NIGHT PATROLS BUSY

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 244, 16 October 1942, Page 5

NIGHT PATROLS BUSY

GERMANS ON THE DEFENSIVE.

B.O.W.

RUGBY, Oct. 15.

"Our patrols were active on Tuesday night," states to-day's Middle East communique. "Yesterday there was nothing to report from our land forces, and air activity over the battle area was on a reduced scale. Our fighter-bombers attaeked targets in the southern sector and at E1 Daba. Two enemy aircraft were shot down during an offensve sweep. " "American heavy bombers carried out a daylight attack on shipping in TO'bruk harbour, two direct hits being claimed on a large merchant vessel." Axis forces in Egypt have abandoned all offensive dispositions, reports the Daily Telegraph's Cairo correspondent. Rommel has changed has plans with Teutonic thoroughness and the E1 Alamein front has been- intensively wired and mined with a view to making it impreg.nable. The main Axis positions across the E1 Alamein neck are being steadily increased in depth and now extend back nearly three miles. A Cairo message says that South Africans and Americans between them destroyed four enemy aircraft and damaged eight others over the combat area yesterday. Air activity was on an increased scale and in powerful attacks our fighters and bombers played havoc with enemy transport in the southern sector