NEWS OF THE WEEK
FAVOURABLE balance-sheet by sea in the Mediter- ranean comes as a welcome set-off to the news of the d operations in that area. The mystery, so far as it was a ystery, of the method by which German armoured divisions .ched Libya is dramatically dispelled by the report of the rilliant action on Tuesday night in which five supply ships, o and probably more of them heavily laden with mechanical sport vehicles, were sunk, together with three escorting estroyers, in the course of the passage from Sicily to Tripoli.
e of our own destroyers, the destroyer ' Mohawk,' was tor- doed and sunk in the course of the operations, but that mis- ortune, even when added to the loss of the new and very effi- ent 5,00o-ton cruiser Bonaventure ' a day or two earlier, eaves the balance of success heavily in our favour. At the same me the Navy has been giving valuable support to the land orces by heavily shelling enemy communications and airfields on the Libyan coast. One other danger appears to have en arrested, for the present at any rate, if the report is true hat Mai-,hal Petain has overruled Admiral Darlan's desire :o ,ring back important vessels of the French Fleet to Toulon from 'north African ports, a contingency against which Mr. urchin sounded an emphatic warning in his last speecg. In recce 'here can be no pretence that the German advance s sternii-A, as it appears to be temporarily in Libya. Yugo- laria is _duced to guerilla warfare. .
