EIGHTH ARMY NOW IN THREE GROUPS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 144, 20 June 1942, Page 5

EIGHTH ARMY NOW IN THREE GROUPS

TOBRUK BESIEGED

Rommel Says "Fighting Is

Hard In Libya"

United Press Association.—Copyright. Rec. 11 a.m. LONDON, June 19.

The Cairo Headquarters communique says the Bth Army is now holding strong fortified positions on the Libyan frontier and in the Tobruk area. Our mobile forces from south are confining enemy columns to the coastal belt. One of our columns on Thursday, operating from the south, shelled enemy troops on the El Adem aerodrome.

The Eighth Army under General Ritchie is now divided up into three important groups. The main forces are back on the Egyptian border, another section is occupying Tobruk, and the third is harassing the enemy in the desert to the south.

Although the enemy has appeared on the coast, his force does not appear to be of any strength. Vehicles and unprotected parties would have a tricky job going along the coast road.

The position on the Egyptian border is now roughly what it was before the British offensive began last November, but with a few differences that may prove important. This time the Allied forces hold the frontier escarpment and have mobile forces operating against the Germans' flank and rear. Then there is the attack by the R.A.F., and there are enough air fields behind the frontier to continue the offensive on the present scale. The Berlin radio said Rommel told two Italian journalist interviewers that "the fighting is hard in Libya and the enemy can make a strong base from Tobruk, but the outcome of the battle is not to be doubted." U.S. Troops Training For Desert The New York Times, in a leader on the Labyan Battle, points out that while Tobruk is again facing a siege, some definite change has taken place in desert warfare, which reached a climax in the recent statement by the Secretary for War, Mr. Henry L. Stimson, that American troops are undergoing intensive training in desert fighting. America realises that Tobruk means more than a spot in the African desert. Therefore American boys are being hardened for desert war because Tobruk is now our outpost and our battle."

The Allied air force in Libya has maintained its offensive with hundreds of sorties each day. Soutn African Boston bombers and Royal Air Force Kitty bombers have made attacks on enemy positions. They have also held off large forces of Messerschmitts and Italian fighters trying to get at the Allied bombers.

Emphasising the importance of th* 1 part played by the Allied airmen, a message from Cairo says that Allied air squadrons are breaking all records for bombing, strafing and fighting. Pilots have often been flvme from dawn to dusk. Heavy casualties have been inflicted on the enemy as he moves eastward, trails of wrecked vehicles and fires being left across the desert. Germans Capture Airfields The aeronautical correspondent of the Daily Mail says the Germans doggedly advanced in spite of heavy a?attacks until they captured c.ir advanced airfields. British planes row are likely to have difficulty in maintaining a substantial umbrella over the troops from the more distant airfields. If so, Rommel has achieved air superiority by the more costly, but more direct method of over-run-ning aerodromes and reducing our air strength at the source.

Reports of German troops concen trating in Italy are linked up with reports that there are many German parachutists in Greece and Crete. The Germans are also reported to be concentrating gliders in Greece. Some reports say there are 2~0 gliders, each with a capacity of 50 men. The Germans are practising glider flights between Greece and Crete. Four-engined planes tow the gliders.

A reasonable deduction is that the Russian front has been correspondingly relieved of the heavy pressure of the panzers. What has been lost in Libya may have been gained at