RAIDS IN AFRICA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1940, Page 2

RAIDS IN AFRICA

BV AIR & LAND FORCES SUCCESSES AGAINST ITALIAN POSTS. SIGNS OF POOR ENEMY ORGANISATION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. June 23. Royal Air Force communiques report —"Reconnaissance flights were successfully carried out over Italian East Africa, yielding valuable data. In a raid an Macaca, a direct hit was registered on a compound. At Diredawa. bombers attacked the aerodrome and one aircraft was set on fire and another damaged. Various raids were carried out from the Sudan on military concentrations at Asosa, in Ethiopia, resulting in considerable damage to barracks, despite heavy anti-aircraft fire. “It is also stated that aircraft of the Aden command co-operated successfully with the Navy in an attack on the Italian submarine whose caputre by an armed trawler was announced yesterday by the Admiralty.”

Air official British communique regarding raids into Abyssinia states that further patrol activity and lightning raids, covering an extensive area, have been reported from Brtish Somaliland. In one sector, a patrol of native irregulars crossed the frontier and raided an Italian post occupied by conscript natives. After a slight skirmish, the enemy fled, leaving one of their number dead. There were no casualties on the British side. Two hundred miles to the west, a patrol drawn from the Somaliland Camel Corps penetrated the border and raided another Italian frontier post known to be occupied by natives. On their arrival, the troops found the post deserted, and destroyed the defences, including water tanks.