WAR OF ATTRITION

Otago Daily Times, Volume 25205, Issue 25205, 20 April 1943, Page 3

WAR OF ATTRITION

AXIS SUPPLY UNES ATTACKED TOLL OF SHIPS AND PLANES LONDON, Apl. 18. The lull continues on the Tunisian lend front, with the Italians and Germans strenuously consolidating their defence lines in the hilly terrain. Allied patrols are ceaselessly probing for weak spots. Chief interest at present is focused in the battle of the supply lines, in which Allied surface craft, submarines, and aircraft are keeping up the attack day and night. They have sunk at least 45 Axis ships in the Mediterranean since March 15. The North-west African air force in that period has destroyed 18 Axis ships, British submarines have sunk 21 vessels, the Greek and Dutch navies have

sunk four, and our light coastal forces four. A large total of Axis shipping has also been damaged, while the foregoing figures do not include many small craft sunk.

The North African air force in the same period shot down 519 Axis aircraft and destroyed or damaged nearly 1000 on the ground for the loss of 175 Allied aircraft, 10 of which were destroyed on the ground. Statistics seldom make a thrilling story, but these figures offset the dearth of news from the land front with a picture in which the sailors and airmen of the United Nations are wearing down the Axis in a ceaseless war of attrition. The Allied air forces in the Mediterranean shot down 43 Axis planes for the loss of 18 during the 48 hours ended at dusk on April 17.

The Daily Express correspondent in Tunisia says that for the. first time in this war the Western democracies have in Tunisia assembled armies on the Russian scale. “Looking at their tens of thousands of vehicles, you might despair of finding any order or direction, but the junction of the various forces is being solidly cemented,” he says.

Belief that German preparations have been made for evacuation from Tunisia should their mountain perimeter defences be broken is strengthened by a report that the Germans in Tunisia have been told that Hitler has “graciously acceded to the request of the wives and womenfolk that they should be allowed to return to Germany after their long services abroad.” The leading Italian commentator, Mario Appelius, in an article in the Popolo d’ltalia, says: “For the British and Americans to win the final stage of the North African war does not mean that they have won a decisive battle. They must realise that one of the numerous strategical truths realised by the Axis after the conquest of France, Norway, the Balkans, the Ukraine, the Crimea, Burma, Malaya, the East Indies, and Philippines is that the possession of all these bases has not enabled the Axis to win the war, because this struggle is too vast to be won in five or ten happy strokes.”