ALLIED ROUND-UP

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1943, Page 3

ALLIED ROUND-UP

PROCEEDING RAPIDLY IN ALL AREAS PENETRATION OF CAPE BON PENINSULA. MOPPING-UP ON BIG SCALE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) RUGBY, May 12. The speed with which the second British thunderbolt followed the first isolated most of the general mass of the First Panzer Army from other Axis forces. It is thought in London that only a small proportion reached what sanctuary the Cape Bon Peninsula offered. The rapid course of events' since the capture of Tunis is considered to have more than justified General Alexander’s decision to give the original thrust additional power and speed by transferring two of the Eighth Army divisions to the First Army front. Not only was the German armour- pinned down, but these forces, on reaching Tunis, had so much strength and impetus still available that they were able to divide and each part to carry out a further major operation. One part went north to complete the encirclement of the Fifth Panzer Army, while another equally formidable spearhead struck straight across the isthmus to the Gulf of Hammamet. Thus the enemy was not only unable to withdraw the Fifth Panzer Army from the north, but was equally incapable of withdrawing the First Panzer Army from the Enfidaville-Zaghouan position. Mopping-up on a big scale continues in Tunisia. The latest messages say that the tanks which broke through yesterday across the neck of the Cape Bon Peninsula turned left along the western road. Cape Bon itself was reached at 2 p.m. by units which covered 40 miles in 18 hours, against considerable opposition. For seven or eight hours they advanced in the dark. The enemy held positions astride the road, but British infantry, with fixed bayonets, swarmed on the tanks as the latter advanced, firing on enemy positions. The infantry leaped down inside the defences, bayoneting the enemy and taking prisoners. An armoured division is now patrolling the coast road. The situation in the centre is still obscure, but serious resistance is not expected. The advance has been so swift that bombing has had to be abandoned for fear of danger to the British forces.

The area between Hammamet and Tunis is almost cleared of the enemy, but the Germans, with a few tanks, have established small islands of resistance south of Grombalia. The Sixth Armoured Division, on reaching Hammamet, went straight along the coast towards the Eighth Army lines near Bou Ficha, where the Germans had established anti-tank defences. This pocket, in which the enemy is still fighting, is encircled. The area is estimated at 80 square miles, but the situation is changing hourly. The advance was swifter than would have been expected, especially by those who know the hilly nature of the ground which armour and infantry had to pass through. Concentrated bombing and shooting of Axis troops around Sainte Marie du Zit and Grombalia, north of Enfidaville and the Zaghouan area, continues to inflict losses.

Although fighting in the north has ceased, enemy groups are still being rounded up. Two hundred have been captured on Jebel Achkel. Air operations have already shifted across the straits, where the nearest

ports—Marsala and Pantellaria Island, have again been subjected to destructive pounding by hundreds of Allied aircraft.