SOLLUM FIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 116, 19 May 1941, Page 8

SOLLUM FIGHT

GERMANS DEFEATED

DRIVE ALONG ESCARPMENT

INFANTRY AND TANKS

(Rec. 2 p.m.)

LONDON, May 18,

A clash in which 500 Germans were taken prisoner around Sollum is described by Richard McMillan, British United Press correspondent in a dispatch from Hell Fire Pass. The British, led by crack regiments, broke through the German lines on the Egyptian frontier, says Mr. McMillan, entered Libya, and gave the Nazis something they are more accustomed to give than to receive.

A two-pronged drive along the Sollum escarpment brought our tanks and infantry to Fort Capuzzo, which changed hands twice in a day-long battle and is now an unrecognisable heap of rubble. The British mechanised infantry units fought their way to the top of Hell Fire Pass and caught the enemy machine-gun posts in a withering fire after making an encircling movement. The Germans fled to a dried-up riverbed where they were cornered.

Tanks and other units, including a famous regiment, pushed rapidly along the coast road to the outskirts of Sollum simultaneously, pincering the Germans, who were neatly cornered in the deep crevices of the escarpment adjoining Hellfire Pass. This body of 250 Germans hastily dug holes in the barren side of the escarpment, but they were bombed and bombarded from sky and land. Our soldiers from the top of the pass poured a hail of machine-gun bullets into every nook and cranny.

In the attack on Fort Capuzzo,strong groups of tanks ploughed their way over the 'sand. The infantry followed in lorries until the enemy was contacted, then, with bayonets fixed, the advance began behind armoured units. The enemy put up a stiff fight, but we entered the ruins of the fort before retiring to prepared positions. Meantime, our bombers attacked barracks at Sollum, where "the Germans were established in force, then artillery was brought up and gave the beleaguered Germans a pasting.—U.P.A.