SIEGE OF JARABUB.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 186, 21 May 1941, Page 8

SIEGE OF JARABUB.

AUSTRALIAN TROOPS IN ACTION. ; lone Italian post. \;;-v : \ SYDNEY, March 14. In action every two. or three days for the past three months, a force qf Australian mechanised cavalry is steadily Wearing down the defenders of Jarabub Oasis, a lone Italian desert post 200 miles South of Solium, says the “Sydney Morning'Herald’s” war correspondent. - This force, commanded by a colonel who is a native of Euroa, Victoria, has taken all the outlying Italian posts front Fort Maddalena southward, and now lias the enemy penned in an area, of about three miles by three. . Tribute to Defenders. U'j’ r in spite of the fighting, the Australians have lost only two men killed and three wounded. The force was the first of the A.I.F. to go into action on land. The beseigers pay tribute to the defence,' which is under the command of Chlonel Cqstiana, who has lost only one Italian taken prisoner during the operations. Ho has discharged tome Libyan soldiers, probably because they were unreliable, and others have deserted, but his force now % is estimated 1200 Italians. He also has about 10 omm i field guns, more 47mm. guns and abdiit 75 machine-guns. The Italians’ supplies have boon dropped from aeroplanes for throe mbfiths, and the garrison is living on one small tin of beef and one largo biscuit a man daily.

It is only a matter of time before Colonel Costiaha will liave to surrender, for the Australian artillery outranges HiS" guns; Also, the Australians have niade the Jarabub aerodrome unusable, have blown up a large ammunition dump and a petrol dump, and have dkmkged many, trucks, f The Australian force mainly men from the outback—arrived outside Jarabub oh December 4 . From the middle of December the cavalrymen were in action every few days and on December 22;tho squadron got within 2000 yards of Jarabub.

0n December 31, the force moved dcrtvn the escarpment leading to .Jarabtib* along a depression named Pipsqueak Valley to get photographs and to prevent aeroplanes from landing on the aerodrome. They came under very heavy field-gun and machine-gun fire and troopers from Trangie and North Sydney were killed by artillery fire from guns which the Italians ran out on tfiicks. ' An Adelaide sergeant carried the fatally wounded North Sydney man 200 yards nnderjintense fire and then drove his truck out of action. British Field Guns.

A few days after this action British field guns arrived on the scene to support the force, which previously had had nothing larger than maeliine-guns. The gunners hit an aeroplane grounded on the aerodrome and since then no Italian aeroplanes have landed there. Although the Italians now seldom emerge more than three miles from Jarghuh, they are in a strong position there. The town, with its fort and rposqiie, where the founder of the strict Seiliissi sect of Moslems is buried, lies iii the western corner of a huge, wellt/atered'depression. ' A sand .sea. protects Jarabub from the west." The wav into it . from the north is down a long-series of escarpments overlooked by Italian observation posts, whence observers can direct the fire of guns so placed below the escarpment that' our guns cannot reach them. From other directions the approach to the town is through swamp land at the fiottom of the depression. Every man who goes forward toward the edge of the main shelf of the escarpment on reconnaissance or witli machine-guns to protect artillery and to drive - Italian observers from the posts commanding it knows that artillery observers can see’ him as ho mores along the bare, mile-wide shelves. Italian radio reports describing bow attacks'on Jarabub have been repulsed are nonsense. There has been no attack so far except- on the posts far from the town,, which hjivo been driven in.