BRITISH & AMERICANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 February 1943, Page 3

BRITISH & AMERICANS

LINKED AGAINST GERMANS ENEMY USING TANKS. PREPARATIONS BY EIGHTH ARMY. LONDON, February 22. Allied forces are battling against a determined German thrust toward Tebessa from the Kasserine Pass, which lies across the ranges 40 miles east of Tebessa. British tanks have linked up with the Americans here in a fierce battle against German tanks and infantry. The Germans gained control of the pass which is a defile two or three miles wide and six miles long, flanked by hills rising to 3500 feet. The Germans already control two of the lateral railways in southern and central Tunisia, and their new thrust carries a threat to the railway from Tebessa, which is an important railhead for Allied supplies from Algiers. The Germans are also prodding the new Allied line north-east of Kasserine, but they have met with no success against the British Guardsmen there. Behind the spearhead the main forces of the Eighth Army are reported to be “coiling up like a bent spring” —and what happens when the spring is let loose has been shown all the way from El Alamein to Tripoli and beyond.