VALIANT STAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 February 1943, Page 3

VALIANT STAND

MADE BY BRITISH TROOPS IN TUNISIA Y IN ATTEMPT TO HOLD STRATEGIC HILLS. AMERICAN AIR SUCCESSES. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, February 7. “Why don’t you come nearer?’ was the taunt British paratroopers flung at German attackers before they retired from Jebel Mansour. The paratroopers’ ammunition was exhausted and they resorted to hand grenades' before being forced back step by step. Guards officers told the “Daily Mail’s” correspondent on the Tunisian front: “We killed a devil of a lot of Germans. The ground was shocking for attack. We had to climb mountains on our hands and knees. The Germans, who had taken the positions over from the Italians, had dug themselves in well. There were machine-gun posts at ten yards range. There was a lot of close fighting. We jumped into German slit trenches and used our bayonets.” British Guardsmen also retired from Alligal Hill nearby, which they nicknamed “The Alligator.” The French headquarters in North Africa state: “Our sector has been active. There was great patrol activity between Pichon and Ousseltia. An enemy coup-de-main near Kebel Rara has been repelled. An enemy patrol made contact with our units to the east of Pichon and was repelled. One German „ plane was shot down by our anti-air-,. craft guns.” Hurricane bombers, which were escorted by Spitfires, made a low-level attack on enemy lorries south-west of Pont du Fahs yesterday and shot up several vehicles. American fighters attacked a light battery 15 miles from Faid, silencing it, and also shot up two lorries on the road, leaving them burning.

From the opening of the campaign to midnight 6n February 5 the Twelfth American Air Force had destroyed 338 enemy planes and damaged 264. A total of 162 American aircraft was lost or missing. For the week ended midnight on February 5, 80 enemy planes were destroyed and 72 damaged. Thirtyeight American planes were lost or missing.

The German news agency says that Lieutenant-General Wolfgang Fischer, commander of a Panzer division, was killed in action in Tunisia last Monday.