BRITISH FIRST ARMY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 120, 17 November 1942, Page 3

BRITISH FIRST ARMY

REINFORCED BY U.S. MOBILE UNITS

(Rec. 2,30 p.m.) RUGBY, Nov. 16.

It is officially stated at headquarters of the Allied forces: "The British First Army has been reinforced by mobile United States units. The Royal Navy maintains control in the western Mediterranean and its approaches. This naval force has suffered losses, but these have been small in proportiqfi to the size of the operations, and the casualties on the whole have been light. -

"Today we took into custody an officer and the crew of a U-boat sunk off the North African coast.

"Small French military units, have begun to co-operate with the eastern and central task forces at their station. The clearance and maintenance of ports and harbours proceeds."

Rabat radio broadcast a communique, from Allied headquarter?, which stated: "The spearhead of the British troops is advancing with the greatest possible speed towards eastern Tunisia. Fortytwo Axis planes were shot down in aerial combat in Tunisia and 19 were set on fire on the ground." Describing yesterday's three raids on the- Tunis aei'odrome, the Air Ministry said that all our aircraft returned safely from the two night raids made by R.A.F. bombers. So destructive were these raidg, according to one of the participating airmen, that "we came back looking like trucks loaded with bricks and mortar."—B.O.W.