Word: rna
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Four days after Tobruch, Dérna fell. The British and Australians had expected duck soup at Dérna, but they found the toughest meat of the Libyan campaign...
...situation was not at all like that at Sidi Barrani, Bardia and Tobruch. There were no rigid, prepared defenses around Dérna (see map), no circles of wire and ditch. But the natural defense was rugged: a deep, wide wadi, the eroded path of an ancient stream. With more spunk than they had shown in seven weeks' war, 10,000 Italians fought to keep many more attackers from swarming into the wadi. Italian aircraft were active, tanks gave fight, artillery answered stubbornly. But numbers and more efficient supply told in the end. The town capitulated...
Flag Over Dérna. On March 12, 1937, Benito Mussolini paused in his tour of Libya at the port of Derna. Set on the edge of a cluster of green hills, rich in water and soil, this little town had come to be called the Pearl of Cyrenaica. A famous local story which Il Duce asked to hear in full was that of William Eaton and Presley O'Bannon. In 1804 the U. S. was very annoyed with the Barbary pirates, who kept nibbling at U. S. trade in the Mediterranean. William Eaton, a Connecticut schoolteacher, and Presley...
With Dérna such a cinch, the British prepared to press for Bengasi, in hope of catching the other half of Graziani's ragged army. Patrols worked along the coast and also cut straight across the hump (see map). With luck, General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell and his merry men might pull off the most surprising total victory in this war of many surprises...
...were battered to rubble. The plush officers' quarters, completed down to tile bathrooms, were sagging ruins. At El Gubbi the story was the same. At El Gazála they found 35 more wrecked planes. The Italians had abandoned their air bases as far west as Dérna, acknowledging British dominance in the air over the immediate battle front...