SANGUINARY BATTLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 97, 24 March 1941, Page 8

SANGUINARY BATTLE

BOMBARDMENT OF KEREN

(Eec. 2.5 p.m.) LONDON, March 24. Three hundred British and Italian guns are pumping sh«ls into each other across the gorges of the Eritrean escarpment four miles outside Keren, says the special correspondent of the Times. Our troops still hold Fort Dologorodoc, where a regiment from the Midlands suffered a teirifii; bombardment from the Italians, but our guns silenced several enemy batteries, thus ; more than equalising the scores. There is now little doubt that the Italian forces retreating -everywhere else have chosen Keren as the position to make a desperate- stand. Keren's 42,000 defenders, including Savoy Grenadiers and Carabinieri, are suffering cruel losses, every gorge being strewn with bodies. The British have taken 1000 prisoners, including hundreds of white men. The prisoners state that the Italians have rushed up every gun in their possession, including pieces built in Austria in 1870. British and French units, including detachments of the Foreign Legion, are heavily engaging the enemy on a peak 7000 ft in height northward of Keren. The R.A.F. in the last 24 hours have devastatingly attacked the Italian positions on' the escarpment and have also plastered a building in which the eiiomv have taken up their headquarters with four bombs, each weighing 2501 b.

Waves of bombers swept down on troop concentrations on the heights near the town and two battalions, one of which comprised 7000 men, were completely wiped out. Six deserters from the Grenadiers declared the British artillery and the K.A.F.'s repeated raids had made conditions intolerable for the Jtalian troops. The correspondent says he met the colonel in charge of Brigade Headquarters against which the Italian nlpine troops launched a heavy attack three nights ago. The colonel defended the headquarters with' characteristic courage, mobilising the clerks and kitchen hands to repel the invaders with heavy casualties. An Italian communique claims that an enemy attack on Keren on the evening of March 21 was repelled everywhere with heavy losses. An enemy column attempting to penetrate the Yavello sector was driven off.