FURTHER LANDINGS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 309, 9 October 1943, Page 3

FURTHER LANDINGS.

ACTIONS IN TERMOLI AREA. A CONCENTRATED ATTACK. LONDON, Oct. 8. “The Allies have made further landings in the Termoli area,” says the Vichy radio. “At the same time General Montgomery has launched a concentrated attack, supported by a considerable number of tanks on the whole length of the eastern sector. The British Fleet is supporting landings and also continuously shelling German positions. The German withdrawal on the central sector to the north-east continues. The stli Army on the west coast is still battling against the Volturno defences.” “Allied bombers and fighters sweeping the Italian battlefield have bagged another 82 German lorries, making the enemy’s losses in two days at least 250,” says Reuter’s Algiers correspondent. “Kitty bombers destroyed 14 of a convoy of 15 lorries near Termoli.” Mestre, a satellite town of Venice, which was the main target for the Allied air offensive on Wednesday, is a vital communications centre. The Trieste-Verona railway, which passes through Mestre, supplements the Brenner Pass as a supply route from southern Germany. The Germans will depend on it. for big switches of troops between the Balkans and Italy. The Germans now in Italy were estimated at from 20 to 25 divisions, says the United States Secretary of War (Mr H. L. Stimson). The Germans were reinforcing Italian units and the Bth Army was encountering stiffer resistance as it advanced up the coast. Mr Stimson said that American casualties in the first four weeks since the landing at Salerno were 511 killed, 5428 wounded, and 2638 missing which were somewhat heavier than those of the British components in the sth Army.