Word: tobruch
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...Libyan naval base of Tobruch, where Graziani's main supplies were concentrated, the British claimed their bombers smashed barracks, wharves and massed trucks. British planes cracked at Sálum, others attacked Sidi Barráni. On the alert for planes, forced to keep up a desert "guerrilla-artillery" battle, Sidi Barráni also awoke last week to find the British Fleet off shore. As the sun nosed over the desert mesas, warships nosed out of a shroud of morning haze. A moment later their guns belched salvos pointblank into the heart of the city. Observers...
Hopping-off place for Graziani's attack is Tobruch, Italy's coastal base near the Egyptian border, protected by nearby air bases at El Aden and El Gubbi. These three spots have been targets for incessant British air raids, to prevent an expeditionary force from getting organized. Last week torpedo-carrying Fairey Swordfish planes of the Naval Air Service climaxed these attacks by striking transports, supply ships and a tanker in Tobruch harbor...
...harassing, guerrilla tactics along the Libyan border with light tanks and armored trucks stung the Italians, just after Balbo's death, into attempting a Blitzkrieg drive with a mechanized column of more than 1,000 men on the fortified British coastal base of Sollum, 75 miles east of Tobruch. The British broke up this effort with a flanking attack, and the survivors took refuge in the deserted adobe Fort Capuzzo. There they still were after a thirsty week, sucking stones to eke out their water supply, which the British cut off by removing many sections of the pipeline down...
...Correspondent Edmond Taylor of CBS, upon his return from Italy last week, said that Balbo was shot down while flying a party of friends on a sightseeing trip over Tobruch, just as Italy announced officially. But Italy's suppression of the bad news for two days or so gave the British a chance to say, truthfully, that no R. A. F. planes operated over Tobruch that later day, thus casting sinister mystery over Balbo's death...
Next day the British Air Ministry solemnly announced that no planes of theirs did any shooting that day over Tobruch. Thus the Italian people were left free to wonder if one of the most popular candidates to succeed II Duce fell under the fire of an Italian Fiat...