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Show BRITISH UNITS DRIVE BEYOND SEIZED BARDI A Officials Declare Patrols Set Up Tobruk Blockade CAIRO. Egypt, Jan. 1.11 Advanced Ad-vanced British mechanized units already are operating; around the outer defenses of Tobruk, with indications Monday night that they might sweep around that Immediate objective to attack at-tack Bengasi, across Cirenaica. LONDON. Jan. t.TV British military circles declared mechanised mechan-ised patrols had established a "close blockade" ot Tobruk. By R. D. McMILLAN and JAN YINDRICII WITH THE BRITISH EMPIRE EM-PIRE FORCES AT BARDIA, Jan. (UP) The British flag flics over the Italian government govern-ment house in Bardia Monday in token that empire forces have won their greatest victory of the war. More than 25,000 Italian prisoners, prison-ers, pick of the Italian army that was to march to the Suez canal, are in British hands and straggling back to the rear. Among them are General Annl-bale Annl-bale Berganzoli. commander in chief of the Bardia forces, railed "Electric Beard" because of his sparkling blue-black whiskers; a corps commander and four other generals. Spoils Total Millions Millions of dollars In war spoils, including at least $5,000,000 in motor mo-tor trucks alone, have fallen with Bardia into British hands. The way is open to Tobruk, 60 miles to the west, and the British forces are eager to go. Bardia fell at 4:30 p. m. Saturday, Satur-day, 35 hours after Australian Infantry In-fantry behind British tanks had opened the final asault. The Inst resistance collapsed at 1:30 Sunday Sun-day afternoon. As the empire forces advanced, the Australian Infantrymen sang a chorus from the "Wizard of Oz," for 300 vards across flat open desert des-ert sand under one of the worst artillery bombardments these correspondents cor-respondents have seen In years of war reporting, and another 200 yards In the face of direct machine gun fire. Italian Surrender They entered the city through a shower of bullets from windows and the resistance collapsed. By thousands, the Italians began pouring pour-ing out into the streets to surrender. surren-der. Eight thousand, north of the city, and some to the south, had held out. Rather, they had sought to escape through the British lines. But they failed. The tanks at the first glimmer of dawn had wheeled into position, posi-tion, throwing up clouds of dust, the noise of their motors drowned In a sudden din of artillery and naval gun fire directed at the Italian Ital-ian stronghold. In battle dress and steel hel- IConttmiM nn Ph.. Thr.. (Column Two) British Forces Thrust Past Bardia, Report Blockade Rings Tobruk (Continued from Pa Ont) met, With rifle and hand grenades, gre-nades, the Australians went "over! "the top" a purely technical phrase as they atarted out on level desert sand as the tanks advanced. ad-vanced. Ahead of them went engineers engi-neers to cut the barbed wire. The British artillery laid down a heavy creeping oarrage, but the engineers were soon under heavy At the entrance to Bardia were two British tanks. It was nearing dark, end the fires sent a ruddy glow over the whole sky. "Look, I've got a whole .battalion!" .battal-ion!" called a young Australian. We looked and saw a young soldier. ' fire. As one of them went (town, another stepped up and took on his Job of snipping the wire. During the darkness before the zero hour, the engineers had blown up the formidable Italian tank ditch at selected points. Tanks Smash Fort Over the paths across the tank ; ditch, the tanks advanced and I smashed the Italian perimeter ; forts surrounding Bardia . As the Australians reached the main defense line, from fort after fort went up the white flag. Only a few held out. The advance was halted for the night, while the bombardment kept up mercilessly, and was started again Saturday morning. The zero hour for the final attack at-tack was 4 p. m. Saturday. The i tanks clanked forward, the in-' in-' fantrymen with them. Bardia was silent. Half an hour later the first tank entered the burning town. There had not been a single shot, and not an Italian had appeared in a street or a window. Then there was a sputter of , rifle fire from snipers in. windows ' and An rfwiffrvn and a hnrt nf ma. his head wrapped in a blood-soaked blood-soaked bandage, escorting 2000 Italians who had been captured by an officer and seven men. They were bedraggled, but weakly cheerful cheer-ful .as they marched, their faces covered with a several days' growth of beard. As we toured the town it was evident the civilian population had left long ago. Many of the Italian prisoners, we were told, were famished when captured and begged for .food. The Australians established a temporary headquarters in the courthouse, one of the few buildings build-ings still standing. Three Italian gendarmes came up to us with their hands up to surrender. They seemed afraid when they learned they would sleep in Bardia last night. "We have gone through a terrible terri-ble experience with tha shelling and bombing," one of fVrn said. We told them all thaf'waa over and that they would be well treated. treat-ed. We turned them over to a soldier sol-dier who made friendly signs indicating in-dicating that he would give them food and shelter. chine gun fire from the tower of the principal mosque. The Infantrymen moved out with hand grenades and the bayonet bayo-net and this last flare of resistance ; soon ended. One officer, armed with a re-j re-j volver, and seven of his men with I rifles slung on their shoulders, cap-j cap-j tured a single group of 2000 men who had been concealed In caves which the British said would have been most costly to take. The Italian commandant appeared at I the entrance to one cave. His men 1 filed out and threw down their rifles. We crossed the no man's land before Bardia Immediately behind ! the attacking forces. Likened to Flanders i Going along the Fort Capuzro-1 Capuzro-1 Bardia road was like negotiating l a hot corner In Flanders in the last war. j All around was scattered the debris of war. The battle field was ; littered with guns of all calibers, burned-out tanks and trucks and smoldering munitions and gawiline dumps. Australians had occupied all the Italian forts and pill boxes and were collecting the spoils the Italians Ital-ians had left. Our truck halted for 50 Italian j prisoners, escorted by a single Aus-I Aus-I tralian whose rifle was slung over ' his shoulder. They were the sur- vivors of a big force who had been i ejected from three forts by a hand ' grenade attack. |
