HOMS & TARHUNA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 January 1943, Page 3

HOMS & TARHUNA

j OCCUPIED BY BRITISH FORCES ENEMY’S DEATH-TRAP RETREAT. ROADS A “STRAFER’S PARADISE.” (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, January 21. “Yesterday our forces occupied Homs and Tarhuna, and during the day were in close contact with the enemy retreating to the west,” states today’s Cairo communique. German forces are streaming westward from Tripoli along the coastal road leading to Zuara and the Tunisian border. Huge fires are raging in Tripoli itself, with intermittent explosions. Capture of the city would give us a major port and base only 200 miles from the eastern Tunisian ports, and 300 miles from Sicily, covering the Axis supply lines. In a non-stop air offensive over an area which one of the pilot’s called a “strafer’s paradise” our planes have been playing havoc with one solid line of enemy vehicles west of Tripoli. Air forces smashed convoys on Tuesday evening, and by midnight the coastal road was jammed and littered with wrecks. The enemy had mounted anti-air-craft guns along the roadside, but their fire could not save the convoys. It was a death-trap retreat. Waves of planes attacked from all sides, and at the end there were very few vehicles moving, or even capable of moving. Today’s communique says that aircraft continued to attack the enemy troops and transport at numerous points in the Tripoli area, and fighterbombers maintained steady pressure. Large-scale bombing operations were carried out by day and night. One ship was sunk and two were badly damaged off Tunisia, and one was sunk in the Aegean Sea. Three aircraft are missing. Reuter's Cairo correspondent points out that the Eighth Army is rolling up „ the map so rapidly that Rommel Is running short of his most precious weapon, namely, time. The weight of men and material which General Montgomery is throwing in threatens to disrupt the Axis rearguards before Rommel is able to organise his next move, whether it is resistance or escape. In spite of reports that Axis troops are embarking from Tripoli, the Morocco radio tonight declared that a part of Rommel’s forces was already seen well westward of Tripoli and moving rapidly to'Tunisia. ROMMEL’S ALTERNATIVES. A correspondent says that this indicates that Rommel may be taking the only alternative to a complete evacuation by sea, namely, to force his way through by land to Tunisia. Either course Rommel takes would be studded with difficulties . He is confined to the four main tracks radiating from Tripoli, and the R.A.F., leap-frogging to forward aerodromes as they are relinquished, is hammering the fleeing columns and blasting Tripoli’s harbour and the aerodrome at Castel Benito. General Montgomery’s army is now operating 1500 miles from its main base, says the Cairo correspondent of ' ‘The Times.” Some of its supplies were sent by sea to Benghazi. There is only a single track railway a short part of the way from the main base, and the most urgent items are transported by

air, but road transport is the backbone of the Eighth Army’s supply. On the other hand, the enemy during the long retreat is continually falling back on his own supply lines. The fact that with such an advantage the Axis forces have been unable to make a stand anywhere is proof of the Eighth Army’s fighting superiority and the immense damage done to the German war machine in the Battle of El Alamein.