Counter Upon Counter

Gradually the terrible sandstorm died last week. Life showed itself again on the Western Desert: herds of gazelles, swallows hurrying nowhere, vipers with lessons in camouflage, strange dry sand snails--and fighting men.

The storm had been more than a hiatus in the men's activities. Before it the British had prepared and begun a large-scale raid on the Germans who held Salum and Halfaya ("Hellfire") Pass, just east of the Egyptian-Libyan border. The storm broke up the raid, disorganized the British, and gave the Germans time to devise and organize a vast counter-raid.

As soon as the hot southerly wind abated, the Germans struck. They struck not in a foolish, perilous, single column near the coast, as the Italians had struck last fall; the wiser Germans drove on a broad front, in first three, then five columns. The southernmost columns were deep in the desert, out of effective naval range. In a few hours the Germans pushed 40 miles, almost as far as Sidi Barrani.

Then, suddenly and surprisingly, they turned tanks and tail, and hurried back to Salum.

The British were baffled. They had thought this would be a major push. They had withdrawn hastily, scarcely offering rear-guard resistance, apparently willing to fall back 120 miles to Matruh, the railhead from Alexandria, where the main British force was based.

But not for long did the British allow themselves the luxury of pleasant surprise. They chased the counter-raiders with an energetic counter-counter-raid, right through Hellfire Pass, out of Salum, all the way to Fort Capuzzo, across the border in Libya. They took 500 German prisoners, but they knew they could not follow through. Sir Archibald was not quite ready. They in turn turned around. The Germans counter-counter-counter-attacked and retook Salum and the pass which had earned its nickname.

So it went, last week, back & forth, push & counter-push. These giant raids brought out important facts of strategy. In their hasty withdrawal the British had shown the Germans exactly what the Germans wanted the raid to reveal: the British plan of leading the attacker on to Matruh. On the other hand, the Germans had shown the British that the Nazi attack--broad-fronted, wary of bombardment from the sea, in fanned columns which could flow around hard cores of resistance--would be harder to stop when it came than the Italians' Indian-file dress parade had been.

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