8th Army’s Advance

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23803, 24 November 1942, Page 5

Bth Army’s Advance

ENEMY TROOPS WITHDRAW (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) <&ec. 11 p-m.) LONDON, November 23. To-day’s Cairo communique states: “During yesterday our troops successfully engaged the enemy and made progress in the neighbourhood of Agedabia. Enemy troops south of the village of Agedabia withdrew. Air activity was confined chiefly to fighter patrols.” The Cairo correspondent of “The Times” says; “A clash between the Bth Army and Marshal Rommel’s remnants is expected at any moment. It now seems certain that the Axis will not attempt more than a delaying action at Agedabia. Any fighting proceeding there at present is almost certainly merely rearguard opposition. The question is whether the Axis troops will even attempt a stand on the narrow El Agheila front, or will merely use these positions for further delaying tactics while their main force speeds on towards Misurata and Tripoli, where it may be possible to embark for Italy.” The correspondent states that the decisive factor in this question will probably be developments in Tunisia. Very bad weather continues to hamper both land and air operations. Allied casualties in the Bth Army’s offensive were much lighter than was expected. A Cairo message reports that threequarters of the total casualties are wounded, and three-quarters of the wounded will soon be ready to return to their units. Very few men have been permanently disabled.

Since the attack started, the British forces have advanced 600 miles, with the air striking force keeping one jump ahead all the time, and forcing the enemy to remain on the run. As soon as airfields are taken by the ground forces, they come into use against the enemy. A message from Cairo says that while there is no indication so far that ■Marshal Rommel is making preparations to fight a major defensive action at El Agheila, this is still regarded as a distinct possibility. Spasmodic contact with the enemy continued yesterday by Allied forward troops in the Agedabia area, and more prisoners were taken at Barce. The weather is siill bad. Remarkable co-ordination between the advance Allied Air Force units and ground pursuit forces has been shown. In fact, Allied aircraft are now patrolling territory west of Benghazi, over which enemy ground and air forces are withdrawing, and they are using landing grounds which only a few days ago were bases for enemy squadrons. As the Bth Army marches forward it finds its air striking forces moving step by step with it. At the same time the Luftwaffe is retreating so fast and has thrown away so much gear that it is scarcely fighting any sort of rearguard action. Yesterday not a single enemy aircraft was seen in the forward zones. The weather continues very bad over the zone of operations in Libya and pilots even report seeing snow over the retreating Germans, according to mesfrom the Middle East. Nevertheless, it was revealed at /al Air Force headquarters on Sunday that for almost a week small fighter forces, complete with ground staff, carried out a series of brilliant operations far behind the enemy lines. It must have been a disconcerting puzzle for the enemy when he found his supply lines being ground strafed by singleengined machines on the road far south of Benghazi at a stage when he would

not have expected any single-engined aircraft to be within range. A fleet of transport aeroplanes and ground convoys was used to make this sudden thrust at the enemy rear. The whole operation, which lasted for several days, was guarded on the ground by an experienced Royal Air Force armoured car company. After establishing an emergency landing ground, these fighters appeared over the roads far to the enemy’s rear, strafing columns of unsuspecting vehicles which imagined that they were retreating in perfect safety. More than 100 vehicles were destroyed and probably twice that number damaged. Severe Italian Losses It has now been disclosed that when the general enemy retreat began an Italian Fascist Youth column which had been occupying the Siwa Oasis also retreated, but before long it was overtaken by Royal Air Force fighter squadrons, which attacked deep in the desert and so severely mauled the column that it must have been almost wiped out. The fate of six crack Italian divisions in the Western Desert—the Pavia, Brescia, Bologna, Ariete, Trento, and Folgore—is described by a correspondent broadcasting from the Middle East. “At the beginning of the offensive they suffered heavy casualties, and as soon as the break-through occurred they found themselves abandoned by the Germans,” he states. “The plight of these divisions was unhappy as they trudged back on foot across the arid waste without water or adequate food. It was not long before they were filthy and lice-ridden, and there was hardly one who was not suffering from some ailment. No wonder they were rounded up in hundreds by the advancing British and Greeks. Many died from exposure, and only an infinitesimal fraction managed to get away. Altogether six divisions were virtually written off, and the Northumbrian Brigade, which had pursued them, took only between 75 and 80 Germans.”