AIR SUPPORT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 164, 13 July 1943, Page 3

AIR SUPPORT

DECISIVE FACTOR Difficulties Of Gallipoli Days Overcome N.Z. Press Association —Copyright Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, July 12. Although by 119 means all the landing beaches in Sicily can yet be supposed to be immune from the enemy's artillery fire, the Allied forces seem already to be disentangling themselves from their initial difficulties that persisted to the end of the Gallipoli expedition, says The Times in an editorial. This satisfactory beginning was brought about partly by the priceless advantage of decisive air superiority and, doubtless, partly by the enemy's continuing embarrassment in having to be still on guard against possible descents on other coasts of the island. The enemy may have deliberately chosen to reserve his strength for a later effort rather than challenge the landings with his full power. The Daily Mail says that heavy fighting is 'inevitable, but the great thing is that the plunge has been taken and the invasion of Hitler's Europe has begun. The Allies are turning the mountains of south-east Sicily against the enemy by using them as a defensive shield during the establishment of bridgeheads, says the Daily Express military correspondent, Morley Richards. The establishment of bridgeheads is the main task before an advance can be made in force. To put an infantry division into the battlefield requires 12,500 tons of war stores packed in more than 179,000 cases. This excludes tanks and field pieces which nave to be landed separately. It is a . giant undertaking when it is remembered that the enemy's 'field army of 200,000, and nearly as many men again in static defence, are on the island awaiting the invaders. The New York Times says there is no doubt the world is now witnessing in Sicily and Russia decisive "smpaigns of the war. The Allies have achieved an initial success in Sicily with a military precision and a co-ordination ■of all arms unequalled in any other military campaign.