VITAL POINTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 April 1943, Page 3

VITAL POINTS

BEING REINFORCED BY AXIS ENEMY SAID TO BE SHORT OF TANKS. DEFENCE OF IMPORTANT HILL. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11 a.m.) LONDON, April 19. Rommel and von Arnim are using the lull to reinforce all vital points, says the British United Press Algiers correspondent. The Axis have fewer light and medium guns than the Allies, but their front is concentrated, enabling them now to put two batteries where they had one before. Such activity as has occurred has been in the First Army sector, and, to a lesser degree, in the centre. A curious feature of the fighting in the northern sector is that no Axis tanks have been used for a month. There is no doubt that the Axis are short of tanks compared with the Allies, but they could still produce the old battering-ram effect of the Panzer units by massing them. However, some tank movement has been observed behind “Longstop Hill” (Hill No. 508, five miles east of Jebel Ang, in the Medjez El Bab area). The Germans must hold this hill at all costs, if they are to maintain their grip on the Tunisian tip. PEGGING AWAY FRENCH TROOPS HEADED FOR PONT DU FAHS. SOME PRISONERS TAKEN. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.55 a.m.) RUGBY, April 19. The French keep pegging away at the enemy in the angle between the First and Eighth Army fronts. In Jebel Hejij, 16 miles south-west of Pont du Fahs, they are cleaning up the ground and have taken 64 Italian prisoners. In a fierce battle between Spitfires and Messerschmitts near Medjez el Bab

three enemy aircraft were destroyed without Allied loss, and it is believed that not one enemy escaped damage. Flying Fortresses, in a raid on Palermo, which was the third in three days, bombed marshalling yards which were crowded to capacity, The largest wheat mill in Palermo was hit and several fires were started in warehouses.