"Those French Devils"

The Free French at Lake Chad were spoiling for action. Some 1,200 miles to the north, in Libya's Fezzan Desert, the Italians were sitting in fortified strongholds. Over that long trail of rocks and sand the Free French moved to attack. The sun was broiling hot. Sometimes their trucks got stuck in the sand a dozen times in a hundred yards. Cattle driven ahead for fresh meat fell lame, had to be slaughtered.

They surprised and overpowered four Italian garrisons, destroyed huge quantities of war materiel, then headed back south with their prisoners. Triumphantly last week they quoted the remark of an Italian prisoner after a similar De Gaullist raid on Kufra last year: "Only those French devils could have done it."

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