HALFAYA PASS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1942, Page 4

HALFAYA PASS

BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN CLOSED BY ALLIED ARMOURED & AIR UNITS. BLOCKING ENEMY RETREAT. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) Continuing their drive into Libya, armoured units of the Eighth Army, after wide sweeps into the desert, are now on both sides of Halfaya Pass, blocking the enemy’s retreat westwards. The R.A.F., co-operat-ing with our armoured forces, is believed to have closed one end of the Halfaya Pass and our tanks and armoured cars are rapidly closing in. Allied fighters made over Tobruk one of the biggest sweeps yet seen in North Africa. Throughout the Eighth Army’s advance, a British official wireless message states, the fighters of the air striking force have not been out of action for a single day. Already, according to a Cairo agency message, ground crews and fighter squadrons are within two hops of the Cyrenaica landing grounds from which they operated in summer. The main problem has been to keep the fighters sufficiently far forward to be within range of enemy fighters. This has been achieved despite the congestion of road traffic. At each recaptured aerodrome, advance parties have hurriedly made the landing ground serviceable, pitched a few tents, organised water and petrol supplies and rushed forward ammunition. Once this forward base has been established, aircraft arrived, having carried out fighter sweeps on the way.