PERFECT TIMING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21872, 27 January 1941, Page 5

PERFECT TIMING

Britain'* Libyan Drive

British Official Wireless

RUGBY, January 24. Commenting on the British North Africa successes, "The Times,” after remarking that the results could not have been achieved if the Navy had not swept the Italian navy from the seas just as completely as the Royal Air Force has swept the Regia Aeror. atica clean out of the skies, discusses features of the campaign. "It would be impossible to imagine a more perfect balance which affords time for reconnaissance and so avoids unnecessary loss,” it states. “Not a moment has been wasted, and the speed with which the Army has moved from one objective to the next has been amazing. On the other hand, each position in turn, has been reconnoitred and probed, till all its secrets have been laid bare. Then its sting has been extracted. Nothing has been left to chance.

"Tobruk must be considered in conjunction with the recapture of Kassala on the Sudan frontier and the pursuit in that area, with the stirring of the revolt in Abyssinia, and with the activity of offensive patrols on the Kenya border. "General WaveU’s reports are almost as laconic as those of Julius Caesar, but his achievements are beginning to promise results almost as spectacular. We can greet the victory at Tobr.:k with unqualified, if sober, joy, both as a punishment for Mussolini, who has to gravely misled his people, and as an embarrassment to Hitler.”