DESERT VICTORY

is moved up consolidating and advancing further working as one [Music] [Music] after A Hard Day's fighting the eight Army had made a Salient in the North 6 mil wide and a depth 4 miles beyond the first enemy minefields next day attacks were made in the Center and South the attacks that ruml had been expecting and which he thought were the real thing but they were merely diversions in fact our main attack was to be in the north the eighth Army's crowbar had been driven in and was being levered this way and that in our Salient the Australians were attacking again and secured a three mile front running West Northwest fire 600 Rumble counter attack repeatedly during these days both on the ground and in the air w [Music] [Music] the Air Force was was doing a magnificent job for the lift raer the skies became a place of deadly pyam and the machines that escaped us there were destroyed on the ground [Music] on the fourth day of the battle kidney Ridge was assaulted by troops of the seventh Armored Division Riflemen light tanks and armored cards [Music] a a [Music] the ridge was taken in the meantime the Australians backed by British tanks were exploiting their former northward trust and driving a wedge still further into the German forces near the sea [Music] rumel was now fighting back with little pause and with increasing desperation [Music] [Music] [Music] these 4 days bitter work cut off large numbers of rumble's infantry some of whom for the time being fought on isolated casualties suffered were heavy on both sides but large groups of prisoners were in our hands [Music] oh [Music] while the battle in the north was raging ruml had been forced to end we had imposed our will on him he moved two paner divisions the 21st and Arete from the south to just below our [Music] Sali the Air Force began the task of preventing them from concentrating oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] la [Music] [Music] [Music] a gem Montgomery now gathered his entire armor including his division from the south ready for the crowbars final [Music] thrust the first phase was finished on November the 1st the 9th day of battle the eth Army Advanced on its entire front of 40 mes but the blow we meant to be mortal was struck at the head of the Bulge [Music] I [Music] oh it was the Breakthrough within 2 hours our light tanks were 40 m behind rl's lines destroying his transport the result was conation and [Music] Chaos the moment that Alexander and Montgomery had been waiting for had come the entire weight of their armor was in Readiness and like a feet of ironclads it sail through the Gap its purpose was simple to destroy rl's armor [Music] that's [Music] yeah f he [Music] throughout this day November the 3D the heaviest armored Battle of the campaign had been waged fighting went on along the whole front but it was centered on El EAA where a tank battle of the bitterest kind reached R by r a deeper and more bloody intensity three quarters of the excess tanks were burning or otherwise [Music] ricked as the day f the battle still continue at elak air we captured the dominating Ridge our Air Force had almost annihilated the Luft rer and now our entire strength pounded an enemy beginning to CP [Music] [Music] this is the BBC home and forces program this is Bruce belfridge here some excellent news which has come during the past hour in the form of a communicate from GHQ Caro it says the the axis forces in the western desert after 12 days and nights of ceaseless attacks by our land and air forces are now in full Retreat that show plenty more weather forces by day [Music] and the Africa Corp utterly broken and possessed with no thought but flight was hotly pursued but the e Army was not only the Thunder behind but the lightning ahead from H down positions on the road of Escape our guns and tanks knocked out on the first day of retreat over 50 of rumble's remaining pancers without loss he had already left 500 tanks behind him on the battlefield we captured over 1,000 pieces of artillery [Music] up to 1,000 aircraft from Troop carriers to Fighters were wreckage on the [Music] ground Italians in the South abandoned by Rumble with neither food nor water were swept up by us to the tune of five divisions in the north we took thousands of [Music] Germans among them were fonoma commander of the Africa Corp bookart leader of the German parachutists and eight Italian generals we buried 20,000 enemy dead but in rendering our own dead the same final Duty great care had to be used for the Germans on several occasions had attached booby traps to our men's bodies Pursuit was remorseless every enemy column on the coast Road or in the desert sometimes jammed head to tail was bombed blasted and machine guned they tasted what they' administered in France and land [Music] [Music] [Applause] our armored forces on the ground had crushed rl's flimsy rear guard and were sweeping on after 2 days Pursuit rain fell and the chase was much impeded stretches Road turned to shallow streams aircraft Landing grounds were water logged despite the rains however on the fourth day we had taken after a brief fight Mur matru the first of the newly captured ports the Navy used to bring up supplies the first heavily mined roads were encountered at hire pass where the twisting Road Rises 700 ft from then onwards to Benghazi 450 Mi further west every pass had been blown by the enemy and every mile of road had to be examined and cleared of mines and obstructions the engineers worked night and day to salum the Navy brought a million and a half gallons of water and other vital supplies by The Eighth Day the enemy had been cleared out of Egypt to Brook whose name is written deep in our Middle East campaigns to Brook which we held as a fortress behind the Enemy Lines for 9 months and which had already changed hands twice was ours once more the date was November the [Music] 13th in sirene the E Army passed from Desert to a green Countryside which its Italian colonists had abandoned and it was no more than a week between our taking to Brook and entering Benghazi but Benghazi we paused to replenish our supplies the Harbor bombed by us for over 2 years so regularly that the pilots called it during the mail run was now littered with sunken ships cranes installations and most of the keys were demolished yet the Navy and Engineers worked to such good purpose that before long our ships were unloading by sea and land we were soon bringing up 3 million gallons of petrol a week and 8,000 tons of [Music] ammunition while we've been building up our strength ruml had been digging in at elaga but after remaining 3 weeks preparing to fight he changed his mind and withdrew as soon as he felt the full weight of our attack his indecision achieved nothing except to intensify our new on slaught from El Gala to Tripoli is 530 Mi it took the eth Army 41 days to accomplish it during that time they fought several actions with rumal's RAR guards putting down on one occasion a barar rivaling that of L araman but though we were delayed our onward sweep was never in doubt just before the last stage began General Montgomery said in an order of the day nothing has stopped us since the Battle of Egypt began nothing will stop us now and nothing did 8 days later we were fighting on the outskirts of Tripoli itself [Music] [Music] [Music] the surrender of Tripoli by the governor of Libya and the mayor of the city extinguished the Italian overseas Empire country by country the British army had conquered it abisinia Eritrea Italian land Libya tripolitania not a single town now remained to them [Music] in 80 Days the eighth Army had Advanced close on, 1400 miles a feet unparalleled in military history throughout the battle and advance for every casot suffered it had inflicted five on the enemy in the words of Mr Churchill you have have altered the face of the war in a most remarkable way what it has meant in the skill and organization of movement and maneuver what it has meant in the talist endurance and self-denial of the troops and in The Fearless leadership displayed in action can be appreciated only by those who are actually on the spot but I must tell you [Music] that the fame of the desert army has spread throughout the world [Music] [Applause] [Music] la la a [Music]