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AbsntMndedProf -> Dieter Arrives in NA 12/42: (7/27/2007 3:29:45 AM)
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Oberst Dieter Junge wiped his forehead with one of the monogrammed handkerchiefs his wife had given him prior to his departure for North Africa. The flight in the Ju-52 had been stressful what with the RAF and the Royal Navy making life so difficult for DAK supplies and reinforcements traveling from the continent to Tripoli. Thankfully most of the convoy carrying his units had made it to North Africa. Even now the dock crews were using their cranes to offload the new PzIVs with the new long barreled 75s that would provide ample punch to tear holes in the British Grant tanks recently brought over from the U.S.. These, along with the Panzergrenediers that had survived the trip to Tripolitania, would give his units the power they needed to push the Brits back to the 'wire', and hopefully take Tobruk. Tobruk, the vital leaping off point for any future attempts to take Malta or Alexandria. Even now his units would have to waste precious petrol getting from Tripoli to the front even before they got to see any action. Goering's Luftwaffe was losing control of the skies over the deserts, and this worried Junge. With things not going well on the Eastern front, North Africa, even with the Desert Fox, was getting short shrift on supplies and replacements. The 15 new PzIVs now arriving were a quite unexpected bonus for the DAK. Although official channels were silent, the officers' grape vine carried rumors that an entire army group was in danger of being encircled and decimated in the Southern sector of the Eastern front in the city of Stalingrad. If the DAK could push the Brits out of North Africa and take control of the Suez Canal and the oil fields recently discovered in the Middle East in 1938 there might yet be the chance to drive the Soviets back to the Ural Mountains. Taking a swig from his canteen, Oberst Junge checked his watch and headed off for his briefing with the DAK's commander, Erwin Rommel. He hoped the Desert Fox would have a new plan to turn the tide again.
More to come . . .
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