PUSHING ON

Grey River Argus, 30 October 1942, Page 5

PUSHING ON

EIGHTH ARMY

SLOWLY RUT SURELY

Enemy’s Artillery Obstacle

LONDON, Oct. 28. The British communique on 'Wednesday at Cairo stated: On Monday night our forces made further progress. Yesterday an armoured clash developed on a larger scale thian hitherto. After hard fighting the enemy force was driven off, with considerable losses. Our own loss of tanks was slight. Press correspondents reporting “from west of the El Alame.in line” say that fighting is raging among strong Axis forward defences, witn the Eighth Army steadily improving its penetration and general position. It has advanced beyond a number of Axis strong points and is busy mopping up others. Closely packed mines make the Axis minefields extraordinarily strong. There are still more of these minefields ahead of the Eighth Army in several sectors. The correspondents declare that 'the Eighth Army’s first line infantry is in the best heart. They have suffered casualties in the grim fighting, but the opposition is not worse than expected. Their artillery prepared a xqay with a tremendous barrage, the intensity of which shocked the Axis troops. Then field guns maintained supremacy ever since. All the AlT.ed arms are full of spirit, despite only a few hours sleep. Reuter’s correspondent says: This cheerfulness, with good leadership in tough spots—a common feature where I have been—will open the way for the next important phase on the most favourable terms possible. The Associated Press correspondent reports the Eighth Armv is continuing to take prisoners. All correspondents comment on the deadiiness of the Allies’ hdavy, continuous barrage, which has been maintained since the battle began. It is not yet possible to give accurate figures 'of Axis tank casualties, but according to all reports, they are considerable. New Zealand Forces were not engage! in any major fighting on Tuesday. Nothing more can be said at this stage of the New Zealanders present activities. That a' major encounter between the armoured divisions in Egypt is not yet engaged, was made 1 clear by Lord Croft, speaking in London today. A 8.8. C. correspondent states there have been tank battles, as well as fierce infantry, engagements, and some 1 of the enemy forces, Italians as well as German, have met the Allied armoured vehicles.

Sunday Night Operations ALLIED ADVANCE WITH BAYONETS. ROMMEL’S 88 M.M. GUNS ENCOUNTERED. (Rec. 8.40) LONDON, October 28. The British United Press correspondent with the Eighth Army in a despatch dated Monday, which was delayed, said: Crouching in an observation post all night on Sunday, I watched oyr troops carry a position at the bayonet point. By dawn, a strong Italian-German force was Docketed on a strip commanded by our ■ artiUery. The enemy threw in Italian tanks as a stop gap. most of which were of the type called • “thirteens.” Our six pounders quickly got to work. The Italians did not relish their cannon fodder role. Many jumped from burning machines with their hands upraised, The Germans showed their usual skill in an emergency and quickly rushed up mobilp infantry, tanks, ’ anti-tank ’.guns, and the deadly 88 millimetre guns, which massed in. front of a bridgehead we had gouged in the ItailianGerman lines. The enemy lost the outer defences, but he l holds positions mainly composed of anti-tank guns, lined with minefields. They are as good as a solid front line. Whenever Marshal Von Rommel realises that we are likely to break in, he sends tanks to engage and delay us, while his sappers sow new mines. When -our tanks try to cope with these mines, the 88 millimetre guns go into action.

