ADVANCE INTO DESERT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 248, 17 September 1940, Page 7

ADVANCE INTO DESERT.

ITALIANS’ HEAVY CASUALTIES,

SUCCESSFUL li.A.F. ATTACKS.

LONDON, Sept. 15. A communique issued by the British General Headquarters in Cairo states: “The penetration by Italian forces into the desert area evacuated by the British continues, and camps are being constructed in the neighbourhood of Birnuin, seven miles south of Solium.

“The enemy has suffered severe handling by our aircraft and armour ed fighting vehicles, and columns descending to the coastal plain at Hali'aya have suffered heavily from our artillery fire. While our casualties continue to be insignificant, the enemy is believed to have lost many men and vehicles. Another raider has been brought down by anti-aircraft fire over Mersa Matruh. There is nothing to report on other fronts.” An 11.A.F. communique issued at Cairo states: “In the Western Desert, where Italian bombers were active on the night of September 13, our bombers made a successful attack on concentrations of enemy motor transport in the Solium area. The bombs in one case fell on the vehicles, a number of which were hit. In another case the bombs fell among troops and vehicles, a fire being started. In the Sudan, enemy aircraft dropped bombs at Khor.vabis (south-east of Khartoum). No material damage was caused. Our aircraft made attacks on Gura aerodrome, a direct hit being observed on a hangar and other buildings, and a number of intense fires were started. Our bombers again raided Assab.” A message from Rome says it is reported in official circles that the Italians hope to roach Alexandria in a minimum of a. month and a maximum of two months.

The Cairo correspondent of the British United Press, commenting on the Italians’ advance yesterday across the Egyptian frontier and the occupation of Solium, from which the British withdrew six weeks ago, stated that it was not clear whether the invasion of Egypt proper had begun. MANY OBSTACLES. MUSSOLINI’S COLUMNS. BRITISH DEFENCE READY. LONDON, Sept. 15. The Italian force which has occupied Solium, states a dispatch from the 8.8. C. observer in Cairo, comprises three fairly long columns, With a certain amount of protection from armoured fighting vehicles. Now they have got to the high escarpment which runs slightly inland from the Mediterranean coastal plain and overlooks it. “At this stage of events it is not possible to say whether this advance is the first stage of an attack on Egypt or not, but at any rate it is a clear violation of Egyptian territory,” the dispatch states. “They have plunged into wide, open and nearly empty spaces. They may be expecting to find the British Army arrayed before them, though their rate of advance does not suggest it but the fact is that whatever the enemy expected they found nothing, no defence of any kind except elusive parties of British tanks which are harrying their columns. The British main forces arc somewhere else altogether, and they are completely ready. A DESERTED VILLAGE.

“The Italians have found out one thing they evidently had not realised before, and that is that the mueb-talked-of Solium, which they have variously described as a military and then a naval base and which they have bombed and shelled unmercifully since June is nothing more or less than a deserted, half-ruined village of absolutely no value whatever. There have never been British torces of more than small parties in Solhini and we have never held it. “When I was last there I remember reporting that one lonely dog howling in the dusk was the, only inhabitant among the Arab mud huts and mo rocky streets of the village. Yet that day the Italians had subjected it to a fierce air attack and have done so continuously ever since. Now they have Solium and they will find it of no great value.” , DANGEROUS ROUTE.

The observer says that the Italians are known to have reached a point on the only practicable route down the escarpment to the coastal plain. The only other road, zig-zagging in alpine style down the cliffs, has been destroyed and is unusable. The Italian columns, if they wish to advance along the coastal road toward the east and populated Egypt, must use this dangerous road, though their possession of the escarpment gives them to some degree command over the first few miles of the coastal plain. The Italians may, push forward, or

try to push forward, to where they think they will meet the main British forces. If they do this, they will be stretched out over a barren desert which will not offer them as much as one drink of water or a solitary potato for food. They will be subjected to intense aerial bombardment, continuous harassing bv our very superior tanks and armoured forces, and possibly by shelling from the sea. “The position, then, is, that the Italians have invaded Egypt.” the dispatch concludes. “It would not be correct to say that the Italian attack on Egypt has begun, because so far the enemy columns have met nothing to attack, but somewhere between Cairo and the escarpment, somewhere in the 350 miles of desert, the British forces are ready and waiting, and, as the official communique yesterday said, ‘the situation is well in hand’.”