GRAVE VIEW

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 88, 15 April 1941, Page 8

GRAVE VIEW

TENSE STRUGGLE IN WESTERN DESERT.

THREAT TO EGYPT.

Nazis' Lightning Drive Is

Aimed At Suez

I 11it (*<I Press Association. —Copyright.

I ItPi'il. - p.m.)

LONDON". April 14

All hough there was fighting 1 around Solium ;jrn 1 Tobruk to-day, British military circles in Cairo this afternoon declared that, there had been little change in 11 >t: situation since \ c.-terda v.

General Sir Alexander Wavell, British Commander-in-Chief in the Middle East, railed on Siiry I'asha, Egyptian I'rimo Minister, this afternoon, when a full Cabinet meeting was held.

Meanwhile the Germans aie |>ouring out. 11 description of the operations in North Africa, most of which, if not wholly true, emphasises the intensity, mobility and also the skilfulness of the tactics which are carrying the Germans from faraway Tripoli to the Egyptian front icr.

The Berlin wireless says that when Mekili was ta.ketl the German tanks raced northwards and reached Derna simultaneously with a column advancing from the west. German dive-bombers attacked motorised vehicles climbing a winding road to the mountain plateau and many of these crashed down the mountainside.

Meanwhile, a German column going eastwards from Mekili closed in on the Derna road, cutting off a British column of tanks and armoured units which was attempting to break through. The majority surrendered. "Hereabouts we captured the whole of the British command," says the German report.

"Tho Times'' correspondent on the Italian frontier says Axis circles interpret the special German communique announcing that "with the fall of Bardia the British have lost their last base on the eastern border of C'yrenaica*' as implying tha.t tho"" British defences in North Africa, have broken down, permitting a continuation of the lightning Axis push ncross Egypt with the object of seizing the Suez Canal before the first United States ships arrive.

Axis Surprise Tactics. Dispatches from Tripoli describe the methods whereby the Italian and German forces achieved their blitz success. Tito Axis forces split up. One section followed up and harassed the British in their coastal retreat, while the other section struck out across the desert, circumventing the British stonewall defence system at Tobruk, where substantial British-built forts, erected after the original British advance to Bengasi, wer« now in readiness as the main British base of operations.

llio Axis tactics purposely nurtured 1 0 impression that the Italians and Germans were eagerly pressing on the attack oit the coasta! region, thus focusing British attention on Tobruk. Simultaneously, Axis desert columns rushed ahead, unperceived, marching across the desert at night and sleeping in the daytime under camouflaged sheeting, making the Axis tanks appear to British reconnaissance planes like desert shrubs. This desert force completely surprised the British at Bardia.

Pitched Battlo Risky. "The Times" military correspondent says that undeniably the situation in North Africa is a serious cause of anxiety. Doubtless the British command argues that the further the enemy is stretched the better will be the pros]iect of a. successful counter-stroke, but General Wavell will hardly have abandoned Libyan airfields unless the prospect of a pitched battle in Cyrenaica appeared very risky. Victory over a third-rate opponent has given us all a dash, perhaps, of over-confidence in our ability to deal with the German armoured units which crossed the Mediterranean, and also a false impression that our sea and air power would prevent them from attaining anything like their present strength, and in addition would deny them supplies. When these supplies of fuel are not caught at sea or in the air their destruction on land is not eusv. i

It is hardly to be doubted that a counter-stroke "ill be attempted before long, but it "ill not be as simple a matter as Sidi ]!arrani. The Germans will keep fo the open country and rely on their mobility. In addition, they possess striking power far beyond that of the comparatively ill-equipped Italian expeditionary force.

The Berlin radio claims that the British forces at Tobruk represent the last remnants of the British expeditionary force in North Africa, and says they nre fearlessly defending themselves in preparation for embarkation.

Cabinet's Secret Session. 'Hio Cairo Chamber of Deputies tonight held a secret session at the request of the Prime Minister, Hussein Sirry Pasha, who earlier conferred with the beads of the chief political parties. The agenda included a question asking the Prime Minister what steps the Egyptian Government was proposing in view of the presence of hostile forces on the Egyptian border.