FLIGHT FROM TRIPOLI

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 21, 26 January 1943, Page 5

FLIGHT FROM TRIPOLI

Enemy Hammered From The Air

LONDON, January 25. While the Eighth Army drives westward from Tripoli, Allied aircraft are attacking Rommel's columns from east and west. General Montgomery's advancing troops are now well west of Tripoli, though it is clear from today's official news that they had not reached the Tunisian frontier yesterday. In fact, some enemy remnants were still some 30 miles inside Tripolitania and were making a desperate last-minute effort to turn the little harbour of Zuara into a miniature Dunkirk. Allied aircraft bombed and strafed the small enemy vessels as they attempted to leave, and many were damaged. Enemy aircraft on the ground nearby were attacked, as well as enemy transport columns on the coast road to the west.

Twenty miles beyond Tunisia is the Ben Gardane airfield, which yesterday got what was officially called "large scale attention" from our fighter bombers. There is another Axis airfield 45 miles further on, and this was raided the night before last. Sicily is another first-class target for our aircraft at the moment, and its harbours, airfields, and power stations are being repeatedly hit day and night, Pantellaria has also been attacked. Enemy shipping.lines have been hit hard, and a correspondent states that every ship sent to the bottom in the Sicilian narrows is equivalent to a very considerable success on land. An officer .of the Eighth-Army last night told Reuters correspondent that German infantry had passed through Gabes, 100 niiles inside Tunisia. Today's Cairo communique states that on Friday night naval units attacked small enemy ships which were attempting to get out of Zuara harbour, 70 miles west of Tripoli. Dispersed enemy vehicles on the frontier, and targets in southern Tunisia, have been attacked from the air. A wireless commentator says there is no doubt that Field-Marshal Rommel has withdrawn the bulk of his troops out of Tripolitania. According to correspondents at the front, he had sent. most of the Italians back first this time, though elements of many Italian units have been taking part in the fighting. Also it had been thought worth while to throw in some of the precious remaining armour to hold back the Eighth Army while the evacuation went on. But the streams of transport from Tripolitania into Tunisia have already had about the,most merciless