Word: matrs
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Rommel was trying to keep the nucleus of an army intact, trying to hold together what was left of his once superb 15th and 21st Armored and 90th Light Motorized Divisions. Somewhere, perhaps at Matrûh, perhaps at Hellfire Pass, he might be able to make a stand. But faster than Rommel's flight was the R.A.F...
...were surrendering on all sides - 30 to the London News Chronicle's War Correspondent William Forrest, hundreds of others to an unarmed medical staff. Two British colonels from the Intelligence staff, with one tommy gun between them, found themselves on a sandy stretch of desert just east of Matrûh with one Italian general and 80 Italian officers pleading to be taken to a prisoners' camp. "The best thing I can suggest," one colonel said, "is for you to proceed to the Fuka railway station and take the train to Alexandria." They did. In another area German...
Throughout the whole battle area, from the El Alamein line to Mersa Matrûh, large pockets of Italian soldiers, abandoned to their fate, wearily sought some British soldier or some British unit to take them back to prisoners' camp where they would get bully-beef and biscuits, but more than anything else a pint of water per man. When rain fortunately fell the other day, these bunches of Italians turned their faces to the sky and allowed the cooling blessing from heaven to trickle down their throats...
Rommel, by contrast, can draw reinforcements from home in a fortnight. British submarines reported attacking Axis supply ships at sea. British bombers reported attacking more such ships-not only at Bengasi, as before, but in Tobruk harbor and even at Matrūh, only 100 miles behind Rommel's lines. In two successive days British fighters reported attacking Junkers air transports, presumably bringing specialists up to Rommel's front lines. The British claimed to have destroyed or damaged 15. How many more made how many trips only Rommel knows...
...fighters raided Rommel's routes and positions; at night 84 Wellingtons, six Blenheims and eight B-24s (Liberators) bombed Rommel's trucks at El Daba and shipping at Bengasi. This week the Royal Navy suddenly returned to action in the Mediterranean, shelled Rommel's base at Matr...