ISLAND WILL NOT BE EASY TO CONQUER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 163, 12 July 1943, Page 3

ISLAND WILL NOT BE EASY TO CONQUER

300,000 DEFENDERS Luftwaffe Has 1000 Planes Against Assault N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 10 a.m. LONDON, July 11. "Sicily will not be easy to conquer," says the Observer. It is guarded by eight or more Axis divisions—possibly over 300,000 defenders—the newspaper adds. These will have some armour, but not much. They will have the support of the reinforced Luftwaffe, which may seek to repeat the tactics it used against the Allied landing on Pantellaria Island. "The Luftwaffe has been> holding back," the Observer says. "It has done its best to conserve its shrinking assets. It is now putting over 1000 planes against the Allied assault. The German High Command has ordered some of its best air officers to second the efforts of Field-Marshal Kesselring and there is every indication that the Germans may stake most of their defensive strength upon a sudden heavy air thrust against disembarking troops. German Specialists on Island "Another indication of the defences is given by the large number of German specialists reported in Sicily. They number, perhaps, 15,000 or 20,000, many of them probably being artillery experts. Germans and Italians have built strong concrete casements to cover the most likely landing places, but these are only outposts of the defence system.

"The real emphasis of the defence lies in the mobile artillery with which the Germans have been training for many months. Their main form of defence against an Allied landing—as shown in the Commando raid at Dieppe—consists of rapid concentration and accurate artillery' fire from mobile batteries, which can be swiftly concentrated and dispersed. Invaders Present Easy Target "Men who have disembarked with varied multiple equipment provide an easy target for such swiftly concentrated fire. Their only safeguard against it is the accurate bombing and strafing of the Tactical Air Force. It is, however, not possible to rely entirely on this. Dispersed movable batteries are not an easy target for fast-flying aircraft and therefore we may have to rely on different tact,ics for the safety of our landing troops and for their opportunities, to move forward." The Observer adds that a point of interest is an enemy report of the presence of two Allied airborne divisions in the Mediterranean, for they present the obvious means of spreading an attack immediately into the interior of Sicily, thus,disorganising the nerve system of the defences.