ACTIVITY AT TOBRUK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 291, 13 November 1941, Page 7

ACTIVITY AT TOBRUK.

(lice. 1.1. a.m.) RUGBY, Nov. 12. A Cairo communique says that at Tobruk yesterday air activity was about normal whereas hostile artillery was more active against the eastern and southern sectors. On Monday night, although our patrols operating on a wide front covered areas in which enemy patrols had recently been active, no contact was made. There is nothing to report from tlie frontier area.

FREE FRENCH AIR STRENGTH. A London message says: The Free French Forces celebrated Armistice Day by handing over to the R.A.F. command at Cairo a new group of bomber squadrons. Tlie ceremony took place at a desert aerodrome from which flew the French flag. General do Larmina presented the squadrons to acting-Air Vice-Mar-shal E. W. Elmhirsv. The crews of the squadrons represent every part of the French Empire. Other French fighting squadrons will shortly join the bombers in the desert.

The xMlied Air Forces in the Middle East will shortly he strengthened by the arrival in the Western Desert of the Free French Lorraine Squadron. Some of the men escaped from pri-soner-of-war camps including the commander, Edouard Corniglion Molinic. At the age of 16 he was the youngest fighter pilot in the last war, and is the oldest to-day. He received the Croix de Guerre for destroying twelve German planes in the last war, and last year, at the age of 41, lie received the same decoration for destroying seven Nazi planes. With J. A. Mollison ho holds tho London to the Cape record.