HAND TO HAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 72, 26 March 1941, Page 9

HAND TO HAND

A FIERCE BATTLE

CAPTURE OF JARABUB

AUSTRALIANS' FEAT

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received March 26, 10 a.m.)

RUGBY, March 25,

Jarabub, the last Italian stronghold in Libya, fell alter one of the fiercest hand-to-hand battles ever fought in the heart of the desert. The fortress is the holy burial place of the ancient Senussi, at onb lime leaders of the Libyan tribes. The Air Ministry news service states that it fell after only nine hours' fighting. It was taken by an Australian unit, supported by R.A.F. aircraft, and British artillery and armoured cars.

The principal offensive came from the south, after an intense artillery barrage at dawn on Friday.

Jarabub is divided into three sectors, with the town in the centre. The fort to the north overlooks a vast plain, and to the south there is a series of rocky knolls. These constituted the principal defences, and bristled with guns of all calibres. In one warren-like stronghold alone there were no fewer than fifty Breda guns, and many small mountain cannon. The Italians had spared neither time nor labour to make these crags impregnable, and the whole area was tunnelled and warrened with shelters. Thousands of rounds of small arms ammunition and field-gun shells were secreted in a large underground arsenal. Between these two fortified positions stands the walled native village, dominated by {he Senussi Mosque.

A young Australian subaltern, with a platoon of picked men, carried out the first attack to the south. He led his men through a gap in the wire, under withering enemy fire. They were fighting in a isandstorm which, while it offered some protection, jammed their rifles and blinded them as they crawled towards the Italian machine-gun nests.

BAYONETS AND GRENADES

Periods of close action followed, in which only bayonets ■» and * handgrenades were used. By ten o'clock the entire Australian infantry forces were engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle. At the height of the battle a daring R.A.F. pilot, flying a Lysander aircraft, dived to a hundred ,feet and dropped light bombs on a stubborn Italian machinegun post.

Later the same pilot, although the target for a rain of bullets, dropped a message over a group of Australians, advising them that a dozen of their men had become isolated and were hard-pressed. The men had signalled to the pilot by flashing a small hand mirror in the sun. Enemy guns bombarding them were silenced by Australian anti-tank guns turned in their direction, at the position indicated by the aircraft.

Ten gaps were made in the outer wire on the southern sector, and what had at first appeared to be an insurmountable obstacle was conquered after a few hours by courageous fighting and at. 2.30 p.m. the white flag was hoisted.

Over eight hundred prisoners were taken—more than the number of Australians who finally captured the stronghold. During the entire action no support was given to the beseiged by either Italian or German aircraft, but twelve hours after the fall of the

town f^ve Heinkels flew over the area and dropped a number of bombs harmlessly in the desert.

Despite the intensity of the barrage neither the sacred Mosque of the Senussi nor the native village suffered a scratch.