Movement!!!

“At the beginning of 1935, it had taken three and a half days of worry, frustration and bad temper for one squadron of the 11th Hussars to make a 200-mile journey from Cairo to the oasis of Baharia. Punctures, soft sand in which the lorries buried themselves to their axles, broken springs and uncertainty of navigation had all helped to make the trip a nightmare, and they had needed two days for servicing and reappraisal before they felt confident enough to begin the trip home. But by the following November they were driving their Rolls-Royce armoured cars (T920-24 pattern’) quite confidently from Mersa Matruh across the coastal plain, up the Escarpment to the plateau”

The stretch mentioned in the book Wavell’s Command by Barrie Pitt, is certainly less onerous in April of 1941! It never ceases to amaze me what man can do, in his efforts to overcome nature, and succeed at a task or a mission.

Our civil and military history are full of such stories.

Even simple ones like these.

As we accumulate turns, I shall be sharing the story of the Commonwealth and Axis forces here. Stay tuned for a blow by blow campaign from Rommel’s arrival until one side says uncle!