During the first Allied Axis offensive in North Africa in March 1941, Rommel had a shortage of troops and this cunning fox began to use his famous tricks. All these tricks are described on our website in the section of Rommel's biography, but one trick was not originally deliberately told.
In connection with the rapid advance of Rommel, the strike forces of the Axis forces were stretched and in different areas there was an acute shortage of equipment. At one point, only 7 tanks and 4 armored personnel carriers were available for the assault on the El Mekili Fort. From what we know, we have described the actions of Rommel, who placed supply trucks and vehicles on the flanks to create the appearance of a large-scale offensive. Branches of trees were also tied to the cars on cables, which lifted a huge amount of squeak into the sky for the effect of scale. We knew about another trick, but did not really believe in its realism, so initially we did not talk about it in the main text on the site.
The fact is that there is such information that Rommel used propellers to raise dust on the flanks of the strike group. We thought it was a fictional story. And in one of the Facebook groups dedicated to the battle in the desert, we found this photo with a description of the fact that this is exactly the car with a propeller that rode in the flanking column. He was called the "wind van". It was a captured Bedford MWD on which the engine from the Fieseler Storch Argus AS-10 aircraft was installed.
After the discovery of this photograph, we no longer had any doubts about the veracity of this story and this fact got into the main text of Rommel's combat path in North Africa.
Comments