BATTLE REFUSED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1942, Page 4

BATTLE REFUSED

BY BEATEN GERMAN ARMY V . * Opinions in London on Rommel’s Retreat NAZI PROPAGANDA EFFORTS TO SOFTEN SHOCK INVENTED REPORTS OF HEAVY FIGHTING (By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, December 14. Driven from Egypt and. Cyrenaica, Rommel’s battered troops are now scurrying through Tripolitania, says “The Times” Cairo correspondent. It is unlikely that they will fight more than further delaying actions anywhere east of Tripoli. Rommel’s tremendous defeat at El Alamein, coupled with the impossibility of reinforcing his depleted forces because of relentless R.A.F. and naval attacks against his convoys, has left him too weak even to defend the strongest natural defensive position throughout Libya. The nature of the country which our advanced elements are entering contains rocky gullies running to the coast which might provide strong positions for resolute troops, but there are no indications of any prepared defences, certainly none as strong as those around El Agheila. Both “The Times” and the “Daily Mail” editorially agree that Rommel has succeeded in evading a large-scale action. “The Times’’ credits Rommel with a minor strategical success but the “Daily Mail’’ says he has again been out-generalled

and out-manoeuvred. “The Times” adds that German propaganda occupied itself last week with reports of the progress of a great battle which has certainly not been fought. This was presumably intended to prepare the German people in advance against the shock of the first occasion in this war when German forces have deliberately declined to give battle.