Title: Arthur and Fritz Kahn Collection 1889-1932
Identifier: arthurfritzkahn_02_reel02 (find matches)
Year: [1] (s)
Authors: Kahn, Arthur and Fritz
Subjects: Kahn, Fritz 1888-1968; Kahn, Arthur David 1850-1928; Natural history illustrators; Natural history
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Contributing Library: Leo Baeck Institute Archives
Digitizing Sponsor: Leo Baeck Institute Archives

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WORLD BATT LEF RoJrrS was Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, Commander of the Afrika Korps. Past Daba, past Fuka, the Afrika Korps fled. At Daba they left their dead strewn across an airfield. German and Italian transports and gliders, not yet unloaded, lay on the ground, smashed by the ma- chine guns of Allied planes. At Euka dead Germans began to turn black in the desert sun. Beside the road that was pocked with bomb craters lay the ruined trucks and cars in which the Germans tried to escape. From the air, from the flanking desert, the British chased and harried as the whole ter- 77-mm. cannon that outranged the lower vclocity German 75s by more than 700 yards. At 1,000 yards they tore holes in the frontal German armor, at 2,000 yards pierced side armor. A Seaforth Highland- er reported that Italian shells bounced off his General Sherman 'like tennis balls." The British had learned from disasters in the past. In Cairo the astutc Alexander and his R.A.F. chief Tedder (Time, Nov. 9) had planned with exquisite care. Montgomery gave his Orders, the day the battle began, that the enemy must be destroyed. This was to be no mere chase across the I
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Thoma & Montgomery Tßicy fought the battle on oilcloth. Associated Press rible cavalcade of attackers and attacked rolled farther westward. A Battle Lost. What had caused the debacle of Rommel? He had probably lost the battle weeks before it was joined. He had lost it at sea as Allied planes and Brit- ish subs choked off his supplies. Reuters reported that in the past six weeks not a Single Axis tanker had been able to cross the Mediterranean Sea. During the bat- tle itself the Allies had sunk more than 50,000 tons of Axis ships that were trying to carry to Rommel oil and materiel. Rommel may have known that the battle was lost when he went to Berlin a month ago, presumably to plead for help. Nourished by longcr but better guarded lines, the Eighth Army had grown apace. From Britain had come the cannon and munitions that had softened the dam. From the U.S. had come M-4 (General Sherman)* tanks mounting high-velocity, * Formerly, and erroneously, referred to in news- paper dispatches as General Lee, which is a Ver- sion of the M-3 (General Grant). 28 desert, as in the past, when the British had dissipated their tank strength. This time they kept their armor intact and used it for annihilation. Through the long feverish days and nights while Montgomery's heroic troops, sleepless, unrelicved, kept pressing against the enemy's deep positions, no counter- attack made a single dent in their line. Montgomery likes to say: ^'Every man in the Army must have the light of battle in his eye." The Eighth Army had the light in its eyes. Yeni, Vidi, Yici. Bernard Montgom- ery was the hero of Britain last week. He was the man who, for the lirst time in World War II, had routed a German Army. He is an austere man, jtj^e sqn of a J)ishop and the grandson of Dean F. W. Farrar, who wrote a life of Christ, An Ulstermaii, born in County Donegal, Jie was marked for the clergy. He went into the Army, but the mark of his religious upbringing is still deep in him. His hero is Oliver Cromwell, who also smote his fenemies and praised God. At Dunkirk Ber- nard Montgomery told his men: "If you i run out of ammunition, tear the enemy to pieces with your hands.'* Fittingly, he readj the lessons at church parades. He is a stern disciplinarian, but he has the devotion of his men. Famous are his Orders to his staff at the beginning of a Conference: "I do not approve of coughing or Smoking. There will be no smoking. For two minutes you may cough. Thereafter coughing will cease." Nor does he drink. Last week the lean, 54-year-old Ulster- man sat down at dinner in his tent with the captive Thoma. On an oilcloth table Cover he showed his rival how the battle had been won. "I told him," Montgomery reported afterward, "that I came to the desert in August. In September I met Rommel. In October I beat him. Caparisoned in a tank-corps beret, en- sconced in a tank, the avenging Montgom- ery rode on deep and dangerous tours of the battlefield, his pale blue eyes and his thin beak of a nose turned west, farther west. Methodically, ruthlessly, he followed up the bloody, broken trail of the Afrika Korps, The Germans fled on towards the Lib- yan border. Early this week there was a Chance that Rommel might try to make a stand at Hellfire Pass. But with U.S. forces now in the west and Montgomery in füll cry on his heels, his position looked hope- less. Six divisions of his Italians had sur- rendered: between 72,000 and 80,000 men, with their equipment. Uncounted were the dead and the wounded. British estimates were that Rommel had only some 20,000 troops left to him. Knocked out were his air forces, so that he could no longer even weakly parry the ferocious air attacks of the Allies. Seized or smashed were from goo to 1,000 of his guns, at least 70% of his tank strength. Said the Bishop's son: *'It's been a fine battle.'^ Madagascar Surrenders Last week, six months to the day after British forces first landed at Diego-Suarez, the Stubborn Vichyfrenchmen of Mad- agascar signed an armistice. Governor General Armand L. Annet had not been able to offer the British much war, but at the bidding of Pierre Laval he had done the next best thing. By forcing the British to take each port in turn and to march to each inland city, then by stalling on ar- mistice terms, Annet had kept some British land and sea forces from fighting Ger- mans and Japanese as long as he possibly could. BATTLE OF EUROPE Block-Busters on Genoa As if to point up the offensive plans of the Allies in the Mediterranean theater, British bombers last week took the high road to Italy over the Alps, blasted the great port of Genoa with many two-ton Time, November 16, 1942 /

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