Word: barrani
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...roads led to Rome last week, and the Romans used them, lickety-split. Along a rock-&-gravel supply highway which Marshal Rodolfo Graziani had just completed from Sidi Barrani back to bases in Libya, Italy's Army of the stagnant Egyptian invasion ran for its life. Along an Albanian road hugging the cliffs spectacularly from Porto Edda to Valona, built by the Italians during the last war and subject of great engineering pride with them, Italy's Army of the reversible Greek invasion made further headway backwards. The Italians were so completely on the run that Adolf Hitler...
Surprise! Surprise! Behind them in the East the first coldness of daylight spread. At the assigned hour, all units moved. Motors roared. The force facing Maktila and Sidi Barrani made a great noise of gunfire and show. More quietly, holding fire, the second force to the south of Sidi Barrani swung in to attack Italian camps on the desert flank. A third force farther west headed hard for the coast near Buqbuq...
...ground went out-from slick new Hurricanes recently brought East, to heavy old Glosters. vibrating like aerial pianos. Just as the Germans did on May 10 in the Low Countries, the R. A. F. and the Fleet Air Arm blinded the enemy. British squadrons bombed airfields from Sidi Barrani right to Tripoli. For hours the Italians could only guess what was happening. At the same time the British Fleet swung in to bombard Maktila, Sidi Barrani and the Italians' road to the rear. The Italians were attacked simultaneously from the right (land) flank by tanks, from the left...
...Some of the enemy's drives were already either under way or poised to strike. Month ago Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, Italy's expert in African warfare, led the spearhead of a drive from Libya into Egypt. After his first crushing spurt, he had pegged in at Sidi Barrani (see map), and his forces had been consolidating themselves there ever since. The British were 80 miles east at Mersa Matruh, the outpost to which they had decided to retire, with tip & run tactics, whenever the drive from Libya materialized. To south and east, the Italians had already wiped...
...Barrani the Italians halted to gather themselves for the push to Mersa Matrûh, where Cleopatra used to bathe in the blue sea waves. No sooner had the Italians settled down than the R. A. F. from the air and the Royal Navy from the sea began harassing them. Well acquainted with the lessons of Lawrence in Arabia and Allenby in Palestine was the British Commander, Lieut. General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell, 57, who knows the Middle East like the knuckles on his own hand. He sent his men to work on the un-camouflaged Italian camps with...