QUIET ON AFRICAN FRONT

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXI, Issue 15237, 30 December 1942, Page 3

QUIET ON AFRICAN FRONT

WEATHER CAUSES LULL AWKWARD PROBLEMS FACED. ROMMEL’S INTENTIONS 1 OBSCURE United Press Assn.—By Electric J Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, Dec. 28. “Almost all quiet on the African 1 j front’ ’ is the tenor o-f dispatches ! from war correspondents in Tripolij tania and Tunisia, but this does not j suggest that stalemate has settled | down over North Africa. Military experts emphasise that I Field-Marshal Rommel’s unbroken retreat for almost 900 miles since the El Ala mein line was broken sug- , gests that the Axis, High Command j long ago decided to cut its losses ; with Prussian ruthlessness so that ; the strongest possible force could be j concentrated in tli<e North African j bridgehead centring in Tunisia. The Eighth Army occupied Sirte j |op Christmas Day without resist-. ance. The Germans had almost coin-1 pletely demolished the village, hardly . a house beiug left standing. The road, j was blown up, and booby traps and ; mines gave the suppers a sticky j Christmas. i The weather in Tunisia remains j the infantryman’s nightmare, a lew j warm and sunny days alternating i with weeks of cold- driving rain, j causing; muddy quagmires. The miser- j able billets are reminiscent of the | last war. As then, Tommy’s sense of j humour rises above all. ! A correspondent of “The Times” ! with the First Army says : ' ‘Tile en- j c-my clearly has increased his j strength during the lull, but so have , we. Thus the stage is set for heavy j fighting. Enemy air activity has j greatly increased.” • . j The enemy commander in Libya, j it is thought in London, must be ; confronted with awkward problems, j If he could get his forces into f un- ! isia largely intact, he -would bring j valuable reinforcements to his col- j leagues there. On the other band, if to do this be retired from Tripoli i quickly, the Eighth Army would be able to advance quickly, and tlia.t ' would mean. among other things, j that the enemy army in Tunisia, j would be under heavy air ..pressure ; from the east and the south as well j as from the west.

Again, if Rommel went right back to Tuusia he would give up Tripoli, the only port on. that part of the coast. Yet if lie delayed in any way he would suffer losses and might find it difficult to extricate himself when it becomes necessary.