HIGH TRIBUTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1941, Page 5

HIGH TRIBUTES

PAID BY BRITISH PRESS ACHIEVEMENT OF IMPERIAL FORCES. LEADERSHIP <V FIGHTING QUALITY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. January 6. High tributes are paid in the Press to the thoroughness of the preparations for the offensive, backed by the magnificent fighting qualities of the troops engaged and the strong striking force <.if the British tanks, which resulted in the sweeping British success at Bardia. All branches of the fighting forces played a part —the .Army, the Navy, and the Royal Air Force —and their co-operation and the vigorous operations brilliantly planned by General Wavell are warmly praised. "Aspects of the victory." says "The Times.’’ "are the measure in which it brings the victor closer to his strategic goal, the extent to which the vanquished was denied the attainment of his ends, and the degree to which the defeated army was destroyed so that it shall not remain in being to reconstitute the threat brought about by its presence in the field. By these tests the victory gained by the Army of the Nile is remarkably complete. We have achieved our strategic goal of putting an end to the Italian threat, to Alexandria and the Suez Canal, whereas the Italian venture utterly failed. "The degree of destruction of the Italian army effected on the battlefield of Sidi Barrani was far higher than in some of the most famous victories of history. The immediate pursuit was relentless and effective. The full haul of guns and tanks has not yet been reported, perhaps because it has not yet been possible to enumerate them accurately, but it must be very large. And now, to crown the victory, a considerable part of the enemy’s army which had shut itself up in the fortress of Bardia has been attacked after a brief investment and has shared the fate of the defenders of the fortified camps which were established on Egyptian soil.

•’The assault will be a classic example of the new co-operative warfare of the three services, for both the land and the air efforts were dependent on the command of the sea."