AGAIN INVESTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1942, Page 3

AGAIN INVESTED

TOBRUK FACING ANOTHER SIEGE BRITISH FRONTIER LINE. BETTER THAN THAT TAKEN UP LAST YEAR. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.32 a.m.) RUGBY, June 19. Tobruk, after six months, is again invested, and hopes are high that it will prove as valuable to the Allies and as embarrassing to the enemy as it did during the eight months for which it stood at bay last year, now that the Eighth Army is in the same general strategic position at it occupied before it moved forward last November. The British positions on the from tier are an improvement on those of last year, as they now include the extremely strong fortresses of Halfaya, Solium Bardia, and Sidi Omar, which the enemy fortified last year. From aerodromes behind this line, the R.A.F. will be able to maintain superiority over the forward area, which is only eighty miles from Solium. The Press does not disguise the fact that the battle has resulted in a tactical defeat and quotes Mr Churchills reminder, after Dunkirk, that evacuation cannot win wars. It is suggested that the inability of the Navy and the R.A.F. to interfere effectively with the Axis supply routes is due to. the lavish provision made by the Axis to meet all losses likely to be suffered. The “Daily Telegraph’ points out that nothing short of an advance to Benghazi could improve the Allied supply position, and that if the Axis can be held at the Egyptian frontier, no new strategic dangers should emerge.