ENEMY TACTICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 October 1942, Page 3

ENEMY TACTICS

AFTER LOSS OF OUTER DEFENCES GERMAN EMERGENCY ACTION. EFFECTIVE USE CTF TANKS & GUNS. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, October 28. The British United Press correspondent with the Eighth Army, in a delayed dispatch dated October 26, says: “Crouching .in an observation post ail night on Sunday I watched our troops carry a position at the bayonet point. By dawn a strong Italian and German force was pocketed on a strip commanded by our artillery. “The enemy threw in Italian tanks as a stopgap, most of which were of the type called ‘Thirteens.’ Our sixpounders quickly got to work and the lialians did not relish their cannonfodder role. Many jumped from their burning machines with their hands upraised. The Germans showed their usual skill in an emergency and quickly rushed up mobile infantry, tanks, anti-tank guns and the deadly 88 millimetre guns which they massed in front of the bridgehead we had gouged in the Italian and German lines. “The enemy has lost the outer defences, but holds positions mainly composed of anti-tank guns linked with minefields. They are as good as a solid front line. Whenever Rommel realises that we are likely to break m, he sends tanks to- engage and delay us while his sappers sow new mines. When our tanks try to cope with .the mines the 88-millimetre guns go into action.”