Hello, and thank you for listening to The History of World War II podcast.

Episode 390, The Battle of Night Bridge Box.

By June 11th, the battle at Beer Hackeen involving the fighting French was over.

Rommel now controlled that ground, but Richie invited Alconleck to come to his headquarters

at Gambit to see how well the 8th Army had survived Rommel's latest foray.

Of course Richie did not have all the facts, had he, he would have had less jauntiness in

his voice.

But he would learn the truth soon enough, a truth that Rommel was already guessing at,

namely that the Axis powers were soon to have more tanks than 8th Army.

As it stood, Richie had 248 to the Desert Foxes 219.

Alconleck flew up on June 12th, but Rommel was about to demonstrate another tactic they

had come up with in the desert.

He wrote, Reconnaissance reports must reach the commander in the shortest possible time.

He must take his decisions immediately.

Speed of action decides the battle.

Soldiers of motorized forces must therefore operate as near as possible to their troops.

Soon enough, the various commanders under Richie would be accused of that very thing, or rather

not being close enough to their troops to respond to unexpected situations.

Still, to his credit, 13th Corps Commander William Strafer, got had been busy since Rommel

retreated back into the cauldron a few days prior.

Not had figured out that Rommel was trying to do several things at once.

First he was trying to approach Tabruk from the south, and if he could do this, then all

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