Chapter 34: Jan 1943 British Retake Tripoli

“I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

It seems strangely odd to me that in the middle of the Second World War in Europe, the seldom mentioned Libyan City of Tripoli became sort of a turning point symbol of the ebb of Third Reich power. I knew with a certainty that in my future time existence in the twenty-first Century, That locale was of extreme importance again in the never-ending war on terrorism and struggle against Islamic Jihad. The road from Tripoli to Benghazi was littered yet again with the bodies of the dead. They, once again were both Libyan and foreigners with an even mix of armed combatants and innocent civilians. One might speculate that this was simply an unfortunate coincidence, but I take a suspicious view of so-called coincidence and must speculate that this sort of magnetism has meaning just as the secrets of the Sphinx and the ruins of Stonehenge are still unexplained.

In 1943, even the famous Field Marshal Rommel was able to see the handwriting on the wall and he decided to abandon the North African field of military operations and requested a return to the Fatherland to organize stiff resistance against their gathering enemies. His interim assignment to mop up the Greek debacle and disarm the Italian military was almost like a vacation from the real war and the seeds of doubt were firmly inside his brain when he returned home to a hero’s welcome.

There was no doubt that this was a low point in the Nazi fever that had changed the lives of entire nation headed down the path of death and destruction and eventual splitting in half with half to the Russians and the other half to the other Western Allies for almost the next half Century. The German people had little to brag about at this point in the war and all but the most ardent Nazi supporters had the gloom of sure defeat sitting on their shoulders each morning when they opened their eyes to the realities of little hope for a victory.

After a bloody struggle that rolled back and forth across the North African desert for the better part of three years, The British were able to retake the all-important fortress at Tobruk and the key port at Tripoli driving the German Wehrmacht out of North Africa once and for all.

The simple fact was that control of the eastern Mediterranean was absolutely vital to Allied interests.

The defense of the Suez Canal was the key to maintaining and protecting the Allies oil supplies from the Middle East.

Ever since the dictator Benito Mussolini was swift to declare war on Britain and France, he had designs on the Suez Canal and moved out from his colony in Libya into the surrounding regions and found only light resistance from the Egyptian military forces that had little interest in getting involved in what they viewed as a European problem.

The Italian attack was doomed to failure as the highly motivated Western Desert Force under the command of General Sir Archibald Wavell counterattacked and the panicked Italians retreated over five hundred miles back to their base camps in Libya. The debacle led to the surrender of almost 130,000 Italian Army troops in early 1941.

The British war planners in Whitehall probably celebrated a bit prematurely though because the arrival of Field Marshall Rommel on the North Africa battlefield led to a series of defeats for the British that were most embarrassing to the Commonwealth. The obvious ease with which the Allies had routed the Italians was quite the other story when they came up against the tactical slyness of the “Desert Fox” as General Rommel was tagged by his admirers for his astute skills in achieving success after success on the battlefield.

His title of “Der Wustenfuchs” or “The Desert Fox” was without a doubt the most popular of the German Generals to the people of the Third Reich. He died at his own hand at the insistence of the Gestapo after his alleged participation in the assassination attempt on the Fuhrer in the later stages of World War Two.

In February of 1941, Rommel was assigned to his role as the head of the German troops dispatched to North Africa to help out the floundering Italian Army as it was in dire circumstances. Despite his objections, Hitler ordered an attack on Cairo in order to seize the Suez Canal. Rommel was leading a force that was both German and Italian and the Italian part of his command kept making errors of military tactics that he ordered them to stay away from his Wehrmacht armored units much to his dismay at their lack of military expertise. He had achieved the success that he needed to be named “Volksmarschall” or “People’s marshal” Unfortunately, the attack against the Suez Canal had depleted his resources. By the end of 1942, he was defeated in the second battle of El Alamein and had to retreat all the way back to Tunis to save his remaining forces. In 1943, he was ordered home by Hitler and received a “Hero’s Welcome” regardless of his defeat by a much superior force with unlimited resources.

My new landlady in Calais was probably an old lady even back in the years of the First World War because now she had just recently passed the milestone of eighty years of a hard life and very little to show for it except for her grandchildren now all in their late twenties and early thirties and with very little appreciation for the sacrifices she had made for their benefit. She spoke the Calais dialect with a staccato rhythm in her French words that identified her as member of that part of the French language speakers in the Calais region. No matter how hard I tried to speak in a similar manner, she cautioned me to keep my mouth shut when the possibility of an informer to the Gestapo was in hearing range.