ENEMY AIM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 February 1943, Page 3

ENEMY AIM

TO KEEP ALLIED ARMIES APART AMERICANS FIGHTING RESOLUTELY, DESTRUCTION OF AXIS TANKS. (Received This Day, 10.35 a.mJ LONDON, February 16. The latest reports indicate that heavy fighting is still going on in southern Tunisia. The Algiers radio declared that there was no need 'for pessimism and that the Americans are putting up a stubborn resistance against the Axis thrust, the main aim .of which is to prevent the First and Eighth armies joining hands. Reuter’s Algiers correspondent states that German panzers last night moved into Gafsa, which was evacuated after a German thrust from the direction of Sened. threatened -to isolate it. The two-prong German thrust which reached a point 18 miles west of Faid Pass yesterday, ran-into an American coun-ter-attack which threw it back six " miles after fierce and bloody fighting. Stuka dive-bombers, heavily supporting the German advance, caused a large proportion of the American casualties. The Americans now occupy high ground north of the Faid-Sbeitla Road. Fighting is continuing in the area south of the road, where the are being held in check. The situation is regarded as fairly satisfactory. It is believed that the Americans in this engagement knocked out at least twenty German tanks and also inflicted severe losses on the enemy troops. The evacuation of Gafsa was not unexpected. The whole southern' extremity of the Allied line is lightly held, with a limited number of men and amount of material. The Americans defending Gafsa have fallen back to stronger long-prepared positions. The enemy is in some force at Kebili, south-west of Gafsa. The Americans are still holding Tozeur, but the position appears difficult to maintain. CANADIAN CORVETTE ■ SUNK IN MEDITERRANEAN. WITH LOSS OF 38 LIVES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) RUGBY, February 16. The Canadian Minister for the Navy announces, according to an Ottawa j message, the sinking of the Canadian corvette Louisburg, with the loss of 38 lives, as the result of dive-bomber and torpedo-plane attacks, while convoying in the Mediterranean. She is the first Canadian craft to be destroyed py an' attack and the first to bo lost in the North African campaign. ENEMY ADMISSION GREAT DAMAGE IN NAPLES AND PALERMO. HEAVY CASUALTIES IN SICILIAN PORT. fßv Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) LONDON, February 16. An Italian communique admits that great damage was done in the raids on Naples and Palermo yesterday afternoon. It says seven persons were killed and fifteen injured in Naples, and 98 killed and 297 injured in Palermo The Morocco radio reports that the Germans have evacuated 20,000 Greeks from Salonika. -