Keyes v. Rommel

A standing military maxim since Alex ander the Great (356-323 B.C.) has been "Destroy the enemy's leadership." In his principal campaigns Alexander's strategy was based on capturing the enemy's leader. General Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck probably had both man and maxim in mind when he opened the Western Desert campaign against the Axis in November. In the most hair-raising story of World War II it was revealed last week that, be fore the attack started, General Auchinleck sent a force of Britain's shock Commandos 200 miles behind the Axis lines. Their object: to destroy the enemy's leadership, in particular Nazi General Erwin Rommel.

Leading these black-shrouded troops was 24-year-old Lieut. Colonel Geoffrey Charles Tasker Keyes, son of the Commandos' organizer, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, and youngest lieutenant colonel in the British Army. A veteran of Narvik, Military Cross winner for Commando work in Syria, young Keyes with 30 men made his way to a wadi, near Sidi Raffa, Administrative H.Q. of Rommel's Afrika Corps. Here they lay for two days and nights awaiting the zero hour of the Brit ish attack. When the time came the Commandos daubed their faces with burnt cork, crawled over the desert to the German headquarters building.

The back door and windows were locked. The Commandos went around to the front door and knocked. A polite German sentry opened the door. The Commandos shot him. They burst open another door, dispatched two German staff officers with their pistols and tommy guns. By this time the whole building was awake.

Young Keyes, working with a captain and a sergeant, was foraging for Rommel. He opened the door of a second room. It was dark, but the three Britons could hear suppressed breathing inside. Keyes ran in, firing his pistol. He was met with a volley and fell in the doorway. The sergeant climbed over his body and sprayed the room with gunfire. The Germans fired back. The British captain dashed into the room and yelled "duck." The captain then blew the room apart with two hand grenades. He and the sergeant carried Colonel Keyes's body outside.

After the Commandos left the building they tossed grenades into every window. The captain ran around the rear of the building to supervise these operations. A stray bullet broke his leg. As his colleagues carried him to safety, he ordered them to take his two remaining grenades and blow up the power plant. Then the captain ordered the sergeant to prop him against a tree and leave because the Commandos had a rendezvous with the evacuating forces. The sergeant gave the captain a shot of morphine, then with the others started for the sea, leaving Keyes's body and the wounded captain behind.

The weather was too bad for the evacuating forces to keep the rendezvous. Axis troops attacked the Commandos while they were waiting. They split into small groups and some of them made their way back to the British advance forces.

Though the raiders did inestimable damage in killing staff officers and destroying the building, they failed to get General Rommel. He had gone to a birthday party.

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