A GOOD DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 133, 8 June 1942, Page 5

A GOOD DAY

AXIS POSITIONS BADLY DENTED

MENACE PERSISTS

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. noon.) LONDON, June 7.

The Libyan battle has reached new heights of violence, and the issue is still undecided, states the correspondent of ./the British United Press in. a dispatch from-the. Western Desert, on the night of, June 6, which is the latest to reach London.

The correspondent adds; "The worst fighting experienced by the British troops in this war has continued without ,a break for a fortnight, with thirst, heat, dust, and also hourly blasting by shot and shell, making life a misery. The Afrika Korps is doing its utmost to throw us off our balance and salvage some sort" of victory. Rommel sent 70 tanks through the new gap in the minefield near Bir Hacheim, in an attempt to take the Imperial troops from the real*. Our force which had been attacking the cauldron from the north swung round to meet the threat from the south, and the battle was joined in the Knightsbridge area and is still raging.

"The British and the Germans have Hung in a total of over 1000 tanks after the Imperial forces attacked on June 6. Many hundreds of them are already tangled masses of scrap-iron, and the cauldron is smoking with many fires as our gunners pick off tanks and lorries. The Germans also got some of ours with their 88-milli-metre guns."

Reuters cox-respondent in Cairo says that Allied armoured units, strongly supported by infantry and artillery, threw back the panzers yesterday to a point slightly west of the positions from which they started to counterattack. The British push to Harmat enabled the Allied forces to strengthen their position in the Harmat-Tamar-Knightsbridge triangle, facing the Cauldron. Tamar has been held against repeated German assaults aimed at removing the keystone of the British offensive positions facing the Cauldron.

The correspondent adds that yesterday was a satisfactory day for the Allies, but it must not be assumed that the enemy is no longer a menace, despite his terrific losses of armour. The enemy's positions in the Cauldron have been seriously dented, but numerous possibilities for offensive are still open to him.