FLOW OF EQUIPMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 September 1941, Page 5

FLOW OF EQUIPMENT

INTO WESTERN DESERT ALLEGED VICHY ACTION. USE OF TUNISIAN PORT GIVEN TO NAZIS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON. September 20. Cairo reports that tanks, guns and aeroplanes have been flowing into the Western Desert from the Imperial and American arsenals in such volume in recent weeks that on the enemy's side the process of preparation can only be described as bolting the doors and double-locking the windows. Considerable Italian reinforcements have poured in in recent months, but contact with them lately has not convinced the Imperial forces that their fighting spirit is any better than that of Marshal Graziani’s armies. While the campaigning season approaches, the Army of the Nile is now stronger than at any time since the outbreak of the war.

According to the independent French news agency, Vichy has given the Germans the right to transport war materials from the Tunisian port of Qabes to Tripolitania (north-west of Libya). Tripoli is reported to be no longer usable for landing war materials. The railway from Tripoli to Zuara is being hurriedly extended to the Tunisian frontier.

RELATIVELY QUIET

SITUATION AT TOBRUK. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) RUGBY, September 21. A Cairo communique states: “Several parties, moving outside our perimeter defences at' Tobruk, were effectively engaged by machine-gun and mortar fire. Apart from this yesterday was a relatively quiet day. “In the frontier area there is nothing important to report.”