MORE PRISONERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 July 1942, Page 4

MORE PRISONERS

ROUNDED UP IN EGYPT TWENTY ENEMY TANKS SMASHED. PARIS REPORTS ARRIVAL OS’ CANADIANS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, July 13. Axis prisoners are still being rounded up from sand dunes and dugouts by Australian and South African troops, says a British United Press correspondent in the El Aiamein area. He adds that the arrival of Australian and New Zealand troops has had a good effect on the Eighth Army. The Australians are justly proud of tneir achievements. Their bag of prisoners now exceeds 2,000 and they have smashed twenty enemy tanks. The Berlin radio quoted a war reporter as saying that the strength of the British army in North Africa is now apparent. In the area between Alexandria and El Aiamein, the Eighth Army has gathered thousands of vehicles. The British and Axis air forces fight from dawn to dusk and the British Air Force ferociously attacks Axis landing grounds. “We are eompe'lled,” the reporter states, “to leave our tents and take shelter because of British bombers and fighter-bombers.” The Paris radio announced that two Canadian contingents had arrived in North Africa. The Moscow radio reported that warehouses at Marseilles, containing supplies for the Axis forces in North Africa, were set on fire by unknown persons and that the fire raged for several days.

ROMMELL FORESTALLED WHEN PREPARING BIG ATTACK. ALLIES GET THEIR BLOW IN FIRST. (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) LONDON, July 13. It is now revealed that the Allied attack on Tel El Isa on Friday forestalled' a big attack by Rommel. He hesitated and the Australians before daylight went in against the Italian positions northward. Wave after wave of Allied bombers throughout the day attacked the enemy concentrations and supply lines and also continued their attacks with night raids. This evidence of Allied air strength ever the sectors where it is needed has heartened the Imperial troops. The Tel El Isa area is unlike the hard-surfaced Libyan battlefield. There is much soft sand in which men are frequently required to shoulder out wheeled vehicles bogged to their axles. British artillerymen, stripped .to the waist, continually shelled the enemy positions which resisted the Imperial forces.