ITALIANS IN AFRICA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1940, Page 6

ITALIANS IN AFRICA

ADVANCE FROM LIBYA GRAZIANI’S THRUST. BRITISH HARASSING TACTICS. Advance guards of the Italian Army in Libya have drawn thin threads round the north-westernmost corner of Egypt and across the dry. sagebrushed escarpment edging in Solium, wrote a correspondent of “The Times" from the Egyptian frontier on September 17. Italian tanks, lorries, and infantry in short columns, spaced wide under British artillery fire, are making moves as if to occupy the whole coastal escarpment. This is the ridge which extends from Solium eastward then southward almost to the Libyan border on the west. It is a land-island rising about 50 feet high above the remaining desert and is a natural jumping-off spot for any direct thrust along the coast road to Mersa Matruh and Alexandria. Along this ridge the Italians are making their arrowhead thrusts, the first along the coast, a second due east, and a third from the south-west. They hope to use the escarpment as a first base for attack along the saltpan coast road. When a few days ago they advanced through their border chicken wire, over virgin desert and rough tracks, the British had already withdrawn from their main advance positions.

The first point the Italians occupied was Fort Musaid, a crumbling and entirely useless Customs post. From there they came along the tracks to Solium, where the escarpment fades into the sea. To get down to it they had only two paths, the coast road and Halfaya (•■hell-fire”) Pass, a break in the ridge just south of the village. The British had blown up this pass and made it a death trap. Here in a narrow stretch Graziani’s men met the deadly accurate fire of British Brengunners. * The second thrust stumbled over a mined area on the coast road, which the Italians are now trying to repair, because that is their most direct route from Toubruk. the Libyan coastal supply town. SENSELESS’SHELLING. Having failed to put out patrols, the Italians bombed empty Solium almost until the moment they were in it. having already wasted thousands of shells on it every week. Their tractors, dragging heavy 75’s behind them and heavy supply waggons, then began the long trek from rear positions. Moving slowly across the desert face they were a perfect target for the Royal Air Force. Deeper within Libya troops are moving up to nearer positions, hoping for further reinforcements from Sicily. Away out in front the Italians sent their 4.7 anti-tank guns, for they fear the British tanks and armoured cars more than anything. On the cliff abovP Solium they have placed a few artillery pieces direct from Capuzzo,, mostly 75’s, but with some heavy 10 centimetres and short-nosed Ansaldos. As yet they do not know where to fire them; the British are scattered out and well placed in a harassing formation that makes Italians look behind them every step they take. The British soldiers know this ground, and have placed their mach-ine-gun nests “beautifully.” In between the brown ridges brown-faced Cockneys sit behind the machine-guns. I heard a sergeant shout across the hills to a machine-gun post near by. “Give them a long burst, not little stuff: give them it long.” THE DESERT HEAT. The number of men Graziani is using is uncertain. Certainly he has more than a quarter of a million at hand. Only normal advance units stepped through the barbed wire last weekend. In long, thick pants and heavy boots they cannot make blitzkrieg; the guns get too hot even to touch in the midday sun; tanks are unbearable as usual. All fighting is timed in the early morning or late evening hours, and may extend into the moonlight hours, when there is patrol activity on both sides. There will be no crystallisation'of the front for some time yet. As Italy makes bigger stitches with her vanguard needles the British withdrawal continues, the Fascist armoured units quickly filling the vacuum. For the first time in the war Italy boasts that her navy is preparing to take combined action with her land forces, and shelling of British coastal positions is expected in 'the next few days. But as sure as Italy tries this there will be a naval reception awaiting her beyond her dreams. The real strength of the Italian thrust is, however, beginning to be manifest. R.A.F. flying over Buqbuq caught some armoured concentrations in groups and poured hell from heaven upon them. Through the gaps made by British troops in their border wire the Italians are cascading their heavy equipment almost indiscriminately; they have pulled the barbed wire of the first few miles clean away to gain quicker transport. As the sun lifted above the horizon on a recent morning its red haze covered the biggest field of dead on Egyptian soil for half a century, the result of a night’s work of harassing by the British. All night patrols had darted in bright moonlight across the stony desert. Because they could not hide the noise of their motors Italian moves in the still waste were easily detected, and the British struck like picadors. ON EGYPTIAN SOIL,. With the advance having reached a point between Buqbuq and Sidi Barrani. about 22 miles inside the border, the main British advance troops arc trying to blunt the enemy point. Superior by far in numbers, the Italians have had the momentary advantage of thrusting along a road which it would have been unstrategic to defend. Relying mostly on mechanised armoured vehicles, it is fairly easy to extend this thread along the coast. Their advance vehicles seem to be tiny Fiat tanks, equipped to fire only towards the front and built entirely for quick advance work. In long columns, like a black stream of ants they have moved along the coast. At least 10 infantry battalions, each about 1000 men, were engaged in the thrusting division, apart from medium tanks and armoured cars. In the Jlrst-line vehicles the Italians placed heavy 75 anti-aircraft guns on cars and pompom quickflrers. As the armoured vehicles felt thenway ahead artillery coming up behind was established at the foot of the hill just off the sea. In the rear the Italians are establishing camps, which seem more suited for stable warfare than for a blitzkrieg. On any available eminence they are using mortars and heavy machine-guns for defence apainst British night raiders. Thus

Italian artillery is firing for the first time in this war on Egyptian soil. All day long the artillery duel went on around the south-west of Buqbuq. where the British poured all they had into any Italian group remaining long enough in one position to be shelled. All day’ long the sharp twang of fieldguns made their flat spinning noise across the desert, with the shells from both'sides biting great pinches of dust from the stubble desert of Egypt. R.A.F. FIELD-DAY. 1 Supporting their advance thrusts, the Italians have used medium air bombers, but that concentrated bombing which has become an essential part of the blitzgrieg has been fairly mediocre so far. The British troops had plenty of time to prepare for the evacuation of their camps, which were fairly well £ hidden, but the oncoming Italians have not had time to camouflage their positions, so that the R.A.F. are having a field-day. As more Italian heavy stuff piles up on the thin ribbon road from Solium to Buqbuq towards Alexandria, it lays itself open to an intense and easy bombardment from the sea and the air. There is no warning from the air. because the raiders come out in a wide arc over the sea. Some classic air battles are going on over this coastline. Although future developments may not be foretold, it is possible to say at this stage that the campaign is proceeding as Was expected. Within a week the situation will have cleared sufficiently to indicate how things stand.