AXIS FRUSTRATED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21092, 12 May 1943, Page 3

AXIS FRUSTRATED

ALLIED STRATEGY

PLANS FORESTALLED HEAVY AND'SPEEDY BLOW (British Official "Wiseleaa.) (11 a.m.') ' RUGBY, May 11. It is now clear that General Alexander’s strategy in driving what the Germans call a bolt through the weakened enemy front east of Medjez el Bab succeeded in frustrating the enemy’s plan to withdraw most of his forces into Cape Bon. It is thought that the enemy’s plan was to hold a ring from sea to sea as long as possible and then leave a garrison to hold Bizerta and pivot the rest of the armies on the Zaghouan mountains and withdraw south eastwards through Tunis.

Forestalling this plan, the First Army, by constant infantry attacks, got astride the Medjerda and were then at the crust of the ring in the centre, where the blow would fall. The victory was thus essentially a success for the First Army. To forestall the anticipated enemy move, however, the blow had to .have extreme speed and impetus, so part of the Eighth Army was sent north to add weight and, as a result, the movement of the .British armoured forces was as swift as anything accomplished by the Germans in 1940.

At 11 a m. on Thursday, armour was passed through the infantry east of Medjez. In defence of Tunis were grouped the Goering Regiment and nearly the whole of the 15th Panzer Division. Next morning,, however, British advance elements were in the suburbs of Tunis and that afternoon the city was ours. Some tanks then wheeled north. Near the mouth of the Medjerda they met the Americans from Mateur. There it was that the German Fifth Panzer Army surrendered.

That part of General von Arnim’s command which remained south of the British bolt position at Tunis is the First Panzer Army, consisting mostly of Italians, but also the remnants of the 10th and 21st Panzer Divisions and the Goering Regiment. It was under the command of the Italian General Messe. These forces may number 80,000 to 100,000. If the example of Stalingrad is followed, General von Arnim has me choice of. flight and freedom or capture and a marshal’s baton.