Back to Bengasi

The same Berlin broadcast that told of the fall of Bengasi last week carried another piece of news. For his work in Libya, Adolf Hitler had upped tough Tank Expert General Erwin Rommel to the grade of Field Marshal, Second Class.

It was the second time in a year that Field Marshal Rommel had captured Bengasi, and there was nothing second class about his performance. The sweeping Axis counterattack, which ten days before the British had hopefully called an "armored force reconnaissance," had swept around the base of the Gulf of Sidra, gathering momentum as it went.

At Msus in the desert Rommel's armored columns had waited two days for supplies, then knifed northwest to Bengasi. As they came to the coastal plain the German advance forked into a trident. One prong struck the main road north and east of Bengasi. The other two speared in south of the city.

The Indian troops garrisoning Bengasi fought well against hopelessly superior odds, but the flat seaport, which had already been pounded by three assaults since the North African campaign began, was not fortified for a siege. Though some of the Indians escaped to the northeast, the Axis claimed that at least one battalion was captured.

Pressing their advantage, the Field Marshal's troops began to move eastward and northward through the mountains towards Cyrene and Derna on the hump of Cyrenaica. By the weekend they had covered more than half the distance to Derna.

Though the capture of Bengasi was not a disaster, it was a serious defeat for the British. More serious still was the fact that within a fortnight Rommel had swept up many British supply dumps, was virtually munitioning his campaign at Britain's expense. Most serious of all, the Field Marshal was apparently able to strike hammerblow attacks on land in spite of heavy strafing by a superior British air force.

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