FALL BROUGHT NEARER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 51, 1 March 1941, Page 9

FALL BROUGHT NEARER

ITALIAN EAST AFRICA

BRITISH AIR SUPREMACY

LONDON, February 27,

British aircraft have swept the Italians from the skies over Eritrea. South African planes are blasting the Italians from their roads of retreat from Italian Somaliland to Addis Ababa, and the British and Allied land forces are hourly bringing nearer the fall of Italian East Africa. The troops from Kubkub, which are 15 miles from Keren after having captured Kelemit, 30 miles north of Keren, are sending back a column to occupy Nacfa, which the Italians have abandoned. The 15,000 Italians who are holding Keren will soon face the alternative of encirclement or retreat under heavy fire from the flanks and from the air, but before the northern British forces reach Keren to complete the encirclement they must pass through a gorge flanked on one side by the 6000ft Ghelende Mountains and on the other by the 5000ft Mulot Mountain. The R.A.F., in supporting the Army j on all fronts in East Africa, effectively \ attacked stores, troop concentrations, and supply dumps in the Keren area, bombed a large transport yard at Assab, raided ammunition stores and other objectives at Massawa, and attacked a railway bridge at Hawash. All the planes returned. In four weeks the South Africans alone have claimed 80 Italian planes— 50 destroyed on the ground and 30 shot down. The Italians have lost 25 planes in the past three days. The bulk of six brigades have been shattered in Italian Somaliland, and three brigade commanders have been taken prisoner* The road to Abyssinia lies open to the conquerors, and also the road to British Somaliland, where there is only a thin isolated garrison v Nairobi reports that the British divisional commander in the Juba area sent his men to battle with the stirring mesage: "We have a chance to share Mr. Churchill's policy of tearing Mussolini's Roman empire to tatters, Our campaign, if it is relentlessly conducted, in every likelihood will have started the complete collapse of the Italians in East Africa. Fight fearlessly, shoot low, and move quickly. Go to it with high hearts, and the enemy will crack."