EFFECTIVE FIRING

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 11

EFFECTIVE FIRING

DENSE SMOKE PALL

BRIGADE READY TO ATTACK

LONDON, December 20. ,

Reuters' correspondent with the advanced British forces in the West* crn Desert, writing of Bardia, says th£t a dense pall of smoke hangs over the base —proof of the effectiveness of the Royal Navy's bombardment, the booming broadsides of which echoed inthes British camp all night long. Close by stood an armoured brigade ready to roll into action against Bardia, and other forces lurked further on.

Describing his trip from SoUuni through Hellfire Pass, which the Italians made no attempt to blow up, he says that he came out across the frontier country with only a thin film of British advanced troops between. himself and Bardia. Sollum, when he left it, was lying disconsolately smashed up. Where the Western Da. sert succeeded the escarpment, British, troops pushing westwards from Buk- <•

buk swarmed across the. completely exposed ground without cover under point-blank range of artillery fire from, Italians perched on the cliff-tops. After taking Hellfire Pass the British troops scrambled on to the table land and chased the retreating Italians towards the frontier. In their flight back "into Libya the Italians abandoned colossal, quantities of war materials and stores.

This afternoon 12 Italian bombers, escorted by fighters, attacked the British positions from a height of only 500 feet but inflicted neither damago nor casualties.