Campaign Rapidly Nears End

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23946, 13 May 1943, Page 5

Campaign Rapidly Nears End

TWO ENEMY GROUPS RESISTING

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, May 12. British troops have reached the extreme tip of the Cape Bon peninsula. This is reported by a correspondent at Allied Headquarters in North Africa, who says that the British forces gained their objective at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Earlier news made it clear that the last phase of the campaign is rapidly coming to its end. More than 100,000 prisoners have been taken. Resistance is crumbling everywhere, and enemy troops are giving themselves up freely. Axis forces are said to be holding out in two areas—in the hilly country below Hammam Lif and north of Enfidaville. They may fight for several days, but both groups are in a hopeleas position. Captain Sertorius, the Berlin radio’s commentator, after admitting that communications between the Axis forces inside and outside the peninsula had been cut, added: “It can only be a very short time before both groups have spent their last ammunition. The blockade of the peninsula from sea and air is complete and has excluded all possibility of supplying our forces. If we still dwell on the final phase of the Tunisian fighting it is only to honour the soldierly attitude of the Germans and Italians who are holding to a lost position.’’

An Allied spokesman said that the Germans had lost their nerve. "They are not interested in any last gallant fight," he said. "British tanks advanced virtually without opposition 18 miles up the eastern coast of the Cape Bon peninsula. A large amount of German equipment is falling into our hands.” , , „ The National Broadcasting Corporation's correspondent in Algiers says that the Cape Bon peninsula has been completely cut off from the mainland since early yesterday morning, and the whole area is crumbling like a mud wall in a cloud-burst. Five thousand prisoners taken by the British included 600 from the crack Hermann Goering Division. The Algiers radio says that British forces have broken into the Cape Bon peninsula and are advancing up the two coast roads. One force has already advanced 18 miles up tho coast road. The roads are blocked with the blazing wrecks of destroyed Axis war equipment. British armoured units advancing up the middle of the peninsula have met stiff resistance, but elsewhere the Germans appear to have lost their nerve, and are surrendering without thought of any last-ditch stand. . Allied headquarters last night announced that another 20,000 prisoners had been taken in the base of the peninsula. ~ Although enemy troops to the south of the bottleneck are now in a hopeless position, they are still resisting. They are trapped between the Bth Army in the south, the Ist Army in fie north, and the French driving in from the west.

A French communique says that north of Zaghouan, French troops smashed through the enemy lines. When a gap was opened. French armour poured through towards the sea in the direction of Bou Ficha. thus completing the encirclement of the Axis forces still trying to oppose the advance of the Bth Army. On the massif of Zaghouan, the German forces asked for an armistice. The French commanding officer immediately replied that surrender must be unconditional and the destruction of war material must cease. This is the first time German forces have asked for an armistice from French troops. , . _ .. It is officially announced in Berlin that General von Arnim is still with his troops in Tunisia.