SWIFT AND BRILLIANT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1942, Page 4

SWIFT AND BRILLIANT

SECOND CAPTURE OF BARDIA WAY OPENED BY HEAVY AIR ATTACKS. STRONG DEFENCES BATTERED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.45 p.m.) RUGBY, January 2. The swift and brilliant capture ol Bardia, the now historic fortiess near the eastern boundary of Cyrenaica, has taken place almost exactly a year after its first capture on January 4, 1941, by General Wavell's forces during their advance across Cyrenaica. Two months after the Imperial forces had taken it. the Axis armies advanced and retook it, on April 12. The second Imperial campaign, beginning on November 18 last, chased General Rommel’s troops out’of many places which had changed hands in the previous campaign and bypassed Bardia and Halfaya, where Axis garrisons were left useless and helpless so long as Rommel was unable to counter-attack. The swift results of the present enterprise must be partly credited to heavy Allied air attacks, which battered at the enemy’s strong points before the actual attack. A special announcement issued today by Admiral Cunningham states that, according to an agency message, one Italian and two German submarines have been sunk by British naval forces in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Libya.