DEEP PENETRATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1943, Page 3

DEEP PENETRATION

OF ENEMY DEFENCES ON SEVERAL LINES OF ADVANCE AFRIKA KORPS MENACED. IN FLANK AND REAR. . (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) RUGBY, April 27. The enemy in Tunisia, although resisting in places with great tenacity, has been unable to check the concerted advance of General Alexander’s forces. The enemy is being steadily driven back in many places along the line from sea to

sea. Although very heavy fighting continues, it is clear that the

Germans are being outmanoeuvred

and outfought. Much progress has been made during the past few days by Americans along the mountainous road from Sed Jenane to Mateur. While the French on the coast have left Cap Serrat well behind them, the Americans are approaching Jefna, twelve miles from Mateur. To their south the enemy has been compelled to withdraw from a salient north-east of Beja and here also the Allies appear to be about a dozen miles south-west of Mateur.

The eastern approaches to Medjez el

Bab have been cleared by the British to a distance of about six miles. The country south of the Medjerda River is more open and between that river and Oued Kebir there has been an opportunity to use armour. Tank battles have been proceeding in this area between Goubellat and Pont du Fahs, and while the Allies made much progress the outcome’ is still undecided.| Already, however, the French have been able to drive the Germans down off the hills into the immediate neighbourhood of Pont du Fahs. The Eighth Army, which faces the heavy task of dislodging the Afrika Korps from a mountainous region adjacent to the Gulf of Hammamet, has held all its gains and pushed up along the coast, apparently to about halfway between Enfidaville and Bou Ficha. It is already clear that the Afrika Korps in the south is seriously threatened by the eastward advance, with tanks, from the'Medjez el BabBou Arada Road, and in no part of the front is the enemy being allowed a pause for breath. Today's North African Press dispat-

ches confirm that, despite the most determined resistance, the enemy is being compelled by tremendous pressure to give ground in the centre and

twenty tanks in daylong battles near north. The Germans lost another

twenty tanks in daylong battles near Lake Kourzia. Here British armoured units have reached the neighbouring small Lake Jaber, nine miles northwest of Pont du Fahs, and pushed on to capture the hills commanding the road running north from Pont du Fahs to Tunis. Evidently good progress has been made in the hardest sector, north-east of Medjez el Bab, where after finally clearing Longstop Hill, the British took a small village on the road to Tebourba, from which place they are now ten miles distant. Air effort was again on a very big scale. Light bombers ranged over the whole battle area, especially round Medjez el Bab and Pont du Fahs. Off the coast four vessels and a motorboat, taking troops and supplies to Tunisia, were hit. Fortresses made their longest raid so far from North Africa, when they bombed the aerodrome of Grosseto 80 miles north-west of Rome.