BOLD EFFORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1943, Page 3

BOLD EFFORT

DRIVE THROUGH DESERT FRINGE MADE BY FREYBERG’S FLYING COLUMN AFRIKA KORPS TAKEN IN REAR. ROMMEL GIVEN UNPLEASANT SURPRISE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 30. Of all the Eighth Army’s audacious exploits, none has been more daring than the secret journey of Lieutenant-General Freyberg's flying column which drove deep into the uninhabited, waterless, scorching desert fringe of the Sahara to attack the Afrika Korps. Thus a “Daily Mail” special correspondent with the flying column opens the first full account of the decisive move which flung Rommel out of Mareth. He says, “The Eighth Army was sufficiently strong to strike in two places simultaneously. What happened was that General Montgomery palled up General Freyberg, one of his boldest and most experienced leaders, and said T want you to take yOur force south of the mountains and make a big circuit and strike in on the other side as we attack the Mareth Line. Travel at night-time and lie up jin the daytime till you are discovered, and then use your discretion.’ After describing the 200-mile trek of the flying column through the desert, the correspondent continues: — DAWN APPEARANCE. “At daylight Rommel was startled by the sudden appearance of the British 30 miles .from Gabes. At first he had little more defence than Italian . infantrymen. Urgent orders were given to a panzer division, which raced up to block the Melab Gap, where tank battles developed. “General Montgomery met the development by another audacious stroke. He ordered a reserve force of British tanks similarly to make a deep detour of the mountains and reinforce General Freyberg. “The orders were, ‘Go off immediately and get there as fast as possible.’ Armoured columns and miles of tank transporters set off in the darkness, travelled all night and were next day deep in the desert and free from German observation. Moving, almost ceaselessly, these reached the destination in the afternoon of the second day. “General Freyberg’s reinforced column made a combined attack, unpleasantly surprising Rommel with a heavy artillery bombardment and the fiercest massed aerial attacks that have ever been seen in the desert, bombing and machinegunning the enemy during a three-mile-wide frontal attack which forced the gap in spite of minefields, anti-tank ditches and barbed wire, and advanced two miles.” BLASTING BOMBARDMENT. A “Daily Mail” correspondent with the Western Desert Air Force says: “There has never since the outbreak of the war been such a concentrated and scientific air blitz as assisted the New Zealanders and, the British tanks in the El Hamma Gap. It transcended Dunkirk, Greece, Crete and Tobruk. The Germans have never handed out anything like what they got at El Hamma.” Emphasising the terrific weight of the bombardment, a correspondent of “The Times” describes how the British medium guns, howitzers and 25pounders captured German 88-milli-metre guns. They were so trained that every 30 yards of the enemy line received the entire fire from one gun. Simultaneously Sherman, Grant, Crusader and Valentine tanks and leapfrogging infantry moved with awesome slowness in six columns against the enemy. “One could imagine the cold horrors with which the Italians and Germans, with shells falling thickly, bombs crashing destruction, and a dust-storm blinding and stifling them, watched the mighty array of Allied power rolling down inexorably.”