USEFUL SALIENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1942, Page 3

USEFUL SALIENT

GAINED BY THE ALLIES, ASSAULT WELL ORGANISED. SPLENDID AIR SUPPORT. LONDON, July 13. The Cairo correspondent of the “Daily Express” says thatrthe capture of Tel el Isa gives the Allies a salient which will be most useful for shelling the enemy if the battle develops to the south. The Cairo correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the Italians ♦whom the Australians attacked were not very well dug in in the position. After the position had been overrun, the Australians rapidly swung round the captured guns and trained them on the more westward positions. Many Italians were taken by surprise and some were captured before they left their camp-beds. The Australian casualties were comparatively light. Captured soldiers said that they recently had plenty of water, as German experts had devised an apparatus for extracting the fish-oil which the Allies poured into wells when they retreated. . It was shortly before dawn on Friday when the Australians and South Africans moved off silently from their camps at El Alamein, escorted by armoured units and tanks. As soon as the enemy realised that an attack was developing, heavy artillery _ fire shattered the early morning stillness, but it was not strong or accurate enough to deter the Australians and South Africans who kept steadily on their course. 5 Opposition was encountered close to Tel el Isa, from Italians, and also from tanks which moved up from the south. The Australians in the fiist brush sent the enemy fleeing in terror after heavy casualties had been inflicted. Enemy tanks counter-attacked but, aided by steady gunfire, the Allied columns more than held their own. Allied tanks dashingly and determinedly engaged heavier enemy vehicles and, when the panzers drew off, 18 shattered tanks littered the battlefield. The ground forces were admirably assisted from the air. Fighter-bombers and light bombers laid down a deadly curtain of bombs, behind which the Allied troops advanced almost entirely free from enemy air interference. Stukas made six attempts to take off with the object of bombing the Australian and South African columns, but furious waves of Hurricanes, Spitfires, Tomahawks, and Kittyhawks hurtled m and broke up the Luftwaffe formations.

In this action 2000 prisoners were 1 taken in the five-mile push to Tel el Isa, and Cairo -confirms the destruction of 18 tanks with supporting guns and transport vehicles.