military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) (06/19/91)
From: military@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Tuesday, 17 June, 1941 A heroic six-hour defensive stand by Brigadier Gatehouse's 4th Armored Brigade Matildas enables the 4th Indian division to escape encirclement. Elsewhere, Allied forces maintain a steady, orderly retreat, and the operation comes to an end. Battleaxe has cost Britain 969 dead and 91 tanks lost, including 54 Matildas. Germany has lost 678 men, and while nearly 100 German tanks were lost during the fighting, Rommel has held the battlefield, allowing all but 12 of them to be recovered and repaired. Australian troops in Syria capture Jezzine, and Commonwealth forces in Iraq cross the border, following the oil pipeline to Palmyra. Prime Minister Menzies of Australia reforms his Cabinet and announces new government measures to control shipping and other transportation, as well as far-reaching labor reforms. The US Army announces plans to grant greater autonomy to the Army Air Corps. The Corps would not become a third partner to the Army and Navy; its new status would be more comparable to the Armored Corps. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Bill Thacker military@att.att.com Send submissions for "50 Years Ago" to military-request@att.att.com "No isolationist can object, I think, to our keeping the seas clear of illegal raids on merchant shipping between our ports and England." - F. Barnard O'Connor, in a letter to the New York Times