MIDDLE EAST OIL

Grey River Argus, 18 March 1942, Page 5

MIDDLE EAST OIL

BRITISH DEFENCE LINE

Great Works Built

TO REPEL GERMAN DRIVE.

[Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] (Dec. 8.40.) LONDON, March 17. The “Daily Express’s’’ correspondent with the Tenth Army says: “British Army engineers are using thousands of Syrians, Iraqis and Persian labourers for blasting and tunnelling work upon fortifications as a precaution against a German drive through Turkey towards the Middle East oilfields. The Ninth and Tenth Armies hold this vital twelve hundred miles of front, from .Beirut to Teheran. Months of work on these fortifications are now showing results in, concrete strong-points, tank traps, pil]-boxes and gun-emplacements. Behind this deeply-fortified line there lie good roads and many airfields, from which a large force of ’planes can operate against forces invading Turkey. Deep defences are built along 250 miles of the northern frontier covering the Kirkum and Mosul oilfields. The Allied air disposition is strong and the ground l organisation thorough. “The Tenth Army is not as numerous as might be wished, but it is trained, and is very familiar with its vast terrain. Oil from Iran is flowing in profusion into Syria and Palestine. Long convoys of lorries are piling up ammunition stores in Syria in ever-growing dumps. Army and Air Force officers are undergoing combined courses of training, ensuring proper naval co-operation, and also working detail. The three services stationed in Cyprus are being correlated into a strategy for repelling a flank attack against the Holy Land.