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Gymnast

  

 Global strategy is too important to be left to generals.

Planning for military conflict is just one factor among

many that need to be considered by leaders to win

the war.

President Roosevelt's top military commanders were

strenuously promoting an Allied assault on France 

before the end of 1942, within a year of the bombing

of Pearl Harbor.  The proposed invasion would be

of a size and complexity that occurred on D-Day,

three years later.

Churchill argued the plan was ambitious beyond its means.

We hadn't the ships, tanks and airplanes needed for this

undertaking.  No one had any firm ideas, let alone 

experience, at how to conduct an amphibious assault.

Britain and Canada would have to lead the way because

most of the Yanks were in basic training.  The US Army

would grow a thousand percent by the end of the year.

Nearly everyone was busy learning their job.

Hitler would welcome this half-baked military effort,

pulverizing Allied formations as they land.

The resulting disaster would set back the opening 

of a second front in France a couple of years

and possibly leave Stalin wondering whether it

would be better to settle with the Nazis than to put

his faith in an incompetent ally.

 Roosevelt was in agreement with Churchill.

Gymnast was Roosevelt's plan for a second front

in North Africa as opposed to taking Germany

head on in Europe.  By attacking the French in

Vichy Morocco and Algeria, the Americans would

learn from dealing with a less formidable enemy.

In fact, the French might choose not to fight at all.

US troops were untested and definitely not ready 

for prime time.  While German generals spent years

brooding over how to slice and dice their opposition,

the US Army was busy chasing Poncho Villa around

the southern border with Mexico.

US troops would get their baptism of fire at a mountain

pass named Kasserine.  Rommel pretty well torched

the American effort to hold him back.  The loss was a 

bitter humiliation for Eisenhower's men.  But it wasn't 

the catastrophe that would have occurred on the shores

of Normandy.  It was a valuable teaching lesson.

Adjustments were made in personnel.

General George S. Patton was given a division of tanks

to command.

* * * * *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

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L A     S T R A D A

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Milestones

  

Churchill pulled the best of the 8th Army from North Africa

to defend the Greeks from Hitler.  The summoned

British force proved to be an expensive gesture that

was easily swept aside.  The Germans captured

seven thousand Brits.  The remainder of Churchill's

force fled to Crete.

The thirty thousand British troops were just getting 

acquainted with their new surroundings when a sky

filled with German paratroopers assaulted them on 

the island of Crete.   Having recently abandoned their

tanks back in Greece, Britain once again ceded the

battlefield to Germany.  Twelve thousand of 

Churchill's men became POW's.  The rest sailed

through submarine infested waters in order to 

reach the Egyptian port of Alexandria.

For Churchill the news of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor

undoubtedly sounded to him like the bugle call signaling

Uncle Sam was on his way.  Too bad Roosevelt would be 

chasing after the Japanese.  Germany was the real threat.

Four days following Pearl Harbor, Hitler solved Roosevelt's

dilemma and declared war on the U.S.  

Washington quickly embraced the European war

as the nation's first priority.

Shocking word came from the tip of the Malay peninsula

where the British island fortress there had surrendered.

With its imposing 15 inch guns pointed out to sea, this

symbol of Britain's rule was considered impregnable.

London's colonial army of 80,000 surrendered to a modest

Japanese force of 30,000.  Turns out English troops were

no match for men trained in jungle fighting.  

Singapore's defenders assumed the threat 

would come by sea and chose to ignore the

possibility of an invasion over land.

 

Japan called the shots in the Pacific until Midway.

The US Navy took advantage of breaking Japan's

military code to ambush Tokyo's national pride -

their world class carrier fleet.  All four Japanese

carriers sank into the ocean's depth while

the Yorktown was America's only loss.

With Japan's defeat, Churchill no longer saw Tokyo

as a serious threat to his Commonwealth members  

of India and Australia.

The loss of Tobruk was too much.

So here we were.  The 8th Army, with its

back to the wall, fighting for all the marbles

near this small railway depot isolated in the

Sahara desert.

A no confidence vote against Churchill was the 

talk among members of the House of Commons.

All this erupted as the Prime Minister plotted

global strategy with his most important ally,

President Roosevelt.

* * * * * 

©  Tom Taylor

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good morning jack

  

Afrike  and  Jack  in  Italy

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Last Hours

  

 Tobruk's defiance of Rommel's army for seven months

became a symbol of hope for Churchill and the

British public.  Tobruk's victory proved that right and 

decency could prevail over the Nazi war machine.

There was light at the end of the tunnel.

Churchill's generals saw the siege of Tobruk differently. 

It was all a wasted effort no matter the outcome. 

Ships, planes, troops and tanks should be put

to better purpose than supporting an unneeded

outpost behind enemy lines.

 General Klopper had his strongest forces facing west

to defend against Rommel's forces coming from Gazala.

An intense artillery barrage was reported by the Mahratta

Brigade facing southeast.  Klopper, commander of Tobruk,

took this as a feint and ignored the warning.

 A couple brigades of infantry, a few thousand men,

were stretched thin across Tobruk's southern section

of the perimeter.  Here was the soft underbelly

Rommel chose to exploit in what would become a 

dagger's thrust through King's Cross and all the

way to the harbor's edge in Tobruk itself.

Suddenly these riflemen faced the charge of a couple

hundred panzers coming their way with the dawn.

Rifles were no match for tanks and the British

defense was quickly swept aside.  

 Stukas flew from nearby El Adem to divebomb the

minefields protecting the British fortifications at  

King's Cross.  Once passage was cleared for

attacking tanks this vital junction fell, and with it

the Via Balbia was cut - the 8th Army's highway of

retreat, leaving the 2nd South African Division

trapped within the collapsing Tobruk resistance.

   

 Tanks are in the perimeter!  Alarm spread quickly.

The enemy was sighted by Klopper's staff at their

command HQ near Tobruk's harbor.  The General

made a final call for help to Ritchie then ordered 

communications equipment destroyed along with

all sensitive documents.  A white flag was raised.  

Rommel received thirty thousand Commonwealth troops

as pow's and over a month's worth of every kind of supply.

Rommel's Afrika Korps drove British trucks burning 

British petrol, ate British food and wore British khakis.

With his troops freshly nourished Rommel now vowed 

to immediately press on and destroy the 8th Army. 

 A knock at the door interrupted Churchill's White House

meeting with the President.  Roosevelt read the 

telegram handed him then passed it to the Prime Minister

without comment.  It was a gut punch.  Tobruk had fallen.

The question for Churchill was no longer 

how are we going to stop Rommel?

The question now became 

can we save the British Army?

* * * * * 

©  Tom Taylor

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good morning jessicca

  

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