CALM OPTIMISM

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 126, 30 April 1941, Page 8

CALM OPTIMISM

VIEWS ON LIBYA. (T.TniLed Press Association — (Rec. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 29. The Gormans and Italians have reached a point five miles eastward of Solium, where their advance has been halted, says the military spokesman at Cairo, lie added that enemy troops are now spread out on a long, straggling line from Tripoli to Solium, with minor groups at Barclia and Tobruk. The Germans, particularly, are feeling the vicissiutdes of desert warfare. The situation in Libya is generally viewed by military circles in Cairo with calm optimism. The Italians since the fall of Dessye have been bolting in all directions in Abyssinia, with opposition from the patriots cropping up in all kinds of unexpected places. About halt the garrison at Dassve escaped. A British Official Wireless report Bavs that with the capture of Kombo'l cia aerodrome, 15 miles cast of Dessye—which had decided the Italians to evacuate Dessye itself—most of the network of aerodromes established bv the Italians across Abyssinia are now in British hands, according to military observers.

In the area between Dessye and Arnbi Alaga there is only one fullyequipped aerodrome, and it is not of first class—at Alomata. Further west, in the Gondar-Lake Tsana area, there are four so-called aerodromes, and these landing grounds, may also have been taken by the Abyssinian patriots.