DESPERATE BID

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20625, 28 November 1941, Page 6

DESPERATE BID

50 GERMAN TANKS GUNNERS SMASH ATTACK HOT ACTION AT DAWN .. CAIRO. Nov. 2(1. I saw. on Sunday morning a desperate attempt by 50 German tanks : to break . through our line south of .Sidi Rezegh, says the war correspondent of - the Sydney Morning Herald. I had spent the , previous night, with a powerful force of British artillery, supported by. South African infantry, which formed part of the steel circle drawn round the enemy forces. Somewhere out in front General Rommel’s panzers were raging up and down looking for a way of escape, and all -through the -night there was a distant rumble, of gunfire, while red, green and while: Verey flares and, starshells were continuously bursting over the desert. “On Us Without Warning”

Day came with the: crimson splendour of a desert dawn, and with the dawn came the enemy. They must have eluded our scouting armoured cars, and were on us without warning.

They roared over a slight rise about half a mile in front of our guns—so of them—coming at us hell for leather, with their guns blazing. Behind them their support artillery opened fire, pouring a hail of shells into our positions. Immediately behind our guns there was a group of about 400 transport vehicles. I saw a senior officer leap on top of a truck and. shout: “Clear the way for our tanks. Get that transport back in double - quick time!”

Extraordinary Sight

Drivers leapt to their vehicles, and in a few minutes hundreds of vehicles were streaming back at full speed, . shells from the enemy artillery bursting among them in vicious clouds of black smoke.

It was an extraordinary sight—the whole desert' seemed full of speeding vehicles, while rattling up on their right toward the fight came a column of our tanks

Meanwhile, our artillery and the South Africans’ anti-tank guns came into action. I saw South African infantry running forward with their anti-tank rifles in the teeth of sweeping machine-gun fire from tanks, then Hinging themselves down and opening fire.

I’oint-blank Range

The enemy tanks were firing with everything they had, storming forward at full speed, with shells from their own artillery bursting in front of them.

Our gunners were firing at pointblank range as iast as they could ■oad. Shells smashed into tank after tank, blowing off their tracks and ripping into their sides, for no armour in the world could withstand gunfire at that range. Sgme crashed to a , halt in flaming ruin almost on the muzzles of our guns. Others, hard hit. tried to limp away.

British Tanks Strike Back

The charge broke and wavered. Grey-brown figures leapt from the turrets of their shattered tanks and ran aimlessly across the bloodilylittered desert. Shell - bursts and machine-guns caught them and they crumpled and fell. At this moment of death and hesitation the British tanks struck at the Germans’ flank, crashing into them •with their heavy forward guns spitting lire. It was too much. The battered remnants of the German tank column swung round and made off as fast as they- could, our steel-dads hard on their'heel's-.'