VILLAGE OF SIRTE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 307, 30 December 1942, Page 5

VILLAGE OF SIRTE

DEMOLISHED BY GERMANS London, Dec. 28. Almost all quiet on the African front is the tenor of dispatches from war correspondents in Tripolitania and Tunisia, but this does not suggest that a stalemate has settled down over North Africa. Military experts emphasise that Rommel’s ' unbroken retreat of almost 900 miles since his El Alamein line was broken suggests that the Axis High Command long ago decided to cut its losses with Prussian ruthlessness so that the strongest possible force could be concentrated at the North African bridgehead centring on Tunisia. The Eighth Army occupied Sirte on Christmas Day without resistance. The Germans had almost completely demolished the village, and hardly a house was left standing. The road was blown up, while booby traps and mines gave the sapper a sticky Christmas. The weather in Tunisia remains an infantryman’s nightmare, a few warm, sunny days alternating with weeks of cold, driving rain causing muddy quagmires and miserable billets reminiscent of the iast war. Then, as now. the Tommy’s sFnse of humour rises above all. The Times correspondent with the First Army says that the enemy clearly has increased his strength during the lull, so have we. Thus the stage is set for heavy fighting. Enemy air activity has also greatly increased. FRENCH FORCES FROM LAKE CHAD (Recd. 11.21 p.m.) London, Dec. 29 A French Headquarters communique says the enemy in the area south of Pont du Fahs counterattacked with fresh units. We made a slight withdrawal in the northern part of this sector, while further south our detachments increased their advance and took more prisoners.