NEEDED FOR KNOCK-OUT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 5

NEEDED FOR KNOCK-OUT

MORE HEAVY TANKS

LONDON, June 8,

The correspondent of "The Times" in the Western Desert states that a German column which skirted Bir Hacheim and attempted to take the British from the rear in the previous attack was 18 miles long and consisted of from 50 to ,70 tanks, 200 motor transports, motorised infantry, and mobile artillery. Another German column which reached the neighbourhood of El Adem was not merely a raiding column, but was intended to make a large-scale, determined counter-attack against the British flank.

Imperial troops, using mostly light tanks, which the Germans outgunned and outranged, engaged the enemy and managed to deflect the column. They hung on till heavier armoured units arrived.

Reviewing the campaign, the correspondent says: "The ability to deliver a knock-out blow depends on the number of heavy tanks we can throw in. We are much stronger in fire-power than in the previous campaigns, but could well be stronger still. Even when in vastly superior numbers, light tanks are practically impotent against the heavily-armoured German medium and heavy tanks."

A Cairo message • reports that swarms of Imperial fighters and fighterbombers flew over the German forces in the "Cauldron" without respite, pouring down hundreds of bombs and hundreds of rounds of cannon-fire. One pilot said that the area was a confused mass of fire-belching vehicles.

Reuters correspondent in the Western Desert says that he watched a tank battle sway over the desert with the sky lit by Very flares and gun-flashes. Fifty lorries blazed in ;

valley below. Whenever the panzers came within range the British artillery drove them back. The German long-range guns attempting .to knock out our guns, hurled shell after shell into Knightsbridge for an hour, but not a man nor a gun was hit.

Guardsmen stood up in the slit trenches and cheered as a British cruiser tank charged a German tank which was pinned against a minefield. The German tank exploded after a direct hit from point-blank range. The British tank crashed into the wreckage but backed out safely.