INCH BY INCH

Allied Advance STUBBORN RESISTANCE (Rec. 10.50) LONDON, Oct. 28. The pattern of to-day’s news from the Egyptian fighting front remains broadly the same as that of the last few days. The news is brief. The Eighth ‘Army, with the heaviest of artillery support, which has thusfar been produced, is moving forward, inch by inch, in the face of a stubborn resistance from the enemy’s well prepared positions. The British United Press correspondent with the Eighth Army says: Marshal von Rommel has a strong screen of eighty-eight, millimetre guns, behind which he has grouped the main weight of his armour screen. The enemy’s artillery must be breached frontally, or must else be turned by flanking moves. Neither alternative is easy. Our sappers are toiling at the task of cleaning up the enemy minefields to give our armoured supply vehicles room to manoeuvre and to disperse. Meanwhile, the Italian and German sappers are equally busy in sowing new minefields ito plug up threatening gaps, and to slow up our progress generally. . The correspondent continues: On Tuesday a tank battle developed after Marshal von Rommel- threw tanks against positions we had captured tne previous night. Our infantry held on. This enabled our tanks to come up and drive the Germans off. It was not an all-out armoured engagement, but headquarters states that the Germans received a substantial blow. The clash occurred at a point where we have achieved the deepest penetration.” Reuter’s Cairo correspondent says: The fact that a tank clash has occurred has indicated that a corridor has . been driven into the enemy’s front, and been sufficiently widened to permit of tank manoeuvre. Ihis is, perhaps, the beginning of the second phase—a phase in which a threat to a section of the enemy s line forces him to armoured combat. Progress may seem slow. The information is meagre. But the wave of our attack daily washes a little further up the enemy beach.

Enemy’s Reports SUCCESS CLAIMED. LONDON, Oct. 28. Rome radio said that General Montgomery was continuing to throw in hew powerful forces against the Axis positions in the Alamein sector. All the Axis reports refer to the fierce nature of the fighting. The Berlin nadio declared: “Fighting in the battle of Alamein is furious, bitter, and bloodv.” An Italian communique claims the destruction or capture of fifty-three tanks, and also claims that twentytwo British planes were shot down for the loss of five. A German communique says:

Heavy successful defensive fighting continues in the Alamein positions, with bitter infantry and armoured fighting, particularly in the northern sector.

Later, the Berlin radio quoting the Official News Agency declared the Eighth Army "ained “slight local advances,” as the result of fighting on the northern Alamein front yesterday, and added: The British captured one height “important for artillery observation,” advancing on a front of about two and a half miles. German and Italian forces towards the evening counter-attacked, and threw the British from this height. The Axis front still holds firm and unbroken from the Qa'ttara depression to uie Mediterranean. The battle on the northern wing was resumed with full violence this morning, while central and southern sectors were comparatively quiet. There- is no truth in the report broadcast from Axis sources that an aeroplane carrying General Alexander was shot down in the British lines in Egypt yesterday. The report was apparently issued for propaganda purposes. On the Axis side n 0 mention is made of counter-attacks,, apart from one tank sortie.

Air Operations ENEMY CONVOY ATTACKED

LONDON, Oct. 28. The R.A.F. .is co-operating strongh' with the Eighth Army. Axis forces formed up yesterday for a counterattack, but the R.A.F. swept in and gave the concentration all it had, and. the- counterHatta'ck did not matepialise Wednesday’s British communique at Cairo stated: “There was no abatement of our air attacks on Monday night and Tuesday. Our night fighter patrols shot down one Junkers 87 and damaged others. On Tuesday fighter-bombers and light bombers attacked enemv concentrations and forward landing grounds and the Matruh dock area.” The enemy was mainly on the defensive, but late in the evening attempted a Stuka' attack on our forward troops. This wlas successfully intercepted r” our fighters, who dispersed the attack destroying thirteen enemj' aircraft. The total for the day was eighteen, and as many again were damaged. Most of the enemy casualties were fighters, and .it is now known 'that three .additional enemy fighters were destroyed, but not announced on October '26. The enemy “fighter-bomo-ing” continued over Malta, but little damage is reported. From these and other operations six of our aircraft failed to return. Torpedo planes commanded by Australians, co-operated with SouthAfrican and American bombers, in smashing an Axis convoy off Tobruk on Monday. In a brilliant operation, carried out in the face of an intense barrage from four escorting destroyers, and despite an umbrella of ene-( my fighter planes, Allied machines sank two of the three ships in the convoy. Medium bombers, escorted by long-range R.A.F. fighters, weaved mad 1 - to escape the destroyers’ ack ack, and straightened out at the last moment, and directly hit a tanker, bow and stern. A shattering explosion flung debris, including me ship’s bridge over a wide area. The torpedo planes then launched “fish’ one of which blew off the tanker s stern. South African bombers then dropped their load on the smaller merchantman’s deck, while fighters dived on a destroyer silencing its ack ack guns. In air combats, R.A.F. fighters shot down two Heinkel Ills At dusk, the torpedo plane squadron found a large merchantman creeping towards Tobruk, and registered several torpedo hits whereupon the ship listed and burst into flames. A moonlight reconnaissance showed the tanker and a larger merchantman were sunk, and the small merchantman helpless, and blazing. A dawn attack on the Axis landing-ground at Fuka on Tuesday was ia real Allied operation. American bombers swooped. in at' daylight and caught Italians unprepared, dive-bombed and ma-chine-gunned planes, and trucks. Jen Italian fighters got into the air. Four were, shot .down by Allied fighter escort. An Englishman, Scotsman, Canadian and Australian each got As the American fighter-bombers completed the afternoon with a raid on landing-grounds at El Daba 20 Messerschmitts, 20 Stukas, and 20 Capron is came in from the sea, the Americans accompanied by R.A.I 1 . end South Africans immediately attacked, though heavily outnumbered, and shot down three Messerschmitts, four Capronis, and two Stukas, and also a Macchi for the loss of one R.A.F., and one South African. For every aeroplane destroyed on the ground by the enemy, Malta’s A. A guns shot down one enemy raider, and the casualtes suffered by the island cost the enemy 13 tons of bombs for every person killed, says a senior officer, who arrived at Cairo from Malta, according to an agency message.

