Word: rommels
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...Vulnerable weapons are not necessarily useless. Example: aircraft carriers. Let not Reader Cook forget that Field Marshal Rommel might never have got beyond Libya had not dive-bombers blasted the way for the capture of Bir Hacheim and Tobruk...
...lesson that many British generals (who have not profited by lectures in captivity) have yet to learn from him is adequate reconnaissance. Rommel, like all good generals, leaves nothing so important as reconnaissance to others, if he can help it. Personal reconnaissance has paid him big dividends. At the risk of his life and of capture, he haunts the front lines at night. When he makes decisions they are based on facts...
Production Men. While the British went on trying one commander after another in Africa, Rommel went on learning other things-simple, sense-making military things that are as important on the field of battle as know-how on a production line. His repair cars now come right up to battle zones, often work on disabled tanks during battle. His huge salvage wagons, with their cranes, lumber up as soon as night falls, pick up wrecks-British as well as German-and carry them back to workshops housed in blacked-out tents...
...When Rommel rolled the British back from Bengasi last February, he picked up a lot of supplies which the British had left in dumps. Since then he has had little use for the dump system. His truck convoys-nearly every truck towing a trailer-come up to the forward zones at night and restock the fighting columns there. Water, gasoline and food are brought up at night-if necessary, by air. And everything captured from the British-a truck or a can of gasoline-is promptly put to Rommel's use. Even British tanks, captured one day, go back...
Like most production men, Rommel is tough about his trade. He demands results from those who work for him and he lets them understand that he doesn't care what the results cost them. A new aide-de-camp (fifth in a few months) recently arrived to report to him. "Let me wish you luck," the Marshal snapped. "Your four predecessors were killed...