THUNDER OF GUNS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1943, Page 3

THUNDER OF GUNS

ON SOUTHERN FRONT EIGHTH ARMY’S SUPERIOR CONCENTRATION. ALLIED AIRMEN DOMINATING SKIES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, April 29. The British armoured spearhead was last reported to be! still about four miles from the main TunisPont du Fahs road, but the forces in the salient toward Tebourba were tackling the last mountain barrier to the plains of Tunis. The advance in other sectors has also been continued. The Associated Press correspondent with the Eighth Army says that the Germans have massed the heaviest concentrations of artillery they have yet employed outside Russia to prevent the

Eighth Army from breaking through from the south, but General Montgomery is employing even greater artillery strength. The thunder of guns echoes day and night. Now that the Eighth Army has come up against the enemy’s principal fortified line the British artillery has an advantage in number and also in skill and concentration of fire, but the Germans at the moment have an advantage in range, the correspondent says. Enfidaville and also Takrouna remain within range of the big German howitzers, which lob 2641 b. shells into the British lines. Von Arnim has also concentrated thousands of his infantry along an 18mile front facing Montgomery, and they are well entrenched behind minefields. Behind the infantry stand panzers ready to move in any direction where the Allied advance threatens. However, the enemy’s advantage in the terrain is being offset by the Allied air force, which is dominating the skies to an extent that has not been paralleled in this war since the Luftwaffe ruled over the battlefields of Greece and Crete. ' BLASTING A WAY THROUGH. “The German predilection for heavy long-range artillery is serving them in good stead in the defensive mountain positions,” says the Algiers correspondent of “The Times.” “Our artillery has been magnificent. It is largely a case of blasting a way through, for, as a general of the Eighth Army says, these mountains just swallow up men. “The enemy had few guns on the Eighth Army front when we began the attack, but now he has a large concentration. This is only one indication that he is doing all he possibly can to hold the Eighth Army and thus guard his bridgehead. “His forces are fighting harder than anyone connected with the Eighth Army has known them to fight before. The Italians, besides the Germans, are fighting desperately; the Italian prisoners from Takrouna and Jebel Garci are of the type who not only speak of an ‘imperial destiny,’ but also fight for it. “It may be that we have outnumbered the Axis infantry, but here in the mountain country the defensive role has an advantage over the offensive. However, though the First Army may have the best approach to the enemy’s last ditch, the Eighth Army can and will ‘eat his guts out’.”