STORM IN DESERT

Southland Times, Issue 24422, 30 April 1941, Page 5

STORM IN DESERT

CHECK TO AXIS FORCES THRUST INTO EGYPT (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) CAIRO, April 29. A sudden sandstorm in the Western Desert has temporarily checked the enemy forces thrusting to Egypt from Libya. Visibility in some places has been reduced to 50 yards.

A communique issued in Cairo states: “There is no change at Tobruk. In the Solium area yesterday enemy detachments which penetrated five or six miles across the frontier the previous evening made little or no progress. Light elements of a well-known British armoured division are once again in contact with the enemy. Operations continue satisfactorily in all Abyssinian areas.

The light enemy detachments which on Saturday crossed the Egyptian frontier have entered the port of Solium. The forces were harried by light British

armoured units. Harried by British fighter aircraft the enemy has been unable to bring up reinforcements. Typical of British air action in Libya is the machine-gunning of troops while they were embarking in German troop carrying aeroplanes. This is recorded in a Royal Air Force Middle East communique. It states: “In Cyrenaica yesterday the Royal Air Force continued to hamper the enemy movements, bombing and machine-gunning troops and transport. At Benina fighters machine-gunned a number of Junkers 52 troop carriers while they were embarking troops on the ground. One enemy aircraft was destroyed by fire and the remainder were badly damaged.

HOPELESS POSITION OF ITALIANS LONDON, April 28. When the British and Imperial forces entered Dessye on Saturday evening the main strength of what was left of the Italian resistance in Abyssinia was broken. The Duke of Aosta’s troops now have only the choice of uselessly retreating towards inevitable starvation or of striking across the desert to French Somaliland. Should the latter course be chosen the Italians run a grave risk of being cut off by the claws of the armoured pincers from the north and south.

There seems little chance of these defeated troops being able to make contact with the remaining points of resistance at Gondar or Jimma, and the capture of Dessye places at the British disposal the administrative centre of the Wallo province. The correspondent of the British Associated Press, in a despatch lodged on Sunday, states that at least 200 Italians are estimated to have been killed in the battle for Dessye. Five hundred more, with 60 natives, were taken prisoner and it is believed that 300 more are being brought in. The capture of Dessye followed tough fighting around the pass to the south of the town. The Italians defended it strongly from well fortified positions but finally broke and withdrew rapidly. Reaching the summit of the pass the British sighted Italian reinforcements upon which they charged, but the Italians turned and fled.

The Emperor Haile Selassie’s flag now flies in every town in the Gojjam district, except Bahrdar, on the southern shore of Lake Tsana. General Nasi at Gondar is reported" to be cut off by Patriots approaching from three points.

THREE LOST ITALIAN DESTROYERS

LONDON, April 28.

An Admiralty communique states that it has now been established that the three Italian destroyers sunk when an enemy convoy was obliterated by our naval forces between Sicily and Tripoli on April 15 were the Luca Tarigo, of 1628 tons, a destroyer of the Folgore class, of 1220 tons, and a destroyer of the Vega class, of 652 tons.