ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 December 1941, Page 5

ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE

IN PROGRESS IN LIBYAN DESERT Mainly Infantry Forces Engaged SUCCESSFUL ATTACKS BY BRITISH MOBILE ; COLUMNS DESTRUCTION OF ITALIAN TANKS LONDON, December 7. In Libya there are indications that a new and important battle has started in the area between Tobruk and El Gobi. A Cairo military spokesman stated tonight that the bulk of General Rommel’s forces are believed to be involved in this battle, but the proportion of armoured forces engaged has been reduced. The battle is mainly between infantry forces. Successful attacks have been made by British mobile columns in many parts of the fighting zone. . Considerable numbers of enemy motor vehicles and quantities of supplies have been destroyed or captured. It is officially stated that British forces have destroyed 48 enemy tanks, most, of them Italian, during the last three days. The closest co-operation continues to be maintained between our ground and air forces. Any commander has only to ask for air support to get it at the earliest possible moment. The N.Z.E.F. official news service, in a dispatch dated December 6, stated: “In heavy dust storms the New Zealanders have formed a mobile patrol to assist hunt the German columns in the frontier area. New Zealand patrols have successfully engaged the German columns at Menastir and toward Bardia. They are inflicting severe casualties on the enemy. “It* is not known whether the New Zealand troops have taken part in the recent operations at El Duda. It is known, however, that in the Gas El Arid area, west of Bardia, our troops in one raid have succeeded in destroying 60 enemy vehicles at a supply dump and in capturing hundreds of prisoners. According to a statement today the New Zealand forces, in the course of their attacks since the campaign opened, have succeeded in capturing and destroying enormous quantities of enemy materials.’’

AIR FIGHTING

GERMANS NOT MAINTAINING STANDARD STAND OF NEW ZEALANDERS OUTSIDE TOBRUK. THE MAORIS IN ACTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 7. Reuter’s correspondent with the Eighth Army battle headquarters says that the R.A.F. fighters in the three days of December 4-6 have had their greatest successes since the campaign opened. They have met group after group of Stukas trying to bomb the Imperial positions, and have decimated them. Even when the Germans penetrated over the positions they have shown none of the skill and daring that marked them in France and Greece, but drop their bombs in a hurry and duck off as fast as they can go.

The Cairo correspondent of the “Daily Express” says: “Our planes and flying columns continue to harass the Germans’ efforts to dig in, but the bulk of the British armoured legion is resting and refitting. One resting officer is a South African test cricketer who has wounds in the leg and head; he has had six tanks disabled under him, and he now commands a seventh.”

The correspondent adds: “If you have any admiration to spare, offer it to the New Zealanders, who almost alone met the full shock of the panzers on the rising ground outside Tobruk. They were driven back by anti-tank guns, and it was, indeed, a battle between the German anti-tank guns and the New Zealand infantry. “ ‘The battlefield was like the Napier earthquake,’ said one New Zealander.”

When the New Zealanders made their famous bayonet charge at Solium they destroyed an enormous amount of German material, states another .correspondent with the Eighth Army. He says that ever since they met them in Greece and Crete the New Zealanders, and especially the Maoris, have been bad dreams for the Germans. For the attack on the Solium barracks the Maoris rushed forward with bayonets against very heavy enemy' fire, which was maintained till the Maoris were actually upon them. The Germans then surrendered. They had been driven from most valuable high ground, but the casualties of the Maoris were reasonably light.