MASSIVE AIR ATTACKS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 26, 26 October 1942, Page 5

MASSIVE AIR ATTACKS

Germans Surprised BRITISH PRESS COMMENT LONDON, October 25. Today’s Cairo communique reported that penetration of (Some Of the main Axis positions by the Eighth Army was maintained yesterday in spite of enemy counter-attacks. j General Montgomery sent a message to the Eighth Army to destroy General Rommel and his men. He. said: “Victory should swing our way." The British United Press correspondent with the Eighth Army says: “We have large nuifibers of reinforcements. It has been a race between General Rommel and General Montgomery to see who Would strike first. We have beaten Rommel to the starting post. If the type of material now available’ is any criterion, we should do well.” < The C.B.S. correspondent. Winston Burdett, broadcasting from Cairo, says: “The Eighth Army is attacking .across a gun-swept stretch of sand, which the Germans littered with minefields and gun emplacements. They have four defence lines, forming a dense network as much as four miles deep.” Informed circles in Stockholm Insist that General Ramcke, not General Rommel, is at present commanding the Afrlka Korps. According to Italian sources Rommel is worn out and unfit for front-line service. “Rarely have we witnessed such massive air attacks in North Africa as those carried out by the British,” said Berlin radio; "The first wave of enemy planes was spotted early enough for Our machines,to go up, but we had not realized they were so many. They came from all directions, attacking from high and low levels in extremely disciplined formations.” The "Sunday Dispatch,” in a leader, says: “This is no secondary effort, not even reconnaissance in force, but attack by the entire Eighth Army. Our hope is refreshed, our faith strengthened by the evidence of thorough preparation which preceded zero. hour. The very word attack will electrify us and stimulate our allies. |Ve have the tonic knowledge that atTast things are beginning to move.” The “Sunday Express” says editorially that the move may be the precursor of startling events. The desert may become the chief theatre in General Smuts’s “new phase.” J. L. Garvin, writing in the “Sunday Express,” says:- “The news has communicated the thrill Of battle to everyone and stirs every vein. We are already hammering while the iron is hot If fortune prospers our arms it may be remembered as one of the decisive battles of the world.” Berlin radio claims that the Eighth Army’s attack was expected for days, and that British tanks and infantry suffered such painful losses in the deep minefields that the German and Italian defence system was reached at only a few points. German and Italian connter-atacks, the radio said, inflicted heavy losses in men and material on the British, many of whom were taken prisoner. Axis forces thwarted a landing attempt at Mersa Matruh.

COAST BOMBARDMENT

Action By Naval Forces (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 24. Further details of Friday night’s bombardment of eiiemy objectives along the North African coast by British coastal forces are given in an agency message. The corresjwndent says the action was carried out by high-speed American-built motor torpedo boats. The naval force was ordered to attack the coast at two points, with the object of causing all .possible damage to the shore. The tiny craft were spotted by enemy planes as they sped along the coast in moonlight and a running fight which lasted two hours developed. Time after time the planes roared down on the ships, blazing away with cannon and dropping bombs, but fire from tile 'boats disconcerted the attackers and the only hit scored was a cannon shell below the water-line’ of one boat. The crew succeeded in patching the hole and returning to port. The force suffered no other damage. They met no opposition from the shore, though they poured in heavy fire from close range at the two points selected. x