MARETH SYSTEM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 March 1943, Page 3

MARETH SYSTEM

DESCRIPTION OF DEFENCES EIGHTH ARMY'S POSITION. REPEATED BRITISH AIR ATTACKS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.10 a.m.) RUGBY, February 28. A correspondent in North Africa describes the Mareth Line system as shaped roughly like the letter Y, rather flattened at the top. The top right hand stroke of the Y is the Mareth Line itself and there is a series of continuous defences along the Wadi Zigzou, a deep gully, which crosses the coastal plain a mile or two south-east of Mareth village. The correspondent says the position now is that General Montgomery possesses all the country between the mountains and the sea to within a very short distance of Wadi Zigzou. There shelling goes on between the leading British units and enemy artillery in the main line, while British aircraft make repeated heavy attacks on the positions in the strongly defended zone. Along the stem of the Y British forward positions rest along the foothills while the enemy still holds a good many of the positions higher in the hills but British armoured patrols are steadily probing the defences and there have been clashes on the slopes with small enemy units. As for the left hand stroke of the Y nothing more has been reported since the British occupation, a few days ago, of Ghermessa, on top of a plateau 22 miles south of Ksar Elhalluf, where the strokes of the Y join the stem.