NEW INTENSITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1942, Page 4

NEW INTENSITY

REACHED IN LIBYAN BATTLE GRIM & DEADLY STRUGGLE FIERCEST OF THE WHOLE CAMPAIGN. ISSUE NOT YET DECIDED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, June 7. The Libyan battle has reached new heights of violence and the issue is still undecided,” states a British United Press correspondent, in a desatch from the Western Desert on the night of June 6, which is the latest to reach London. The correspondent adds that the worst fighting exerienced by British troops in this war has continued unbroken for a fortnight, with thirst, heat, dust and also hourly blasting by shot and shell making life a misery. “The Afrika Corps is doing its utmost to throw us off balance and salvage some sort of victory,” the correspondent observes. “General Rommel sent seventy tanks through a new gap through the minefield, near Bir Hacheim, in an attempt to take the Imperial troops in the rear. Ourforcejwhichhas been attacking the cauldron from the north swung round to meet this threat from the south. Battle has been joined in the Knightsbridge area and is still raging. The British and Germans flung in a total of over a thousand tanks after the Imperial forces attacked on June 5. Many hundreds are already tangled masses of scrap iron. The cauldron is smoking with many fires as our gunners pick off tanks and lorries. The Germans got some of ours with 88 millimitre guns.” Reuter’s Cairo correspondent says the fighting yesterday was some of the fiercest of the whole Libyan campaign. Allied armoured forces, strongly supported by infantry and artillery, threw back the enemy panzer forces to a point slightly west of the positions from which they started their counterattack. The British push to Harmat, six miles southwards of Knightsbridge, enabled the Allied forces to strengthen their position in the Harmat, Tamar, Knightsbridge triangle, facing the cauldron. Tamar has been held against repeated German assaults aimed at removing this keystone of the British offensive positions facing the cauldron. The correspondent adds that yesterday was a satisfactory day for the Allies, but it must not be assumed that the enemy, despite his terrific losses of armour, is no longer a menace. The enemy’s cauldron positions have been seriously dented, but numerous possibilities for an offensive are still open to him.