BRITISH ATTACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1942, Page 3

BRITISH ATTACK

LAUNCHED ON FRIDAY AGAINST ENEMY IN MINEFIELDS GAP. OBJECTIVES REACHED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, June 7. Preceded by the heaviest artillery preparation in the history of desert warfare, the British launched a counter-attack in Libya and have reached their first objectives. Reuter’s correspondent at Knightsbridge says the attack was launched at dawn on Friday against hard-pressed Axis units in the minefields gap. The Axis forces had been desperately attempting to turn the battle into their own channels by overrunning the Free French positions at Bir Hacheirn on the Allies’ southern flank before the Allied forces were swung into action in a position to hit harder. The “Sunday Express” correspondent in Libya says that the first objectives in the “cauldron” battle were the German outposts ringing the central enemy position in the bulge. The attack is the biggest night action of the campaign. A British communique says that in the attack our forces have taken Harmat, on the edge of the “cauldron,” which was previously occupied by the Twenty-first Panzer Division. The enenemy launched his main armoured forces on our positions at Knightsbridge, but in fierce fighting the enemy was held up and driven back westward. The Free French at Bir Hacheirn have heavily repulsed further attacks. Describing the opening of the British attack, Reuter’s correspondent says that as the big General Grant and other tanks moved off into the “Devil’s Cauldron,” east of the gap in the British minefields, against the remnants of Rommel’s panzers they were not seriously molested by the Luftwaffe, and the British artillery kept up its pounding of the hard-pressed enemy positions without respite. The air and land bombardments of Rommel’s positions suggested that Ritchie was softening up the battle area before launching the new tank offensive in the “Devil’s Cauldron.” Squadron after squadron of bombcarrying Hurricanes and Kittyhawks screamed over the dust-covered battlefield to plaster the enemy strong-points and key routes, and the ring of British artillery was drawn closer round the enemy’s concentration of panzers at the mouth of the gap. Rommel now has’three courses open against Ritchie, the correspondent says. The first is to stand at bay and fight it out in the “cauldron”; the second is to attempt a desperate counterattack to break the Allied manacles; and the third is to withdraw from the bridgehead at the mouth of the minefields gap. . Cooler and better weather has lately spread over the Libyan battle.