of Axis airplanes. The Time Factor of Transport Transit of weapons from factory to field army by these routes need not take more than two weeks, whereas the British Eighth Army has been situated at the end of a sea -line of communication 11,500 miles from England, and 12,000 miles from New York, round the Cape of Good Hope. The allied navies have escorted huge convoys to Australia and India during this period, and it is doubtful if Egypt has had any priority in the supply of weapons. Thus the Eighth Army has found it- self outgunner by its opponents, There is little doubt that tommel's attack is a definite part of the main Axis offensive, and it is probable that his role is to press the British in North Africa so strongly that Anohinleelt will be forced to draw reinforcements into Egypt from Pal- estine and Syria, If the British have to weaken the Ninth Army in Syria in 'order to hold Egypt, then, if ever, will be the time for the Axis to launch a major offensive against struct her, own planes, pirating for- eign patents. In 1934 Yamar'oto was sent to the London Naval ParlcY to smash the ratioby which Japanese naylil strength was kept to 3 in pro- Portion to 5 for the British navy and 6 for the American. 1 witnessed the ecstatic reception in Tokyo when he returned, triumphant. Japan's war with Britain and Am- erica really began unofficially at that time. Thenceforth the whole thought andeffort of the Japanese navy was directed to one objective—the de- feat de feat of the white democracies, This was to be followed by the subjection of the entire world. Yamamoto, like Hitler, stood for world domination, differing only in his idea of which power should do the dominating. The army joined with the navy in spread- ing a grandiose conception of Japan- ese destiny throughout the nation. The divine emperor should rule all. mankind. The common people got the idea. A woman looking at globes in a Tokyo department store complain- ed, "But I want a globe with only Japan on it." They look to Yama- moto more than to any other one Irian to take their dream come true. And Yamamoto looks to the airplane. The fleet under the command of Togo sailed into the Sea of Japan and hovered near Russian territory. One night the Japanese minister to Russia attended a ball in the Imper- ial Palace at St. Petersburg. He chat- ted with the Czar and Czarina about Russo-Japanese friendship, and hop- ed desperately that they would not know until the evening was over what he well knew was happening even then in the Sea of Japan. He set the model to be later followed b5° Iiurusu who talked peace in Wash- ington while Japanese planes attack- ed Pearl Harbdr. While the nervous Japanese diplomat in St. Petersburg smiled, bowed and sucked his breath, Togo was raiding Port Arthur. The Russo-Japanese war was on. After 1918 Japan,'spur7ed on by Yamamoto and other officers, began to build aircraft carriers and to con - Is he ever disturbed by the thought that if this is to be primarily an air war there is no chance of Jap- anese success? For if there is any field in which the United Nations may count upon supremacy it is in the planning and production of air- craft. Pays Farmer to Have Sharp Knives Already mowers are whirring in thehay fields. Soon binders, headers, combines and other machines will be busy in the harvest fields throughout Canada, It is assumed that the' nec- essary repairs to the machines have been made, But what about the cut- ting knives?' Before the rush of hay- ing and harvesting it,pays to ,replace worn or broken knife sections and ledger plates and to sharpen the cutting edges of knives on harvest- ing machines. It is a good thing if Possible to have two sets of knives, one in the machine and a spare that is well sharpened or repaired to replace as quickly as possible. RAINBOW KHAKI Five bright hued wools are now blended together to produce the earthy colour of khaki first widely used in South Africa for the uniforms of the British Army. In peace time the process was a secret belonging to the West Riding of Yorkshire where the heavy Wool- len industry first discovered how to blend wools of six colours into khaki thread. But to -day the West Riding shares its secret with all other wool spinning areas in the United King- dom so that the whole industry can go ahead with the colossal job of putting the troops into uniform. The blending is now standarised and the number of colours reduced by one. The correct proportions of blue, yellow, brown, red and mauve wools are torn up by huge combs which separate, mix and blend them. Gradually each colour begins to lose its identity; just as the colours on a spinning top will merge into a misty grey, At iirat the plass of " crowed wool is patchy—bluish here, yellow- ish there—and then, as the machines complete the job, the colours become so well blended that khaki finally emerges front the rainbow of. colour. This blending process gives au evener and more lasting result than ,dyeing the cloth in the piece as was done in the early days, In the war of 1914-18 the difficulties ofreplacing dyes formerly imported from Ger- many produced oolours which varied in different parts pt the country from almost grass green to dark brown. Today colour charts and Ministry of Supply specifications result in every mill weaving exactly the same shade and each piece of khaki cloth is care- fully inspected befohe bang passed out. Rounding a corner in a wild swerve, the taxi-driver ignored a traffic policeman's signal and just missed his feet, avoided the street island by a bare inch, and grazed a bus—just like that, The policeman hailed him, and then strolled to- wards him, drawing a big handker- chief andkerchief from his pocket on the way. "Listen, cowboy!" he growled. "On your way back I'll drop this, and you see if you can pick it up with your teeth," In a railway carriage a country,. woman remarked: "Will you tell me, miss, which is the return ,ticket?" Her fellow traveller handed her the return ticket, and she threw it out of the window. "Why did you do that?" asked the second woman. "I'm not coming back." "Then why did you take a re- turn " "They told me it was cheaper." Rolling off the assembly line in a Canadian aircraft plant', these twin -engined Bolingbroke bombers are moving swiftly toward _a rendezvous with the enemy. The Japanese Hitler The comparison between Adolf Hitler and Admiral 'Yamamoto ,can- not be very close, The Admiral is not Japan's fuehrer nor emperor nor ev- en premier. But he is our chief op- pontnt beyond the Pacific as Hitler is beyond the Atlantic. Admiral Isor- oku Yamamoto is Commander -in - Chief of the Japanese combined fleets. His has been the responsibility not only for seaattacks, but for air attacks over land and sea, and for transporting the army troops that have fonght on land, He alone has been congratuited by the emperor— but in spite of all this he is almost ,unknown fox Japan never puts for- ward personalities. In fact if a Jap- anese becomes too prominent he is in danger of eclipse: Yamamoto, like Hitler, is a great hateri I saw him first twenty-seven years ago and he was hating then. Hating Great Britain and the United States, In an interview he declared that Japan must drive the white man from Asia. I did not take him ser- iously. Nobody did in those days. He said other things that soundeo equally extreme. He was a young naval officer and all his training had �. m Counter Ceck Books • We lire Selling Quality Books Books are Well Made, Carbon is Clean and Copies Readily. All styles, Carbon Leaf and Black Back. Prices as Low as You Can Get Anywhere. 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