NAZI PUSH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 124, 29 May 1941, Page 5

NAZI PUSH

WESTERN DESERT ARMOURED UNITS MOVE WEST BRITISH HOLDING FOUR COLUMNS (Recd. 6.30 p.m.) Cairo, May 27. Fighting is progressing in the Western Desert on a fluid front, 4(1 miles along, on which we are holding up an attempted advance of four German armoured columns. The Germans, on (he afternoon ot Monday, attacked from three directions. A column, comprising a number of tanks and motorised infantry, advanced from Capuzzo towards Hell Fire Pass, the long edge of an escarpment running parallel to the sea. A British force under a quarter of the size, engaged the column and field it: up all night. British troops, however, on the morning of Tuesday, were compelled to retire from the pass in face of the Germans' great weight. By noon the British consolidated new positions about a mile from the pass and are now holding the Germans. Simultaneously with this push, the Germans threw two armoured columns southward from Capuzzo, to cover the right .flank of the main advance. Our mobile units opposed three columns, and all night on Monday the battle swayed back and forth across miles of open country, and on the morning of Tuesday our forces were reported to be holding the Germans. Southward of Solium a fourth German column, whose role appears to be to support the other columns, is advancing slowly due east from a point on the frontier southward of Capuzzo. This column has not yet attempted to join battle. The German push does not appear to herald a general effort to penetrate further into Egypt. The objective seems to be to secure a position protecting the right flank and communications from Capuzzo and Bardia from harassing by our fast-moving columns.