PANZER ROUT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 November 1942, Page 4

PANZER ROUT

MORE DETAILS OF ALLIED PURSUIT GENERAL FREYBERG’S REPORT. ROAD TO FRONTIER LITTERED WITH’ WRECKAGE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) RUGBY, November 12. A Middle East communique states: “The Eighth Army continues to follow I up the retreaitng remnants Qf the panzer army through Cyrenaica, capturingprisoners. Tobruk was a target for our bombers on Tuesday night. The speed of our advance yesterday caught up the retreatinf enemy air force, and 23 Axis aircraft, including at least six large transport carriers, were destroyed in combat. Our fighters and fighterbombers operated successfully against dense vehicle concentrations between Bardia and Garnbut and on the Tobruk By-pass. Our twin-engined fighters on Tuesday attacked an aerodrome near Tunis, setting fire to at least nineteen Axis aircraft and damaging as many again. The bombing of Sardinian aerodromes was continued on Tuesday night. “Ten of our planes are missing.” The commander of the New Zealand Division (Lieut.-General Sir B. Freyberg) hsa reported that the road to the frontier, as a result of incessant Allied air pounding, is filled with wreckage and burned vehicles to a degree not yet witnessed in this campaign. Many destroyed and abandoned aircraft are also seen. VAIN EFFORTS MADE,BY THE LUFTWAFFE. LARGE REINFORCEMENTS FROM RUSSIA. ■ (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) LONDON, November 12. Air Chief Marshal Tedder has revealed that Germany rushed large air reinforcements to Libya from Russia in an effort to save Rommel. “At one airfield,” he stated, “we found eighty Messerschmitts of the latest type, including one with markings showing that it had been completed on October 18, nine days after thd Western drive began. Some of the enemy pilots captured had just come from Russia. When the Battle of Egypt opened last month, the Allies did not have air superiority, but we regained it with a series of paralysing blows from which Rommel’s air power never recovered.” ROARING CONVOYS NEW ZEALAND PURSUIT OF ROMMEL. USEFUL ENEMY VEHICLES COLLECTED. (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, November 12. “The New Zealanders are in the forefront of the great desert chase across Cyrenaica,” says the Exchange Telegraph Agency’s correspondent in Cairo. “After five hectic days of dust, mud and roaring conveys, the New Zealanders were yesterday well beyond Sidi Barrani. Their columns advanced almost 200 miles up the coast from El Alamein without fighting any ‘ major actions. “Skirmishes between our tanks and pockets of enemy anti-tank guns and machine-guns, left to delay our advance, have been the only actions in which the New Zealanders have been involved since the Axis retreat began. "The New Zealanders, in their first

advance —a fifty miles sweep that took

them behind the headquarters of two JL. panzer divisions—'caught an Italian general and twenty of his staff officers. Their next advance took them to the ;■ main road beyond Mersa Matruh, where - they were joined by a hundred British Z trucks, racing westwards through piles of wrecked Axis tanks and transport. Any Axis vehicle that could be moved was quickly overhauled in halts along the road, and today, in the New Zealand convoys, there ard sappers in Italian Diesel trucks and Maoris driving German staff cars. The Eighth Army has captured hundreds more prisoners/ but they have not yet been counted.” ASTONISHING SPEED EIGHTH ARMY ADVANCE. MUCH MATERIAL CAPTURED UNDAMAGED. (Received This Day, 1.5 p.m.) LONDON, November 12. The Eighth Army is pressing on ...... with astonishing speed and has now overrun all Rommel’s frontier line, and the Axis position at Tobruk is reported to be critical. „ With the possible exception of a -u. few stragglers and others, who merely are waiting to be rounded r~.-A up as war prisoners, Egypt is now 1 EEE cleared of the enemy. The Eighth Army in two days last week ad- ' =■- vanced 130 miles. ■H— British columns which yesterday swept around the flank of Halfaya ~~ .Pass captured a further 1,100 prisonvr, Aprs, mostly Italians. The prisoners in-™-3?lude nine Italian generals. Not a member of the Italian Tenth LSlCorps escaped. Until he reached SAGazala, 25 miles west of El Alamein, '“v".pn. November 4, the enemy destroyed ■-.-." all the equipment he was forced to Abandon, but since then damaged and undamaged equipment has been left all along the road. The Ariete Division abandoned, on the road to Mersa Matruh. eighty tanks in perfect order, but without fuel. Several big ammunition dumps were captured intact on the coast. Senior officers say that the R.A.F. yesterday had a most successful and most effective day. Vehicles were ~ packed so closely on the by-pass X around Tobruk and also on the TmimiGazala road, that bombs could not C-'miss. HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL “ : AMBUSH AT HALFAYA PASS. '.‘ZZ' ■ GERMAN MOTOR COLUMN DESTROYED. (Received This Day, 1 p.m.) CAIRO. November 12. How a Scottish sergeant and a small i New Zealand Bren-gun patrol ambush- i cd and destroyed a German motor col- ; uinn in Halfaya Pass is related by an i Australian war correspondent. The 1 sergeant knocked out the first car, ; which contained a high German .offi- < cer, who was wounded and taken pris- 1 , oner, after which each retreating ve- 1 * hide, as it descended the road, was ( knocked out. After several cars had i been put out of action a wounded Ger- £ man officer suddenly revealed that he < speak English by remarking I laconically: “Doing rather well aren’t 1

you?” The sergeant and the New Zealand patrol kept up their good work until finally, when twenty vehicles had been knocked out, a doctor in charge of a field hospital^attending wounded prisoners, sent this message: “If you are seeding back any more Jerries send a padre too to bury them. We cannot cope with any more wounded.” DESTRUCTIVE ATTACKS MADE BY AMERICAN PLANES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, November 12. A United States Army communique states:—“Fighter aircraft of our desert task force yesterday resumed largescale operations against the enemy. A series of fighter sweeps started fires amongst mechanical transport and three Stukas were destroyed. Our heavy bombers on Tuesday evening attacked shipping at Benghazi and at Candia (Crete). Benghazi was attacked again in daylight yesterday. Hits on jetties were observed at Candia and also a possible direct hit on a merchantman. Yesterday’s daylight attack on Benghazi resulted in four direct hits and eleven near misses by heavy-calibre American bombs on a large merchantman.”