CHOICE FOR ROMMEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 18, 22 January 1943, Page 5

CHOICE FOR ROMMEL

EW WAYS TO TRAVEL

LONDON, January 21. Router's 'Cairo correspondent .points cut that the Eighth Army is rolling up thss mip so rapidly' that Rommel is running short of his most precious weapon, time. The weight of men and material which General Montgomery is throwing in threatens to disrupt the Axis rearguards before Rommel is awe to organise his next move, whether it is resistance or escape. . A correspondent says 'H^t ttus indicates that Rommel may be taking the only alternative to a complete evacuatibn by sea, and will try to force his way through by land to Tunisia Either cSse wSSId be studded difficulties. He is confined to the four mam tracks radiating from Tripoli, and the R.A.F., leap-frogging to forward aerodromes as they are relinquished, is hammering the fleeing columns and blasting Tripoli harbour and the aerodrome at Castel Benito. The Eighth Army's advanced units throughout Tuesday maintained contact With Rommel's rearguards, though the ground at present is broken and hilly Our left flank was already penetra&g the Jebel region and nearmg the escarpment from which the plains drop down to Tripoli, inviting fast prGSfe Sral Montgomery's army is now operating 1500 miles from its, mam base, isays the Cairo correspondent of "The Tunes." Some of its supplies were sent by sea to Benghazi. There is only a single track railway,a short part of the way from the mam base, and the most urgent items are transported by air, but road transport is the backbone of the Eighth Army's SUBn?he other hand, the enemy is continually falling back on.his own supphr lines/ The fact that with such an advantage the Axis forces have been unable to make a stand anywhere is JjFoof ■of the Eighth. Army's fighting superiority and the immense damage done to the German war machine in One^orre^pondent says that Rommel may try to make a stand on the Mareth Line, in southern Tunisia, which was originally built by the French.