TOBRUK GARRISON

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 284, 1 December 1941, Page 8

TOBRUK GARRISON

N.Z. MEN'S RAPID ADVANCE (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) CAIRO, November 28. The TobruK garrison and the New Zealanders have turned the tables on General Rommel. In a rapid advance on Wednesday to Gambut, the former headquarters of the Africa Corps, the New Zealanders covered 30 kilometers along the escarpment, took Balhamel and recaptured Sidi Rezegli, where bitter j tank battles last week had been fought. Simultaneously a Tobruk force, which had already torn up all the enemy minefields on the south-east corner of the perimeter and carved a corridor of 10 kilometres out to the south-east, now turned southwest and broke through six kilometres further to seize El Duda, another tank battlefield. To do this the Tobruk garrison launched armoured forces of a size unexpected by the enemy. Both the New Zealanders and the Tobruk garrison engaged in sharp fighting on Wednesday and Thursday, but the issue was never in doubt. At the rear of the Africa Corps its dumps and supplies of petrol had been completely destroyed by advance Imperial infantry and further British tank forces were ready to adminster the coup de grace. Advance of Tobruk Forces South of Gambut, Rommel seems to have formed up surviving vehicles and transport of the Africa Corps. These are already engaged by the British armed forces which four days ago were annihilated by an Italian official communique.

Advancing eight miles through three divisions which encircled them, the Tobruk garrison forced a gap 3000 yards wide to shake hands with advance units of New Zealanders who had fought way 100 miles up from the Libyan frontier. The advance by the Tobruk garrison was preceded by a heavy artillery bombardment and a feint attack by Poles.

The Poles crept to the rear of enemy positions, killed over 100 and brought back prisoners. One officer wounded was the only Polish casualty. Meanwhile sappers crept through the wire and placed eight bridges over an anti-tank ditch on the western perimeter. Over went the tanks. The clatter of their tracks and the roar of their engines were drowned by our gunfire and the counter enemy barrage.

Highlanders' Part

The assault upon the strongest enemy position under a screen of tanks was entrusted to a famous Highland regiment. The Highlanders moved forward over 1000 yards in the face of intense fire and'literally smashed a way to victory. By the. afternoon our force had captured five enemy positions, broken a German infantry battalion and taken its commander prisoner. The artillery fired without cessation.

The Highlanders had suffered in the initial struggle and it did not seem possible they would be able to go forward to another assault without respite, but the skirl of the bagpipes sent them on with new life. At the first post they captured, a pipe-major played them on. With wild cheers they dashed forward like men inspired.

At the end of the first day the position of the force advancing from Tobruk was satisfactory. They had not reached ~ the rendezvous on the escarpment, but were only four miles from it. . With the second day of fighting the artillery battle reached a pitch of intensity rivalling that of the previous day, but the advance continued and by three o'clock two more enemy positions were captured.

The rendezvous with the relieving army was El Duda, a point on the escarpment. After a quiet night the advance was resumed on the third day. Meanwhile the corridor was strengthened and the enemy mopped up. Over 1000 prisoners, 50 per cent Germans, are already in a cage in Tobruk.

After five days' fighting, on November 26 the signal came through that the New Zealanders were about to make contact. As the first New Zealanders shook hands with a British soldier who had fought a way out, Tobruk's nine months' isolation was at an end. A later communique reports that southeast of Tobruk British and New Zealand forces are now forging a way westward in the face of determined opposition. At the same time east of their point of junction enemy detaqhments, still in considerable strength, are being engaged.