| Show Rommel Uses Advantage Of Short Supply Lines In Making Final Stab By MARTIN TUBBS Erwin Rommel makes his final bid for survival on the African He has run across 1500 miles of desert and has finally halted his retreat and started a counter offensive with Tunis as his The general position of Rommel's army can be seen by imagining a rectangular piece of land running approximately miles in a north and south direction with its north-eastern tip at the town of The country is mountainous and the sea coast is highly The weather is comparatively Four main ports serve Marshall Rommel in his new They are and and the significance of the whole Nazi plan and choice of battle ground may well hinge around these four Into them supplies can be brought by and the distance from Palermo in Italian Sicily is about a hundred an easy night's trip for German and Italian surface The enemy has obtained for himself every possible advantage in the selection of Tunis for his battle and the setbacks that have been suffered by the American and British forces in that area are only proof of the fact that the chase along the coast of North Africa was planned by Rommel and although it would have been better for the Axis had they been able to continue their drive to the Suez the alternative they adopted accomplished nearly the same It would be foolish to say that the Germans or the Allies control the air over the Straits of but it is certain that the Allied supply line through the Mediterranean Is hardly any more secure than it was when the Nazis controlled the entire African The business of getting troops and supplies through the narrow stretch of water between Tunis and Sicily is both hazardous and ill It is doubtful whether much in the way of supplies for Field Marshall Wavell's dimming campaign in Burma has managed to sneak not enough supplies have been transported through the Mediterranean and the Suez canal to change the balance of power in the The best bet for the American North African army is to launch an attack upon the northern end of Rommel's holdings by an assault on and Any such attack would be at a disadvantage because of the adequacy of the German supply and the converse inadequacy of the communications of the realizing is attacking the American line at the place where its supplies are least available and on the most difficult It is to be hoped that General Montgomery and the eighth based at will be able to overcome the German advantage at the and coincide for a northward drive towards Tunis with a southern one by the Americans and All indications despite the temporary bad news that is coming out of that will be coming out of with his tail between his and will have to report to Hitler that he has failed to open up for the exploitation of German the development of communication lines and the establishment of further advanced attack and bomber the fabulous continent of It is hardly conceivable that the even in its most desperate attempt to win in Africa with the Red Army at its heels and the R. A. F. over its possibly avoid the eventual destruction of his Afrika When London was being bombed by the scores of American and other correspondents made their reports and filed their by cable and almost Throughout the entire duration of the battle of Stalingrad which has already both in its greatness and historic the battle of only one American reporter filed a dispatch from that heroic This fact alone serves to illustrate why the situation on the Russian front presents nothing but a very hazy question mark to the rest of the We have learned to be wary of the truth of both the German and the Russian One thing is and that is that the same vital territory which was disputed in Southern Russia during the first Nazi drive in the foil of 1941 is still being fought over It may be the same story in Russia as it has been in North namely the shortening and straightening of lines as the alternative to driving on to further The German high command has obviously decided that further advance for the quite out of the and the fact that this decision had to be made in a victory to the Red But the fate of the Russian Campaign need not necessarily hang in the balance with the outcome of the current battle as the deciding We can be quite sure that the Germans will not retreat beyond that point which best serves their wants as a stabilizing |
