PICKED REARGUARD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 10, 13 January 1942, Page 4

PICKED REARGUARD

BEING FORCED BACK

LONDON, January 11. A Guards brigade and South African mechanised units are forcing General Rommel's rearguard to abandon position after position between Jedabaya and El Agheila, reports the "Daily Telegraph's" Cairo correspondent. The rearguard, the strongest of the campaign, consists of picked infantry, supported by a large number of mobile batteries and anti-tank batteries. The strength of the rearguard reflects the importance General Rommel places on delaying the Eighth Army till the main Axis forces reach the nearest defendable position on the road to Tripoli—probably Sirte. A Free French motorised division, including units from the Foreign Legions, Spahis, and Chasseurs is being sent forward to reinforce General Ritchie. POSITION DESCRIBED. The following details are given in London of the El Agheila-Marada position on the border of Tripolitania and* Cyrenaica, towards which the British are now advancing. El Agheila is a village of about 900 inhabitants, fairly well supplied with

water. Sixteen miles west of El Agheila is a broad marshy depression in which are warm sulphur springs. This runs inland south-east for 20 miles, then north-east as a wadi bed. From El Agheila the track runs south 70 miles to the Marada country, the flat, open track being fairly good going, but very slow. Twenty miles south of El Agheila is Maaten Jofere, a military outpost with a small brackish water supply. Marada is a deep depression, the surface of which slopes down gently from the south, but which, on the north, is bounded by a semicircle of cliff, breaking down from a desert plateau. It lies below sea level, and artesian waters come to the surface, and there are salt flats, stagnant pools, and many springs. To the south a rocky ridge separates the main oasis from a smaller depression. The inhabitants number 1000. There are about 6000 palm trees in the oasis, and corn is grown freely, but the climate is humid and unpleasant, and malaria is prevalent.