CORRIDOR WIDENED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 43, 1 December 1941, Page 5

CORRIDOR WIDENED

BRITISH REINFORCEMENTS.

HEAVY FIGHTING NEAR TOBRUK

TANKS’ RUNNING BATTLE

(United Press Association—Copyright.) LONDON, November 30. Reports received this morning from news agency correspondents in the Western Desert say that the Tobruk corridor established by British and New Zealand forces is now more than five miles wide and that fresh British forces are pouring into the stronghold. One correspondent says that the corridor has been widened to six miles at its narrowest point after brisk hand-to-hand fighting.

As this steel barrier gathers strength the need of the Axis to break out to the west becomes more desperate, and the Germans are trying to swell their strength by gathering up stray tank forces. Tanks on both sides are carrying on a hitter running battle. One correspondent says that the Imperial forces are attacking from the south-west, south, and south-east, while the Germans are trying to drive due south to join up with a pocket of Italian tanks. The correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that South African infantry, supported by British tanks, has begun a flanking movement east of the main German armoured division, which is now between Sidi Rezegh and Gadi el Ary id, 26 miles to the east. A military spokesman in Cairo said yesterday that the fighting on Friday in the district south-east of Tobruk where British and New Zealand troops were widening the corridor was as heavy as there had been so far.

East of Tobruk British forces are mopping up the Italians along the coast outside the perimeter defences. On the Egyptian frontier other forces are mopping up concentrations which the Germans left behind as a diversion. • There has been no further news of the British column that drove east from Jarabub at the beginning of the campaign with the object of severing Axis communications with Tripoli. This column has already taken the oases of Aujila and Gialo, south-east of Benghazi, and it is revealed in Cairo that although the capture of Gialo cost this column only 20 men 700 Italians were captured there.