THOUSANDS TAKEN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 126, 30 April 1941, Page 7

THOUSANDS TAKEN

ITALIANS IN ABYSSINIA. LATEST OPERATIONS. (United Press Association —Copyright) (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 10 a.m.) RUGBY, April 29. A Cairo communique, dealingwith the operations in Abyssinia, says that during the activities culminating in the capture of Dessye, north-east of Addis Ababa, our troops took prisoner 2000 Italians and 400 colonial troops, with a number of guns and lorries, and quantities of war ma I d ial. The damage to the roads leading to and from Dessye is being rapidly repaired.

While the operations of our troops | are developing successfully in other i areas of Abyssinia, the patriot activiI ties are rapidly extending all over the country. Not only has the lad of Dessye robbed the Italians of their last stronghold in Abyssinia, but it means that the British have won the -‘Battle of the Rains.” The rains will now not be long in coming. The R.A.F. and S.A.A.F. continue to give support to the successful ground operations in Abyssinia. S.A.A.F. fighters machine-gunned and damaged enemy transport concentrations between Batie a.nd Tandeho. R.A.F. bombers bombed and machinegunned an enemy position and trenches in the Chilga area. The Vichy reports which were current last night to the effect that Free French forces, supported by British units, had made an attack on French Somaliland were not persisted in, and later reports from the same source merely stated that the Free French had massed on the Abyssinian frontier and in the northern part of British Somaliland and that British warships had appeared off Djibuti. blocking the entrance.