FALL OF JIMMA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1941, Page 5

FALL OF JIMMA

ONE OF ITALY’S LAST STRONGHOLDS CAPTURED BY ABYSSINIAN PATRIOTS. LED BY BRITISH OFFICERS. LONDON. June 22. Jimma, one of the last Italian strongholds in Abyssinia, has been captured by patriot forces led by British officers. The Italian High Command has admitted the fall of the town. In southern Abyssinia operations are proceeding satisfactorily. EARLIER NEWS PURSUIT CLOSING IN. DEFENCE ON LAST LEGS. ■' LONDON, June 21. A communique from the British headquarters in Cairo states: "In Abyssinia an Italian force in a position covering the River Dadessa was attacked by our troops and driven across the river to the west bank. In this operation the enemy sustained heavy losses in men and materials."

A special correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that the Abyssinian campaign is practically over. A few thousand soldiers must still be mopped up, and there are a few generals yet to surrender, but that is all.

Two main groups of Italians, the correspondent says, remain in the mountainous area north-west from Addis Ababa. Generals Nasi and Martini are commanding the scattered and threadbare army, with their headquarters at Gondar, and their garrisons are dotted round the western shore of Lake Tana in an arc between Mota and Debra Tabor.

The Italian troops hug tfhe main roads and towns, and their sentries never sleep, because the British are on their heels and the patriots have moved right into their lines. These northern remnants of Italy’s East African army of 200.000 men are tired, dispirited, frightened, and short of supplies. South-west from Addis Ababa. General Gazzera, who is the successor to the captured Duke of Aosta, has concentrated his main forces at Agaro, west of Jimma. They are bivouacking in steaming uplands where rain tails on 200 days a year.

The strange British army, consisting of English, Sudanese. Free French. East Africans. South Africans, West Africans, Belgians. Poles, Rhodesians and Abyssinians, is creeping up on the Italians from the nortlueast. south-east and south-west. Three British columns arc driving in on Jimma and mopping up on route. General Gazzera is conducting the Italian retreat skilfully, but it is a retreat to nowhere, and he knows it.