MASSING FOR BATTLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 7, 9 January 1943, Page 5

MASSING FOR BATTLE

GERMANS RUSHING IN REINFORCEMENTS

DEFEND TUNISIA

Mammoth Allied Convoy At Gibraltar

N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright Rec. 12.30 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 8. The Germans are massing for the coming battle for Tunisia, says the Daily Express correspondent at Algiers. Every available transport plane and glider is being pressed into service by the Axis to rush reinforcements from Italy to Tunisia. The Germans are not going to fight a delaying action and then clear out of North Africa. They are going to defend Tunisia as a major front and right now they are reinforcing with every modern weapon in their armoury. '

Allied infantry—Tommies, doughboys and poilus—are within 40 miles of their two great goals, namely Tunis and Bizerta. Both sides are bogged down in deep, clinging, slimy, impassable mud.

For the air forces it must be the same. Forward landing grounds are simply open paddocks lying on the floors of valleys, which are swamped overnight by rains. But the Allies definitely lead in the sky struggle. '

Berlin radio declared that a mammoth convoy is assembling at Gibraltar. It includes more than 50 cargo ships, 10 tankers, with an escort of three battleships, two aircraftcarriers, two cruisers, 22 destroyers and 16 gunboats.

A Daily Mail leading article says. ~: Ve r, a r e not able to understand whv the British public should not be more fully acquainted with the position of the Axis and Allied forces in Tunisia. The recent general impression was that the enemy held only the tip of Tunisia and the towns and airfields of Tunis and Bizerta, but correspondents' statements prove that the Axis forces occupy a substantial slice of Tunisia, running from north to south, and in some places 70 miles inland.

Nothing more has been heard of the American force advancing on Gabes in an attempt to cut the coast road linking the German armies in Tunisia and Tripolitania. We are still bombing Gabes. It can be deduced that the Axis are occupying the entire coast between Bizerta and Tripoli, and that they are using the vital coast road for communication between the armies of Nehring and Rommel.

"This explains the suggestion that Rommel is receiving equipment necessary for the replacement of that lost at El Alamein. It is necessary to utter a warning against the possible results of allowing only the most meagre trickle of information to flow from this battlefront. The British and American Governments have only themselves to blame if their expectations are not realised and -a storm bursts around their heads."