Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-09-16
First British Line
OF Fortificotions
Declared Broken
r. the Associated Press.

EN the Associated PreSS.
ROME. Sept. 1G-Italian forces
have broken through the first i'm
portant line of permanent British
Notifications facing the Libyan
frontier in their advance through
Salum, the newspaper II Giornale
d'Italia reported today
1t said the Italian forces also had
captured many British arms and
desert trucks. The high command
earlier had reported Marshal Rodol-
70 Graziani's army still advancing
after destroying so tanks and
armored cars and inflicting heavy
losses on British troops.
On Cairo, Egypt, the British
acknowledged that italian columns
had pushed 25 miles into Egypt
to the village of Buqbuq, on the
coastal road)
II Giornales editor. the authori-
tative Fascist spokesman. Virginia
Gayda, said the fortified line
stretched from the Mediterranean
coast at Salum south to Alfaya and
Sidi Omar. He described it as a
series of strong works with camps,
hospitals, lines of barbed wire en-
tanglements, artillery emplacements,
! machlne-gunS and automatic arms
Line Well Equipped
! Gayda declared the line was well
Equipped and reinforced" The
British in that zone. he said. were
Using columns of armored cars for
mobile. guerilla warfare conducted
with the most modern mechanical
Equipment
Much of this mobile armed ma
hterlal was supplied nv Ford" Gayda
declared, and bum for the par
ticular needs of the desert. so-called
desert trucks which the British COM
mand equipped with obvious often
sive aims against Italy beginning
with the early months of 1899"
Referring to advances from Italys
East African colonies into British
Somaliland, which the British
abandoned, Kenya colony and the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the drive
from Libya into Egypt, Gayda said:
All African territory under British
military command and bordering on
Italian territory therefore now is
under attack by italian forces which
have advanced VIGOROUSLY beyond
all borders"
Supply Dumps Declared Fired.
British forces were heavily bombed
by Italian planes, which set fire to
numerous supply dumps, the high
command communique said.
The Italian Air Force was reported
necessarily bombing British posi-
tons in the Sudan and airdrome
hangers in the Coz Regeb zone.
The high command said italian
dive bombers, attacked by British
flyers after bombing the Halfar
Airfield IN Malta, shot down one
British plane.
A British submarine was reported
sunk by a motor torpedo boat in the
Eastern Mediterranean and a Brit
ish cruiser hit by an air bomb.
Friendship for Egypt Voiced.
An authoritative Fascist source,
meanwhile, declared that Italy was
not at war with Egypt and that the
Italian advance onto Egyptian ter
ritory was solely for the purpose of
attacking British troops concen-
trateS there.
Italy has always maintained "a
sincere feeling of friendship for the
Egyptian people" this source said.
The military importance of Salum
was described here as twofold-first,
the Bay Of Salum is the only natural
harbor between the Libyan port of
Tobruk and the Egyptian port of
Alexandria; secondly, Salum is an
important communication center on
the coastal highway to Alexandria
(See ROME, Page AID