ENEMY PINNED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 July 1942, Page 4

ENEMY PINNED

BY ALLIED AIR FORCES IN EGYPT PRISONERS TALK OF “TERRIBLE AUSSIES.” SWEPT THROUGH AXIS LINES LIKE TORNADO. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, July 14. The Axis forces today retook the initiative in the north sector of the Egyptian front, but the Allies beat off their attacks. The R.A.F. retained control, carrying out direct attacks on tanks, which had been brought up from the central sector and thrown into the fighting in support of lorryborne troops, mostly Italians. The Allied guns kept the enemy at a distance. Gunfire during the past two days has prevented fighting getting to close quarters and the Allied air offensive is pinning the enemy. Allied airmen, on a sortie near the El Alamein battlefield, destroyed five tanks. Enemy transport and gun positions were also plastered. The landing ground at El Daba was bombed and many of the fifty planes on the ground were damaged. The R.A.F. and the South African Air Force sustained their offensive from dawn to dusk, carrying out sixteen large-scale operations and co-operating with ground operations by bombing just ahead of the Dominion troops. The Cairo correspondent of the New York newspaper “P.M.” interviewed Axis prisoners’ who ascribe the halting of Rommel’s drive to the “terrible Aussies, who swept through us like a tornado, with bayonets, grenades and tommy-guns.” Allied troops on the south sector engaged enemy columns. English, Australian and South African troops on the new salient, westwards of El Alamein, yesterday put down a heavy barrage and beat off repeated Axis attacks.