FOR HOW LONG?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 14, 17 January 1941, Page 7

FOR HOW LONG?

CALM AT TOBRUK

EQUIPMENT MOVED UP

SANDSTORMS ABATE

ITALIAN LOSSES OF PLANES

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

(Received January 17, 1 p.m.)

LONDON, January 16. The heavy sandstorms have abated, enabling the British troops to continue the big job of moving up equipment round Tobruk with redoubled energy. The British forces have taken up positions for the attack and are asking how long the present calm is going to continue. The British artillery is four miles from Tobruk, shelling the defences, but the withering fire which preceded the battle of Bardia has not yet started. The Italians have at least one big naval gun which the British aim to quieten. British armoured forces hold the region^ 15 miles to the westward of Tobruk. Royal Air Force bombing has forced the Italians to abandon every air base eastward of Akdar excepting Derna. This includes a big seaplane base at Domba. No fewer than 87 disabled planes were counted at El Adem. The total number of Italian planes abandoned on the Libyan airfields, together with 500 lost in combat, would seriously dent any air force. Some of the planes found at El Edem are easily repairable, but the British so far have not used i any of them against the Italians. Often a small vital part has been removed by the Italians. A thousand prisoners are still camped in the. desert awaiting transportation. Several hundred have cheerfully volunteered to work for their captors, j