ARMY OF TRUCKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1942, Page 3

ARMY OF TRUCKS

USED IN SWIFT CHASE AFTER ROMMEL AXIS REARGUARD ACTIONS SMALL AFFAIRS. ALLIED FIGHTERS KEEPING UP. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) LONDON, November 14. The Eighth Army is racing _ on and Rommel's rearguard actions are now small affairs and are not delaying the British armoured forces in the slightest. The advance is so fast that it is most difficult even to get within sound of the gunfire, says Reuter’s correspondent. One is no sooner within hearing, of a distant skirmish than the fighting moves on and nothing is left except a few more Axis trucks, a gun or two and a handful of tired and dirty German and Italian prisoners. The Royal Engineers are going ahead swiftly and clearing up mines along the roads and allowing the supply convoys to get through. The greatest army of trucks that has ever been assembled in the Middle East—thousands of them in great convoys—is rolling westward. Every old desert track is being used to keep the armoured and motorised forces in the van supplied with ammunition, fuel, food and water. The Germans are now well west of Derna, and the Eighth Army is pressing toward Mekili. Our medium bombers and heavy bombers on Thursday night bombed groups of transport between Derna and Cyrene and started a dozen large fires. One bomb hit a lorry near Giovanni Berta, producing an explosion which violently shook the plane at 6000 ft. Now that the air battle of Egypt is over the, air battle of Cyrenaica has begun. ' Though the Germans are carrying out one of the most rapid retreats in history, the Allied fighters are keeping up. Referring to Mussolini’s infantry divisions which have been left to their fate in Egypt, an agency correspondent says that large numbers of prisoners are marching back in the direction of Cairo unescorted —marching toward food and drink. The Italians are very bitter against the Germans. Germans and Italians are driving their own trucks full of prisoners into the camps and then returning for more. The German freedom radio says that Field Marshal Rommel is in Munich. According to Rabat radio. Axis ships have left Benghazi, probably after the evacuation the port. MEN & TANKS • REMAINING AXIS FORCES IN LIBYA. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 14. It is stated in London that the Axis forces which remain in Libya certainly include considerable base units in such places as Benghazi and Tripoli and adequate airfield garrisons. The best estimate now is that there are between 60,000 and 100,000 Germans scattered in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. Most of them, however, are not fighting troops. There is probably also a not very formidable number of tanks, some of which, perhaps, have been landed since the retreat began.