TO CUT OFF ROMMEL

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLXII, Issue 15242, 7 January 1943, Page 3

TO CUT OFF ROMMEL

AMERICAN TROOPS MOVE. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph. -Copyright. LONDON, January 5. American troops are within a day s march of Gabes in their drive to cut the coast road linking the armies of Nehring and Rommel, says the Eighth Army News . which daily leaches the troops in Tripolitania. The Daily Mail’s correspondent wftli the First Army says Arabs constantly wandering across no man's land between the Allied and German positions describe Tunis as a dead city, shuttered and silent, except for the German garrison. Its population has been moved out except the Jews who are forced to help in the defence work. The Germans aim to fortify every house and street aud thus turn the city into a hedgehog like Stalingrad. The city’s layout facilitates the task, for th© warren of streets in the older quarters face inland. It is evident from the nature of the defences being constructed tliat the First Army faces a hard fight when the rainy season allows tank movement.

The weather at present is dry. but 24 hours’ rain would turn no mail’s land into a sea of mud across which tanks would be unable to cross. The threat of this will last at least until th© end of January. Th© Exchange Telegraph Company’s Algiers correspondent says it is officially announced that the United States Fifth Army has been formed under th© command of Lieu-tenant-General Mark Clark. This army and th© British First will be under General Eisenhower’s cammand.

Th© Rome radio reports that the Sultan of Morocco has issued a proclamation confining all Axis citizens to their houses. Their radio sets have been requisitioned and their premises searched. Many persons have been arrested or placed in concentration camps.