Fall of D

Four days after Tobruch, Derna fell. The British and Australians had expected duck soup at Derna, but they found the toughest meat of the Libyan campaign.

The situation was not at all like that at Sidi Barrani, Bardia and Tobruch. There were no rigid, prepared defenses around Derna (see map), no circles of wire and ditch. But the natural defense was rugged: a deep, wide wadi, the eroded path of an ancient stream. With more spunk than they had shown in seven weeks' war, 10,000 Italians fought to keep many more attackers from swarming into the wadi. Italian aircraft were active, tanks gave fight, artillery answered stubbornly. But numbers and more efficient supply told in the end. The town capitulated.

Beyond it, the R. A. F. strafed retreating troops, bombed tents, trucks, hangars, grounded planes. One day they ranged all the way to Tripoli to hit at shipping and transport planes that might slip supplies across to Bengasi. At that port the British expected to catch Rodolfo Graziani's men in a final trap, and they did not want it strenghtened by last-minute reinforcement.

The Italians were estimated to have only 50,000 troops left in easters Libya, and about the same number near Tripoli, 600 miles farther west. From Tripoli to Bengasi was too long a haul over the desert either for reinforcement to come up by land or for Marshal Graziani to try to run for it. The main British worry was whether they could wipe Bengasi out before German serial assistance should become really effective. The presence of German planes in Sicily and Libya had effected the whole Mediterranean situation. Late in the week German planes bombed the entire British-held section of the North-Libyan cost, claiming a 10,000-ton ship at Bardia, three other sunk and three damaged elsewhere. This week the British admitted that one ship had been bombed, but said that a "large number" of Italian prisoners aboard her had been killed. Despite this new element, the British were confident that if they could reach Bengasi soon enough, they could make Rodolfo Graziani's last stand a one-man stand.

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