KEY TO VICTORY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 135, 10 June 1942, Page 6

KEY TO VICTORY

STRUGGLE IN LIBYA

HEAVY TANK FORCE

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 2 p.m.) LONDON, June 9. I "It is touch and go in the battle in Libya," says the military correspondent of the "Daily Express." The army which comes out of it with the greatest number of heavy tanks will he the victor. "This is a battle of annihilation. It is now known that we did not get as far as might have been hoped in our counter-attack which began on Friday against the German-held bulge covering the 10-mile gap in the Gazala-Bir Hacheim line, but we succeeded in separating the panzers operating north of the bulge from those in the south, and that is a gain. "It seems that Rommel is relying on the Eighth Army cracking before his .own Afrika Corps. The Germans have miscalculated this way before. "The morale of our troops was never higher." • . The Free French today beat off Bir Hacheim's tenth assault. Twenty-five Stukas attacked at dawn, then guns bombarded Bir Hacheim and at.about 10 o'clock in the morning three battalions of infantry, mostly Italians, supported by tanks, got inside the minefield. .. . , The French artillery knocked out three tanks and six vehicles and the attackers withdrew.