BUFFER PHRASES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 June 1942, Page 4

BUFFER PHRASES

AND DRAWING ROOM MANNER PRESENTATION OF BAD NEWS FROM LIBYA. COMMENTATOR’S ESTIMATE OF REALITIES. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.45 a.m.) LONDON, June 18. “The bad news from Libya has been issued from official sources in an exasperatingly smug, drawingroom manner,” says the “Evening Standard’s” aeronautical correspondent, Major Oliver Stewart, “but if we thrust aside the shock-absorb-ing verbiage and 8.8. C. buffer phrases, we hit the facts hard. They are that the Axis is continuing its project of encircling the Mediterranean with air bases and seizing that sea by dominating it from the air. ■'This,” Major Stewart .adds, “is to be the Axis sequel to the American feats of the Coral Sea and Midway Island. It is to be aircraft versus surface craft in its fiercest form. The battle in the Middle East is the first all-out battle for air bases. With every mile Rommel has advanced eastward, Sicily and Crete have multiplied their value to the enemy as air bases. When we held Benghazi, our planes were only 560 flying miles from Malta. Now Malta is no longer within normal fighter range of any British airfield. From Crete, where the enemy airfields are well stocked, to Benghazi, is 350 miles, but to Tobruk it is only 215 files. It is twice as easy for the 1 enemy to exercise air control over the narrows between Crete and North Africa with land-based planes, which he tan operate from both sides, so Crete multiplies its menace to our forces with every Axis advance. British' sea forces are being squeezed into the Eastern pocket of the Mediterranean and convoys must fight ever more furiously to get through. At the same time, the great supply line across Africa, along which United States material has been flowing, is placed in peril.” AIR SUPERIORITY ENEMY CLAIM DENIED IN LONDON. (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, June 18. It is authoritatively stated here that the enemy claim to have snatched air superiority in Libya, is without foundation. The R.A.F. has consistently maintained air superiority since the beginning of the campaign, this applying both to bombers and fighters. SITUATION SERIOUS NAZI THREAT TO TOBRUK. PROBLEM FOR THE EIGHTH ARMY. (Receved This Day, 12.20 p.m.) CAIRO, June 18. General Rommel is concentrating such strength against the new British positions southward and westward of Tobruk that the situation must be regarded as serious. The evacuation of El Adem and Sidi Rezegh presents the Eighth Army with a most difficult problem, in maintaining an effective line. A message from Cairo says the Germans will find nothing at Acroma and, for that reason, it can be assumed that it also has already been evacuated. The British meantime continue to maintain communication between Tobruk and the Egyptian frontier and an attack against the Tobruk perimeter itself has not yet developed.