World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF THE DESERT: Where Wavell Left Off

Cyrenaica, which is as worn down from changing hands as an Indianhead penny, was British again last week.

This fact—marking as it did the first British mechanized victory over German forces in World War II—was buried deep under the avalanche of Far Eastern war news. It deserved a better fate. General Sir Archibald Wavell's victory over the Italians in Cyrenaica last year, which was hailed all over the Allied world, took 60 days. General Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck's feat, which was virtually ignored all over the world, was accomplished in 37.

To take Bengasi, the capital of Cyrenaica, Lieut. General Neil Methuen Ritchie, in charge on the battlefield, had to push out Germany's General Erwin Rommel. All last week Rommel had prepared to make a stand at Bengasi with what was left of his armored forces. Apparently changing his mind, or afraid of losing valuable armored units, he abandoned the town, hit southward to Agedabia, 95 miles from Bengasi. Here he waited for the remainder of his armored forces to come in from Mechili farther north. Fighting a rear-guard action for both his units were Italy's desert infantry. To Rommel they were cannon fodder to save his tanks and armored cars.

But Rommel was not much better off than the Italians this week. British southern units cutting northwest from the desert oases apparently blocked his exit to Tripolitania. A force of Coldstream Guards, Royal Armoured Corps and South African armored cars moved southward from Bengasi to close the pincer on him.

To retreat farther, Rommel must have his back side clear. He waited for reinforcements to arrive from the west. In a desperate attempt to get troops through, the Axis was using French Tunisia as an arrival base. On the success of this effort the battle of the desert may hang.