Kasserine Pass in Allied Hands

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 49, 27 February 1943, Page 5

Kasserine Pass in Allied Hands

Hot on Heels of Enemy (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, Feb. 25. The Kasserine Pass, in Central Tunisia, has been re-occupied by the Allied forces without a shot being fired. This was made known in a news flash from London late this afternoon. Earlier messages stated that the pass had been evacuated by the Axis forces. The Axis forces are retreating from the Kesserine Pass to the plains east of Kasserine, Feriana, and Sbeitla, and they have now left the pass entirely. There is a possibility that the Axis forces may attempt to approach Tebessa, in Algeria, by striking around the southern bend of the hills in which the Kasserine Pass lies. Under heavy blows from the British and American air and land forces, the Germans are pouring back into the open plain south of the three-mile wide Kasserine Gap, says Reuter’s Algiers correspondent. The tight, compact mass is suffering heavy losses and Italian troops are being sacrificed in the attempt to hold the German rear.

Another Axis force is still falling back along the road to Feriana, south-west of Kasserine, under increasing attacks from Allied fighters and bombers. Paris radio Says that British and American reinforcements have reached the Tebessa area.

Berlin radio, in admitting the withdrawal, said that the Axis forces had fallen back to positions which permitted control of the Allied development area. Reuter’s correspondent on the Tunisian front says that many of the 2000 Italians, cut off in the pass leading to Siliana, north-east of Thala, have already surrendered. An attempt to relieve them by a second battalion sent from the Ousseltia Valley failed completely. While British and American troops are swarming into the Kasserine Pass, the Allied Air Force has spread its air assaults deep beyond the enemy’s rear.