MOVING TOWARDS COAST

Evening Star, Issue 24294, 8 September 1942, Page 3

MOVING TOWARDS COAST

NEW AXIS THRUST PROBABLE THREAT TO EGYPT STILL SERIOUS (Rec. 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 7. Axis transport columns in Egypt are now moving north towards, the coast. This may indicate that Rommel is preparing to make his next thrust along the seaboard. At one stage of Rommel’s latest thrust the German spearhead was within 15 miles of the coast road east of the British minefield, hut when he began the second phase—namely, to reach the coast and cut off the central and northern positions, our concealed anti-tank batteries were brought into action. Our tanks simultaneously pinched in his flanks and bombers swooped! in. Rommel tried to save the situation by cutting through our main positions directly westward, as he did on the Gazala line, and launched an attack from the west against Ruweisat to assist this manoeuvre. British and Indians frustrated one attempt and' New Zealanders frustrated the other.

London opirjion is that there is no* real evidence that the threat to Egypt: has (been removed), or that Rummers withdrawal represents a decisive defeat. Optimism over the Middle East has so often previously proved false that it is wise to approach Rommel’s setback with caution. Prisoners taken last week say that General von Bismarck, commanding the Twenty-first German Tank Division, and described as a nephew of the German Chancellor, was killed in the recent/ fighting.