Rommel’s silent preparations for an offensive had again caught the British completely by surprise. His new attack began on 21 January 1942.

David Irving, in his book, The Trail of the Fox wrote:

His enemy lacked battle experience. Rommel outwitted, outmaneuvered and outgunned them. "Our opponents have taken to their heels as if stung by a tarantula," he said in triumph. And Armbruster echoed this: "The Tommies don't stand and fight. They have just turned and fled."

Rommel was now in full pursuit with his recently renamed, on 22nd January, Panzergruppe Afrika. Rommel’s force was now given the status of an army and Rommel was now rightfully able to use the title of an Oberbefehlshaber, a title that had accidentally been mentioned wrongly in connection with his name before he took up his African command (as I discussed in Part 3 of this series), which was a title that he’d kept even though, until now, he was strictly just a Kommandierender General, the commander of a corps. Now he really was a commander-in-chief. But how long could Rommel’s latest offensive last before his supplied brought him to a halt?

Tag words: Field Marshall Erwin Rommel; David Irving; The Trail of the Fox; Panzergruppe Afrika; General Cavallero; General Kesselring; Sir Basil Liddell Hart; The Rommel Papers; Hitler’s Table Talk; Martin Bormann; Rotkopf hollow charge; Red Head hollow charge;