Word: tobruk
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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...
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...
...Tobruk's collapse he said: "It was utterly unexpected, not only by the public, but by the War Cabinet and even by the general staffs. It was also unexpected by General Auchinleck and the High Command of the Middle East. On the night before its capture we received a telegram from General Auchinleck that the garrison was adequate and the defenses in good order, and that 90 days' supplies were available for the troops...
Said he, also, without blushing: "Tobruk went after a single day of fighting, and this entailed withdrawal to Matrŭh, and 120 miles of desert was thus placed between the Eighth Army and its foe. Most authorities imagined that ten days or a fortnight would be gained by this. However, on June 26 [five days later], Rommel presented himself with his armored and motorized forces in front of this new position...
Most of the British were not quick enough in retiring; 25,000 of them holed up in Tobruk for a long siege. Rommel did not take even a day to organize and prepare his assault. He organized it, under his hat, in one evening. The next morning, before the British were ready, his tanks stormed the defenses of Tobruk, cut down to the town and began shooting up shipping in the harbor before the British had even begun to evacuate. Rommel had seen that Tobruk was a difficult town to take in an eight-month siege, would be much easier...