Dimitri’s Reviews > The Crucible of War: Western Desert 1941 > Status Update

In Derna the Australians found streets of well-designed, single-storey houses standing in shady gardens, well watered from the wadi behind & planted with cauliflowers, radishes and onions.. This could indeed be a pleasant place, warm enough in summer to remind the inhabitants that they were in Africa, but with Mediterranean breezes, winter rains to swell their produce & a red soil rich enough to bear it.

The "five-day raid" began at camp Nibeiwa. Shards of 25 lbs H.E. steel and stone screamed across the wastes or sliced horribly into yielding flesh. Ponderous and irresistible, the lines of Matildas appeared. Brave Italian gun crews often met fearful deaths in that first charge, for as their shells bounced harmlessly off the armour the tanks came on and on to crush both gun and crew beneath the afwul weight of steel.