STILL UNBEATEN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 308, 31 December 1942, Page 5

STILL UNBEATEN

FAMOUS BATTALION GETS BACK TO LINES FOUR HECTIC DAYS’ STORY (Recd. 11.40 p.m.) London, Dec. 29. After haing given up as lost, one of Britain’s crack battalions, still unbeaten but staggering, mudcovered, hungry and carrying their wounded, fought their way back into the British and American lines lour days vanishing into the Tunisian mountains. The Associated Press correspondent' near Medjez el Bab, in a despatch dated December 26, tells the unit’s experiences. During the four days it had been seven miles behind the German lines, without food and almost without munitions, cut off from other Allied forces and continually attacked. A major who has already been twice reported dead on this front recounts how the unit, with 55 mules, three days before Christmas set out through mud into the German-held mountains, whose slopes were su boggy that they averaged only a mile an hour. The battalion, travelling at night time, had almost reached the objective on December 24, but the radio was accident ally smashed. Fot that reason there was no contact with headquarters. The going was so terrible that 45 mules died of exhaustion, but the men slogged on and shot up German outposts as they neared their objectives. The battalion finally took up position on a high knoll which the Germans attacked at 11 p.m. on December 23. The British repeatedly repelled onslaughts, including bayonet charges. The attack eased off at 2 a.m. on Christmas Day. The British commander decided to withdraw because food and water were gone and the ammunition almost exhausted, and some were wounded. The unit began to fight its way out and spent Christmas Day in a ravine under constant machine-gun fire. The evacuation of wounded men began. Then the remainder withdrew from the range of fire. Many men were without sleep since December 22 and on the verge of utter exhaustion, but they struggled on throughout the night. The first groups began to arrive at I dawn on December 26. [ The unit, which had been in the I front line since the Algiers landing and had endured a terrific fight ar Terburba, completed the withdrawal to the British and American lines at nightfall. They brought in all their wounded. mostly on improvised stretchers.

ALLIES OUTPACED AXIS REINFORCEMENTS IN TUNISIA New York, Dec. 29. , The correspondent of ths Christian Science Monitor in North ' Africa says that the strength of lhe German flak at Tunis an 1 EUer.a • shows that Hitler has redistributed his fighting strength and has succeeded in pouring heavy r.uiiorcements into Africa, outpacing the Allies. He quotes an R.A.F. officer as saying: “The German flak at Tunis is as good as it ever was at Ostend.” This means, says the correspondent, that the Allies have been checked and obliged to withdraw to defensive positions, after fierce counter-attacks, in order to await reinforcements and supplies, while the Axis is continuing to improve its African airfields and to construct new ones. This has magnified the Allied task of renewed attack and has also reduced the prospect of a quick decision.