British Troops Pushing Ahead At Top Speed

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13802, 20 November 1942, Page 5

British Troops Pushing Ahead At Top Speed

ONTACT MADE WITH ENEMY SOUTH OF BENGHASI

PTURE OF PORT MAY BE EXPECTED CA . " AT ANY MOMENT

VY ATTACKS CARRIED OUT BY UNITED H STATES BOMBERS

London, Nov. 19. . -1 troops of the British Bth Army are now in contact south of Benghasi and are pushing ahead at top

was ma( ] e 50 miles south of Benghasi on an esearp-Pi-looking the road from Benghasi to El Agheila. A corres:'r,t °t noints out that our troops making this contact with the ; , L ] iave by-passed Benghasi as there is as yet no news of iB kj'., t j on j s taken as an indication of the determination of our t harass the enemy as much as possible before he reaches El fj ? wh i e h is the most southerly point in the Bay of Sirte. nnited States bombers were attacking Benghasi last night so tie enemy would at that time still be in possession of the town. {lathe was on the point of evacuating it and may possibly Iready done so is indicated by the fact that when the United MB bombers arrived over the town they found many fires already Sb and two ships blazing fiercely in the harbour. •Our fighters have been keeping well up with the enemy and made several attacks on enemy transport south of tehasi R.A.F. fighters also made several attacks over enemy EL grounds and in these attacks they shot down seven large Josport planes, destroyed three more on the ground and damaged i further 20. . , Off the coast of Tripoli our naval planes made a successful ■ttack on an enemy tanker escorted by destroyers. In spite of considerable opposition from the escort our planes gored two hits with torpedoes on the vessel of 8,000 tons. The ip took a heavy list and was left burning fiercely.