By the afternoon of 15 December, 4th Armoured, having looped round to the south, was at Bir Halegh el Eleba, some 30 miles northwest of Alem Hamza and ideally placed both to strike at the rear of the Afrika Korps and advance north to cut Panzer Group Afrika's main lines of communication along the coast, which Godwin-Austen was urging them to do.