SWARMS OF ALLIED ’PLANES. (Rec. 10.50.) LONDON, Oct 28. The Berlin radio says: - ‘Enemy bomber formations in Egypt have been coming over for days in parade formation, without deviating an meh. They come surrounded by. swarms of fighters, which hover in the air like bees. We have never seen such a picture.”

May Take Ten Days

TO MASTER ENEMY RESISTANCE (Rec. 12.8.)! LONDON, October 28. In a leading article, “The Times” says: “A clear public warning was given at the outset of the Eighth Army’s attack, that no spectacular success was to be expected. The Eighth Armv is now entrusted, with the most formidable operation m its eventful history., to the completion of which there is no short cut. It is necessary to blast a wav forward. Progress in this fighting illustrates a revolution in the tactical handling of tanks. It has been discovered that tanks can be* halted by minefields, and, if so halted, thev can be destroyed by the enemv’s gunfire. General Montgomery’s first requirement is to bring the enemy’s heavy armour into battle. It takes time to induce this conflict, It takes more time to decide it. Even if ten davs. or more, should elapse before the enemy’s resistance can be mastered, the operation may be going according to plan BATTLE OUTLINED. LONDON, October 28. Lord Croft, speaking here, said: “We know the morale of the whole Eighth Army is very high. Once again it is a soldier’s battle, in which, we must assume therp is intense hand-to-hand fighting. We know our infantry made good progress in the north, where the thr.ee objectives allotted. them have been mostly gained and held. We know we have punched hard, and that in the first two days 1500 prisoners reached our cages, and counter-attacks against our Highlanders and the Australians have been driven off. We know bv now that there may be a. gap or gaps through which our main armour may be able to deploy, but we. also know that this battle is just as vital to Von Rommql as ourselves, and he will throw in literally everything to prevent a break-through. We know his highly experienced armoured and infantry divisions are waiting, to meet our armour the moment it is able to deploy. This morning we learned that our gains had been held, and British infantry advanced further into the enem v defences, and counterattacks have been repelled with loss

to the enemv. The battle is still on and is likeflv to continue. “No flanking movement, is possible, and we are assailing a well fortified line, widely protected by elaborate minefields, in a frontal attack. The enemy’s defence system is in great depth and has to be cleared of mines and pierced by infantry before, armoured vehicles can hone to operate against the powerful artillerv which the enemy disposes, and get to grips .with the panzers. This involves bloody fighting, but there is no alternative if Von Rommel’s veterans are to be shifted from their menacing positions so near the Egyptian capital. In this great offensive, three fine British infantry divisions were m the spearhead of the attack, along with Australians, New ■_ Zealanders, South Africans and Indians. We know the British armoured divisions are close on their heels, and our Fighting French and Greek allies are in the show with us. We all realise what a tough proposition we are up against, but. we also know that air co-operation has been on a scale our soldiers haye not previously experienced. .•