ALLIED SUPERIORITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 April 1943, Page 3

ALLIED SUPERIORITY

IN MEN & MATERIALS EMPHASISED BY BERLIN SPOKESMAN. EIGHTH ARMY RETAINS INITIATIVE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, April _2. Berlin spokesmen are emphasising the Aliled superiority in men and material, with better opportunities of bringing up reinforcements and supplies, because the British have repaired ports which the Germans wrecked during their retreat from Egypt enabling the use of large-scale sea transport, ihstead of relying on road transport. This confession is interesting, says a British United Press correspondent, inasmuch as it' suggests that neither the Luftwaffe nor the Axis naval forces are able to interfere very much with British sea communications. This is not usually the sort of propaganda the Germans circulate. Reuter’s correspondent reports that that was no Axis air activity against our troops yesterday. During Allied offensive patrols north of Gabes, our fighters did not sight a single enemy plane all day. Dispatches from Allied Headquarters today say that the first stage of the campaign, which aims at destroying Rommel’s forces, has not ended and that the present pause was expected, after the Eighth Army’s nine days of bitter and bloody fighting and the Allied troops’ long advance over difficult country. A British United Press correspondent at Allied Headquarters says British and New Zealand troops in the vanguard of the Eighth Army still hold the initiative and there is very active patrolling along the whole front. General Montgomery may again be resorting to envelopment in order to eject Rommel from the Wadi Akarit, which is the first water obstacle the Eighth Army has encountered during the whole compaign.