NAVAL BOMBARDMENT

Evening Star, Issue 23862, 17 April 1941, Page 7

NAVAL BOMBARDMENT

ENEMY CONSTANTLY HARASSED ‘‘ PARTICULARLY GOAD RESULTS " (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 16. (Received April 17, at noon.) An Admiralty communique states; The Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, reports that enemy operations on the Libyan coast are being constantly and successfully harassed by bombardment from His Majesty’s ships. Enemy positions and transport columns on the escarpment road west of Solium have been bombarded with particularly good results. El Gazala aerodrome, to the west of Tobruk', has also been heavily bombarded from the sea. Here at least live enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground. . REMAINING ITALIAN STRENGTH IN ABYSSINIA LONDON, April 16. (Received April 17, at 1.5 p.m.) It is believed that the remaining Italian forces in Abyssinia consist of 10.000 Italians and 12,000 natives in the Dessie area, 8,000 Italians and 9.000 natives in the Gondar, and 22,000 Italians, and 15,000 natives in the Jimma areas. LAST STAGE ABYSSINIAN CAMPAIGN DUKE OF AOSTA ASKS FOR PARLEY LONDON, April 15. The special correspondent of ‘ The Times ’ in Aden said that the Abyssinian war had entered the last stage. To-day the Duke of Aosta requested safe conduct for an Italian aircraft in which an Italian envoy later landed at the Diredawa aerodrome. British officers met him, and while the parley proceeded not a single British bomber took the air, and fighting paused on the whole front. AMERICAN LINER STOPPED BY ARMED RAIDER JERSEY CITY, April 15. Captain Kuhne, master of the American liner Excambion, said to-day that a German armed raider stopped the Excambion GOO miles out of Lisbon early on the morning of April 7. The captain was standing on the Excambion’s bridge, and he observed a Portuguese freighter, and a few minutes later another craft, its lights blacked out, signalled with a blinker; “ Remain stopped until I look at you.” Then her searchlight was thrown on the Excambion for five minutes; and after a while came a curt message to proceed. “ A British captain,” Captain Kuhne said, “ would have signalled: ‘ Thank you and bon voyage.’ ”