LIKE NAVAL CLASH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 291, 9 December 1941, Page 2

LIKE NAVAL CLASH

TANKS IN ACTION SPLENDID AIR SUPPORT (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E-F.) CAIRO, Dec. 8. A dispatch dated "Outside Tobruk, November 26," states: A ringside seat at the desert tank battle is the hardest thing to find in this campaign, but I had been lucky enough here on a Libyan escarpment to see most phases of a short, sharp engagement in which the enemy came off second best. It was like watching a naval action between the British and Italian fleets, for the enemy put up a running fight—running the other way. "Through field glasses I saw a column of tanks, armoured cars and motorised infantry swarming along under the crest of a ridge two miles away in an apparent attempt to outflank part of the New Zealand force. It cruised boldly past us, leaving a trail of dust, until our brigadier ordered the British tanks under his command to sally forth to investigate. The approach of our fleet of squat, heavy machines sent the enemy column scuttling over the ridge, firing as they went. The British tanks opened fire and gave chase. They look like desert battleships any time, but now, as thev roared over the desert with their guns flashing red, the similarity to a naval formation was most striking. One shell caught an enemy armoured car squarely, and it burst into flames. As I watched the dust and smoke soon obscured the scene, but I could still see dull flashes and hear the sharp crack of tank guns as the enemy column disappeared over the horizon. The tanks stopped five armoured cars in all and snot several lorries full of troops. "Later in a grand reconnaissance sweep they came across 150 South African wounded lying in the desert under Italian guards. They had been there since the German tank and infantry attack on the South African force. Our tanks brought back as many as they could and we sent ambulances out for the remainder to-day. Littered With Wrecks "The desert for miles around here has been a tank arena since the campaign began. We have seen three or four battlefields littered with damaged and burned-out machines belonging to both sides. With the tide of battle sweeping past them, the salvage of many has been possible. Tanks and planes have given us the assistance we once only dreamed of. Only twice have I seen enemy aircraft in action, and in neither case were our front-line troops attacked. On the other hand the sky yesterday was filled with British bombers and fighters, the bombers three times plastering enemy territory just ahead of us. under a new system of close and direct co-operation between ourselves and the Air Command, the New Zealand force had asked for specific air support and got it. There had been an Air Force liaison officer, himself a New Zealander, at the New Zealand headquarters since the campaign began. And for one last detail in the cheering general picture I need only look 200 yards across the desert from here at a silent airfield thick with well-grounded enemy planes—almost 50 of them, and all as dead as the wrecked guns which failed to stop our armoured columns smashing this 'drome almost as soon as we crossed the frontier.