EXPECTED VERY SOON

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 19, 23 January 1943, Page 5

EXPECTED VERY SOON

The Capture Of Tripoli

LONDON, January 22. The British land forces are closing in around Tripoli, and a dispatch from a British correspondent says there are good chances of Tripoli falling into our hands very soon. Correspondents say the enemy is trying to pull out everything he can from the town and our aircraft are finding good targets allover the place. Some of them, including Flying Fortresses, were putting down a bomb barrage on Tripoli harbour tp hold up the enemy's escape by sea. Other aircraft were ranging up and down roads still controlled by the Axis and some went over the border into Tunisia. Enemy air activity was on a somewhat bigger scale, but six enemy planes were shot down and many others badly knocked about.

On land yesterday the Axis made a somewhat stronger effort to hold up the Eighth Army columns. Correspondents report a few tank clashes 25 miles south of Tripoli, but they were not on a large scale, and were thought to have been intended to slow us up while the evacuation of Tripoli goes on. The enemy has withdrawn from the airfield at Castel Benito. Just as they were preparing to leave our fighters appeared. Fighter bombers attacked hard, destroying aircraft on the ground, damaging many more, and wrecking all the enemy's flying apparatus. An American airman who was a prisoner in Tripoli and who has now been recaptured, says that the Allied air attacks were so well aimed that almost the whole of the town remained intact, but damage to military targets and the railway and harbour had been heavy. "Our troops continued their thrusts westward on Thursday and by evening were engaging the enemy west of Horns and south of Tripoli," states a communique from Cairo. "Operating on a large scale, our aircraft continued attacks on the withdrawing enemy as far west as Ben Gadani, in Tunisia. Fires were started in transport columns between Tripoli and Zuara. Three enemy fighters were shot down in air combat." The Cairo correspondent of the Columbia Broadcasting System says that the long voyage to the west will soon be over; the victorious Eighth Army is a few hours: from the gates of Tripoli, which is preparing for their entry. "It will be interesting to see how many Italian troops will be abandoned this time," the correspondent says. "The evidence in the last few days is that Rommel has been giving the German armour special priority, and a portion of his armoured forces has already crossed the Tunisian frontier. It should not take long to clean up the few scattered Italian forts remaining beyond Tripoli. "Tripoli will not be the. last of the Eighth Army's achievements. General Montgomery promised to knock Rommel for six out of Africa, and he will do it if he follows the Afrika Korps to Tunis. He will drive Rommel till he drops."