ALLIED COUP IN DESERT
Italian Retreat Becoming General Incessantly Harried LONDON, December 12. The brilliant operations in the Western Desert have now brought the British and Allied Forces to a point well westward of Sidi Barrani, the Italian fortress the capture of which was announced yesterday. Air reconnaissance has shown that a general Jtalian retreat is developing, and the number of prisoners taken by the British is now over 20,000. These include many Black Shirts and Italian militia. The Royal Navy is shelling the enemy lines of retreat and the Eoyal Air Force is keeping up an incessant bombing of every Italian aerodrome in the advanced area. In addition, British planes are bombing and machine-gunning the retreating troops. Fighters shot down eight enemy aircraft yesterday, and one plane on the ground was destroyed. A large force of Black Shirts retreating from Halfway House to Sollum was machinegunned and thrown into utter confusion, and mechanised transport was effectively bombed. It is not possible to give any accurate estimate of the vast amount of war equipment which has fallen into British hands. Among the hundreds of officer prisoners are one corps commander and two general officers commanding1 divisions.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 143, 13 December 1940, Page 7
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196ALLIED COUP IN DESERT Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 143, 13 December 1940, Page 7
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