ALLIED MOVES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24537, 20 March 1943, Page 7

ALLIED MOVES

ROAD TO GABES american_advance bombers pound enemy IJJORTHERN FRONT HELD Jy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright LONDON. March 19 The Allied troops who recaptured Gafsa on Wednesday have pushed ahead through dense minefields along the road to Gabes, according to Allied correspondents. Latest reports put them 12 miles beyond Gafsa, near a place called El Guettar, where the Germans are expected to put up a fight. Rain and hailstorms have hampered the progress of the Allied troops and kept Allied aircraft on the ground. Waves of American medium bombers earlier pounded the enemy columns moving back from Gafsa and smashed at least four Axis tanks. Latest reports show that United States tanks and infantry have fanned out south-east of Gafsa. A correspondent at Allied headquarters says the Americans have pushed out patrols

under an umbrella of anc fighters toward the pass of El Guettar .which is held by Italian troops. Th< tracks through the valleys are nou quagmires and tanks and heavy artil lery can only move along the main road United States troops recapturec Gafsa without the loss of a single soldier says the Associated Press correspondent with the American forces. He adds that the Americans met only scattered Email arms fire on the outskirts of Gafsa, but American howitzers opened an assault and knocked out an Italian battery. Waves of American bombers pounded the enemy withdrawing along the congested roads. Reuter's correspondent says that after entering Gafsa the Americans advanced and occupied Lola, at the south-eastern edge of the town, also the hill at Jebel Rekaik, six miles east of Gafsa. The attack against Gafsa began with an artillery barrage at 7.30 a.m., after Which Mitchell bombers pounded the defences. The infantry attacked at 10 a.m. from the north and north-east, where on the night previously they had taken up positions. Gafsa was occupied 6hortly after mid-day. Fighting in Northern Tunisia continues after another German attack West of Sed Jenano. This at first gained Borne ground, but British First Army men drove the enemy back. The British counter-attacked in the ffamera region, and restored by nightfall the dent in their line. The British also counter-attacked and made some headway against Axis forces who overran French positions further north. The Berlin radio claims that Axis troop 3 west of Sed Jenane, after a surprise attack, forced a breakthrough on a wide front, and says that fresh American forces are concentrated to the west of the Oussel-tia-Pichon area, "probably for a new attack against Kairwan and Faid Pass." Torpedo bombers from Malta have scored three hits on a very large tanker in an Axis convoy off southeast Italy. Night intruders ranged over Sicily and the toe of Italy, destroying or badly damaging seven locomotives as well as shooting up a merchant ship. FOREIGN SERVICE PROPOSALS FOR REFORM LONDON, March IS Opening the House of Commons debate on the Government proposals for reform of the foreign service, the Foreign Under-Secretary, Mr. R. K. La it, said that the reason for the proposed reforms was not inefficiency, it Was simply that conditions had changed in two vital respects. Firstly, there was the disappearance of what one might call the government class, which until relatively recently, in every Western country, was a small, restricted class responsible for government and policy in that country. In every country that class had much the same outlook, "he same standard of education and values, fn those circumstances it was necessary that our diplomats should be members of that class, otherwise they would be likely to have < v ery little influence in the country frhere they represented us. Those times, however, were past, and ®ore recently the net for foreign service officials had been cast very wide. These tendencies were already well Marked before the war and would certainly become even more definite after tte war period, when it would be neces•ary for every member of the foreign service to be in the fullest possible ®Bnse representative of every class and section of the community. Secondly, and this was even a Sweater change, there had been fusion politics and economics in foreign ®ffairs. The foreign service of the future *ould have to give all possible help to exporters and to the revival and Increase of export trade. Provision was be 'ng made that in future no young ®an of ability, personality and character was to be prevented from entering foreign service through lack of Hteans, and that every recruit should receive the fullest possible training, not Only _in foreign languages, but in commercial practice, economic practice, trade union law, etc. -The House approved the proposals by *53 votes to 6,