TUNISIAN PORTS DESTRUCTIVE RAIDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 2, 4 January 1943, Page 5

TUNISIAN PORTS DESTRUCTIVE RAIDS

(U.P.A. and Official Wireless.) LONDON', January 2. A Cairo correspondent says that so heavy have been the air -bombardments of Sfax that it is probable that many harbour installations have been damaged so badly that their usefulness is at an end. In the past fortnight heavy bombers of the Allied air force have carried out a series of raids which have been as successful as any of the harbour attacks in North Africa. , ,■ In assessing the damage of the last few days a pilot who recently returned from an observation flight and has photographs to confirm his statements, reports that the railway roadhouse is nothing more than a black i scar and that serious damage has been , done to all other-railway buildings. A , large factory northward of the harbour has also been partly destroyed, as have warehouses on the northern quay. An important railway track leading to Sfax has been hit in eleven places, and many wagons on sidings • have been blown up, while a large section of wharf on the northern quay has been destroyed. There appears to be little activity in this important area, says the correspondent. Very few of the craters have been filled in and the majority' of the railway wagons are standing about empty. Once busy sidings appear to be deSGrtccL * The British United Press Cairo correspondent says that reports suggest that Gabes and Bizerta are the only workable ports left to the Germans in Tunisia. An Allied headquarters communique states: "Enemy aircraft attacking Bone, 125 miles west of Tunis, yesterday were intercepted by our fighters, and two other, attacks were turned back before reaching Bone. Four enemy aircraft were shot down by our fighters, and a number of others were damaged. Our bombers made attacks on harbours and railroad yards at Tunis yesterday. Fires were left burning. Six of our planes are missing from these operations."