Mareth Position Described

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 51, 2 March 1943, Page 5

Mareth Position Described

RUGBY, Feb. 28. A correspondent in North Africa describes the Mareth defence system as shaped roughly like the letter Y, rather flattened at the top. The top right hand stroke of the series of continuous defences along the Wadi Zigzou, a deep gully which crosses the coastal plain a mile or two southeast of Mareth village. A correspondent .says the position js that General Montgomery possesses all the country between the mountains and the sea to within a very short distance of Wadi Zigzou. There, shelling goes on between the leading British units and the enemy artillery in the main line, while British aircraft are making repeated heavy attacks on the positions in the strongly defended zone. Along the stem of Y, the British forward positions rest along the foothills while the enemy still holds a good many of the positions higher in the hills, but British armoured patrols are steadily probing the defences and there have been clashes on the slopes with small enemy units. As for the left-hand stroke of the Y, nothing more has been reported since the British occupation, a few days ago, of Ghermessa on top of a plateau 22 miles south of Ksar Elhalluf where the strokes on the Y join the stem.