NIGHT DASH BY INFANTRY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 35, 5 November 1942, Page 5

NIGHT DASH BY INFANTRY

Breach In Defences

(British Official Wireless.) . (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) RUGBY, November 3. Significant successes by the Eighth Army are reported by an agency correspondent at the front. He says that the battle is progressing in the manner General Montgomery intended. A break has been made in the German lines. After a 24-hour battle our tanks, fighting in the open, can deploy on the vast area the British Command selected. This position was achieved when, after a heavy artillery barrage, the Australians pushed through to capture advance posts in the coastal area and finally cut off a number of Germans, who all day and night had attempted to regain their liberty. Tanks went to their rescue. For a day and a night, and again yesterday, this force strove vainly to break out, and then, with a new blow, the Eighth Army reached the gateway to the great desert plain. As far as is known, the enemy are still held in the pocket by the Australians. Reuter’s correspondent says that the new Allied push was made southward from the coastal’ region where Axis forces are hemmed between the railway and the sea. Infantry, under the waning moon, moved up to attack in the region of Akakir, a stony ridge 100 feet high west of Tel el Isa. Hacking at the enemy’s hastily-wired defences, the infantry worked their way forward while sappers searched for mines. The sappers and infantry had to fight a way through minefields, strong points, booby traps, and other obstacles, and then the tanks moved off in the thin dawn light. The armoured battle was joined as soon as the light was good enough to see along the Tel el Akakir ridge. Deadlock Broken. “Things have gone well so far,” the correspondent says. “Italian and German prisoners have Deen coming to the cages behind the lines in considerable numbers for the past 24 hours.” The Associated Press correspondent says that the attack began over a 4000-yard front, and it had by morning reached a point where no fixed enemy defences are ahead. Assisting the attack, the second greatest barrage of the campaign began at 9.5 p.m. on Sunday and lasted without interruption till 5 a.m. yesterday. Both General Montgomery and Field Marshal Rommel are believed to have thrown the bulk of their available tank forces into this savage head-on clash, says the “Daily Telegraph” correspondent. It appears that the deadlock on the El Alamein Front has been broken and the way opened for a battle of manoeuvre in which armoured strength can be used. Offensive Reached Peak.

The correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that following the break-through by British infantry, they were set on by the Afrika Korps, but tanks of the Eighth Army came up immediately and engaged the Afrika Korps and knocked out many of the tanks and killed many escaping Germans. “General Montgomery’s offensive has now reached its peak,” says the British United Press correspondent with the Eighth Army. “It is evident from statements by German prisoners that tlie Germans realize that they must fight to the deatli or relinquish their prospects of conquering the Nile Delta.”

Reuter reports tonight that the Afrika Korps is mustering ail available tanks, anti-tank guns, and troops to block tlie bridge-head. This is held mainly by British and Imperial troops, who have already captured hundreds of prisoners.

While the British drive was in progress the Germans and Italians in the coastal pocket attempted to break out with the assistance of attacks from other enemy detachments from the west. The Australians thus faced attacks from east and west. Nevertheless, they held their ground, and the enemy in the pocket remains cut off.